u/thezinnmeister

Trying to re-install Windows on a Surface Pro 11 due to constant blue screens and being stuck in a reboot loop. However I can't get the tablet to detect any USB device with the recovery image on it no matter what I do. I've tried two different USB C drives, tried a USB A 3.0 drive with an A to C adapter cable, both different recovery images available from Windows, etc. and absolutely nothing gets the tablet to initiate the USB reinstall of Windows.

Would love some advice before I just bite the bullet and attempt getting a completely new hard drive and installing it and seeing if that allows the drive to be detected as there won't be any Windows on the drive to start with.

The upcoming WEC weekend isn’t looking favorable for fans from a weather perspective and it puts a spotlight on several issues I’ve had with COTA for years. Right now Accuweather is showing 100 degrees for Friday 9/4 (103 heat index), 98 for Saturday 9/5 (103 heat index), and 97 on Sunday 9/6 (102 heat index). That’s hot in general but coupled with the amount of pavement around COTA, heat radiating off the track, and likely little to no breeze, heat stroke concerns are going to be high.

This isn’t unusual for Texas in August/September, certainly for longer than COTA has existed. Do you think in any of the 14 years COTA has operated they’d plant trees for increased shade? Or build a canopy roof onto the Turn 15 grandstands? Or maybe allow coolers into races that aren’t F1? The water stations are warm by noon because they’re poorly shaded from the sun and certainly aren’t getting ice dumped in them consistently.

For crying out loud, if bringing in coolers with food and drink is good enough for the 24 Hours of Daytona, you can bet it’s good enough for the Lone Star Le Mans and GT World Challenge weekends.

However COTA is more likely to not schedule the race in the future than they are investing in improving comfort of their fans. And that has irked me for years. I’ve emailed them and it’s fallen on deaf ears. Maybe it’s different in 2026 if changes have occurred in management, but it seems they’re too focused on COTALAND and making it a country club than they are becoming a destination racetrack for fans.

It’s a bit frustrating to see this come from Beaux but nothing said regarding the BMW/Corvette feud at Daytona last year or the Mustang/Corvette incident at Watkins this year, or numerous other squabbles that have happened over the last couple of seasons when driving standards have been pretty poor overall.

Curious to know why more people aren’t talking about or using the SRP GT-R pneumatic pedals. Seems to be the logical solution to eliminating the issues of elastomers and a nice alternative to springs. Seems comparably priced to other top end load cell pedals and still half the cost of active pedals.

Just got a text message from EdFinancial (who my loans are through) saying the following:

“Edfinancial Alert: The Saving on A Valuable Education (SAVE) plan is no longer available for renewal. Visit StudentAid.gov/loan-simulator to take charge of your student loan(s) and select an available plan before the 09/29/2026 deadline. Reply STOP to opt out. Msg/data rates apply.”

Does this count as the official notification? I thought that would come via email? We’re supposed to have 90 days from notification, so why does it still list 9/29 as the deadline?

With the news this week that Porsche Carrera Cup North America will be one of the support races for the 2027 Rolex 24, do you anticipate that it’ll replace the MX5 races or the historic race? Or neither and it just joins the schedule?

Not sure what the next historic category would be since they did 90s and 2000s this year and the 2010s doesn’t seem to be “historic”, and the MX5 Cup races are such a highlight for everyone that weekend.

View Poll

Does anyone know if any US retailers have announced pre-orders for the #77 Initial D liveried Mercedes GT3 that was at Bathurst 12 Hour this year? Only ones I've seen are in Australia or Malaysia.

Does anyone know who’s got stock of the Hydroshift II OLED in white with fans included? Everywhere I checked (Amazon, NewEgg, etc.) either has no white stock period or only has the white fanless option. Anyone know where I could find the white option with fans included?

I’ve got a brake pedal squeak and figured the first and easiest thing to try is lubricating the hole where the rod moves through as shown in the manual. Now while Heusinkveld recommends a dry spray with PTFE, here in the US all of the dry sprays have been reformulated in the past couple of years to no longer have PTFE or Teflon in them.

For US based users, what have you used for lubrication that’s worked well? Can still get WD40 Dry lubricant and Blasters dry lubricant, but neither will have PTFE in it, and from my understanding lithium grease is petroleum based which will damage the elastomers.

I have the O11 Vision and was set to replace my AIO with the TRYX Panorama 360 AIO until I learned about the Hydroshift II OLED AIO. However, before I commit to getting the Hydroshift II, has anyone installed it in a 011 Vision in the side mount position (since the top is glass) and what does it look like? Are the hoses routing to the block stretched?

My desk PC currently is on AM4 with a 5800X and an EVGA 3070Ti. While I’m working to switch over to AM5, which is straightforward enough, the GPU upgrade path is leaving me a bit confused.

While I hate to remove the EVGA GPU because it’s been so rocksteady awesome (EVGA please come back!), it’s starting to reach its limit in gaming performance and also seeing some slowdowns to my work in Photoshop making liveries for iRacing and LMU. I’m also beginning to learn Blender and DiVinci Resolve and suspect the 8GB of the 3070Ti will be a hindrance there as well.

With that in mind, what would be the best bang for buck GPU upgrade for my system? I’d probably want something that’s 16GB of VRAM, but the games I mostly play on the desk PC are Battlefield 6, Forza Horizon 6, OutBrk, and Jurassic World Evolution games. So I don’t necessarily need a card that excels in ray tracing, but I do game on a 49” 1440p 144Hz Oled monitor. So being able to do decent FPS is a must as well.

What are some recommendations below $800, or am I stuck looking at $1000+ cards like the 5070 Ti and up?

According to letters I’ve received from StudentAid.gov, my income recertification doesn’t need to happen until November 2027. However, I suspect when I have to change plans from SAVE by the end of September it’ll force me to re-certify my income at that point.

Is that accurate, or is there a way to change plans and have it keep the income on file until recertification next year?