305: Hardly an Off-the-Shelf Knob

We've been tinkering with a lot of esoteric PC hardware stuff lately, so we're here with a roundup on what we've been up to this week that you'll hopefully find informative. We get into Microsoft's crackdown on the vulnerability in FanControl and other popular monitoring software, attempting to corral fan settings in UEFI as an alternative, and doing battle with the dreaded beat frequencies that can result from adjacent fan placement. Brad also gives a full trip report on his attempt to power a stack of hard drives with an external ATX power supply, with a detour into handy tips for de-pinning a modular power supply cable, stacking multiple hard drives, and more. And Will touches on his recent experience building a new studio PC in a rack-mounted case, plus some tidbits about the last electronics flea market of the year, Linux thread scheduling, Brad's first trip to Micro Center, Will's shiny new CRT (yes, another one), and more!

Links for this episode:

WinRing0: Why Windows is flagging your PC monitoring and fan control apps as a threat: https://www.theverge.com/report/629259/winring0-windows-defender-fan-control-pc-monitoring-alert-quarantine

Noctua on fan placement and beat frequencies: https://noctua.at/en/fan-speed-offset-explained

Stackable hard drive feet Brad bought: https://sednashop.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=95

Seasonic pinout and cable compatibility info: https://seasonic.com/cable-compatibility/

How to de-pin a power supply cable with two staples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6gQ5ie2Dw0

Brad's NAS/hard drive setup and de-pinned cable: https://imgur.com/a/WKPwhCQ

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