Re: Cooling a HP desktop

On Thu, 6/4/2026 10:23 AM, sticks wrote:

> I will keep this in mind as I move forward.  I am fine with using the
> system like this, but there are two things I am not happy with.
> 
> First, when I put the desktop to sleep, the jiggler wakes it up 49 seconds later.
> So before I can put it to sleep I have to tell it to stop jiggling.  
> No big deal, but an annoying step.  I suppose I could find a simpler way 
> to do this, and I might end up doing that.
> 
> Second, this morning when I woke the thing it told me "Smart App Control blocked
> a file that may be unsafe."  So whitelisting it in defender might keep that from 
> being a problem, but it is separate from the smart app control, and you can't whitelist
> individual apps in there, you can only give them temporary single use permission.  
> So I did turn off the control entirely.

Reputation based Defender activity, is mostly useless. What Defender is doing,
is checking how many people have installed that App (and its SHA256 hash),
and the Reputation improves as more people use it. This is not "a malware detection",
which should stop the thing dead. In fact, a malware detection is likely
to have a working Exception scheme, whereas the Reputation one is unlikely
to work. The logic is the exact opposite of what you would expect.

OEM boxes have opaque fan control. The one refurb I own, Optiplex 780,
has that problem. Doesn't run the fan fast enough, to keep the
temperature down. No page in the BIOS with a fan control.

While there is Speedfan (now out of support), it is unlikely to
work on newer SuperIO chips. I have a couple motherboards here,
where not even Linux can control the fans (Sensors does not have
support for the SuperIO). As a result, I do not assume any more,
that there is a working Ring 3 fan control. The BIOS on the
enthusiast boards, usually has some option for fan control.

While Asus provides AI Suite hardware utility (which involves
no AI and was named that way inadvertently years ago), the
Defender "war on drivers" is likely to prevent you from using
it. Even though, I thought at one time, it used an ACPI object
so a Ring 0 driver access would not be needed. It's possible
that is an "exploitable driver installer" issue rather than
a GiveIO.sys type issue.

For me, wiring up a fixed speed solution, can solve some
number of problems. Two of three computers in the room here,
have fixed speed bodges in them. And I don't have to think
about those particular fans any more. Whereas with the BIOS control,
if I have to flash up the BIOS for some UEFI issue, I have
to re-program the fans after the BIOS resets everything. And
that's not as easy as it sounds. I could "store a profile" in
the BIOS to correct that, but there is no guarantee a profile
can be reused, after the BIOS is updated.

In fact, the other day, I had to make myself a drawing
of how the fans are wired in the machine across from me,
as every time it does something annoying, I can't remember
which wire or function controls it. Now I have the drawing
to look at, before I walk over there. The computer case
comes with a "fan manifold" PCB, the CPU fan header goes
into the board, and six headers come out of the board.
And then you have to remember which fans are running off
CPU-sensitive control and which fans run off a separate
header. And the drawing helps with that. If I re-do the fans,
then the drawing will get updated.

   Paul