I recently moved to Linux and have been enjoying CachyOS so far, but I have a few setup questions. My system has a Ryzen 7 7700X3D, Gigabyte Gaming OC 9070 XT, 32 GB of Corsair Vengeance memory, a Gigabyte Aorus B650 Elite AX motherboard, and a Thermalright Aqua Elite V3 liquid cooler. I replaced the cooler fans with black fans, but I would like to control the RGB lighting on the pump. OpenRGB is not detecting either my RAM or the pump. I also have a SATA drive containing only games and want to know whether it needs to be erased before I use it with Linux. Finally, I would like to undervolt the GPU without AMD Adrenalin, and I occasionally experience Wi-Fi becoming extremely slow for several minutes. Could that be related to CachyOS, and what should I check?
3 Answers
You do not have to wipe the SATA drive just because you are using Linux. If it is formatted as NTFS, Linux can generally read and write it, although NTFS may be less reliable for a game library and can cause permission or compatibility problems. Back up anything important before changing it, then consider reformatting it as ext4 or Btrfs if the drive will be used only with Linux.
OpenRGB does not support every memory kit, motherboard controller, or AIO pump equally, so the missing devices may need a different Linux-compatible controller or may simply not be supported yet. For GPU tuning, LACT is worth trying; it provides Linux controls for supported AMD cards, including power limits and undervolting options.
Reformatting a drive changes its filesystem and normally erases everything on it, so you would need to copy the games elsewhere first and then restore them afterward. For the intermittent Wi-Fi slowdown, check whether the issue affects every device, look at the connection logs, and update or replace the wireless firmware if needed. It could be a driver, power-management, router, or signal problem rather than CachyOS itself.
Can I convert it to a Linux filesystem without deleting the games already stored on it?