Analog Tachometer PC Mod

greenape147 writes: "BurnOutPC has this review of a tachometer modification for your PC. The tachometer, made and sold by Xoxide, works via the serial port and displays the CPU utilization in RPM's! The classical look of this external tachometer is really nice to see after the "window phase" everyone seems to be going through. Not to mention the fact that analog meters are so fun to watch. Currently supported in Windows NT/2000/XP, a GNU/Linux driver is in the works."

One small flaw...

[Daniel Rutter]

I have, of course, just attempted to scam one of these to review on my site [dansdata.com] (most recent pointless case-mod widget review on Dan's Data: this one [dansdata.com]), but I can't help but think that there's a basic flaw in the idea.

Namely - aren't most modders and overclockers running the distributed.net [distributed.net] client, or some similar background task, which keeps our CPU utilisation at 100% all the time?

I could draw a tachometer on the front of this PC, and it'd be 100% accurate :-).

red zone, red zone, all the time

[The Fun Guy]

This would be entertaining for anyone who isn't running a distributed computing project (d.net, SETI@home, Folding@Home, etc.). If you are, the thing would be pegged at 100%, all the time, maybe with a slight twitch when you load or terminate an app.

While you might think it would be cool to have your tach pegged in the far red all the time, my first milisecond-scale reaction would be "Broken gauge", and my second milisecond-scale reaction would be "I just lost all my oil while driving at high speed and my engine will seize up in three... two... one...".

Either way, I'd have that little viceral moment of panic each time I looked at the thing.