Developer reverse-engineers Windows-only cooler software to build Linux CPU monitor

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A Linux user who purchased a Pichau Aqua 120X water cooler found that the manufacturer only provided Windows software, leaving the device's LCD display non-functional on Linux. Although the system recognised the hardware as a USB serial device at /dev/ttyACM0, no data was being sent to the screen. Using the Ghidra reverse-engineering tool, the developer analysed the official Windows binary to uncover the serial communication settings — 1,000,000 baud, 8N1 — and the byte format used to transmit CPU metrics. The investigation revealed that the software could push multiple system stats, including CPU temperature, frequency, utilisation, and fan speed, to the display. Armed with this protocol knowledge, the developer wrote a custom Linux script to periodically update the LCD with live CPU temperature data.

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