OhioYJ

Yes. You should find that it's height is below what Noctua recommends for the NH-D15 anyways.

<-- Currently running a 13900k and a NH-D15 with almost that same exact RAM (just a faster speed). That's low profile RAM, why was RAM clearance an issue?

I use bleachbit. Even without a swap partition much of my RAM goes unused, so I create partitions for several folders in RAM that I don't care (or think) should get wiped regularly. This way every boot they are new. (That did take some experimenting though, as some didn't like this, most didn't care.)

Most of the time I see people bring up Mint, it's due to the Kernel it's "shipped" with. However newer kernels are easily installed in the update manager under the Kernel option. I always had to do this running newer hardware. Also don't they have some new version "edge" or something these days that just includes the newer stuff out of the box?

Just to make sure, you are aware, that you don't need anything special to run the APs right. They can be setup from anything. I started with a pair of U6 Lites, then swapped them out with U6 Enterprises, but they are just plugged into a switch in my network. I just set them up on my local PC. The "controller" doesn't need to be running all the time.

I use ShutUp10, which works on 11 as well. I don't like to leave things running, but you can. I just open it every so often, and import my config (it will also warn you if your settings have been changed, if you open it). I normally only check it after major updates.

I went pfsense, well until some of the shenanigans, then switched over to OPNsense. (The nice part of running your own hardware is you can run whatever you want). I use Ubquiti access points. Any (some are easier than others, as support for some hardware is better than others) device with at least two LAN ports can be your firewall. Is there a reason you are set on pihole? Nothing wrong with it, but it maybe just be adding devices and complication that may not be needed. Many people would just leave the ad blocking up to the firewall, these things can also be done by pfsense or OPNsense. I know I haven't used my pihole since the switch over.

Going to go knock on wood, but I always just use NTFS on my data drives, never been an issue. Even on Linux only PCs.

Did you clean the old glue off of the CPU when you delidded the first time? The original silicone will hold the IHS away from the die. It is perfectly fine to glue it back down, but you want to use a very small amount, and not glue it entirely. Here is one of my CPUs, notice it's been cleaned entirely, ready for liquid metal, no glue around the edges (contacts have nail polish over them). If you just popped the IHS off, and then tried to replace the thermal compound, and put everything back, that's another problem on top of trying to use regular thermal compound. What you do between CPU die and IHS, and what do between an IHS and heatsink are different things.

They always touch, solidly mounted. In many cases I can only get two zip ties to mount the fans, or sometimes it's just easier to only use two mount them. The Noctua ones in the gaming machines have rubber mounts, but the Antec fans in my NAS don't have any rubber dampeners and they still don't make noise. I don't want to make it pain to remove them. It was also the easiest way to mount fans in my network rack (during the "mock up"), here you can see several of the zip-ties:

Even with liquid metal, I found there was a fair amount of variation in the results, depending on the application. There is a bit of an art form to it. Your results just won't be nearly as bad with liquid metal, compared to thermal paste, even on a "bad application."

You used thermal paste between the IHS and CPU die. I tried this a few different ways (different pastes, and two different liquid metals) just to experiment as I don't always get the same results I see repeated around everywhere. I found this one to be true, with delidding, you need liquid metal, thermal paste at best might get you close to stock temperatures. Probably worth mentioning, I know my 7700k that I delidded I read things about people claiming it would need to be "serviced" every year or two after being delidded due to the liquid metal. This one is now over 6 years old, still no problems, hasn't been touched. It dropped my temps almost 20 degrees under load. That being said, I wouldn't do again, and haven't. Just not necessary.

Many of my builds actually have zip ties to mount fans, as it's nice and easy. No noises, or vibrations actually. In my NAS I have fans on both sides of the drives, intake and the other side of the drive cages. The opposite of the drive cages the fans are mounted with zip-ties: My second NAS build: My current NAS, same thing, zip ties to get fans on the opposite of the drive bays: I always use zip ties to mount a 80 mm fan on the opposite side of drive bays as well in all may machines that have HDD under the PSU shroud: Note though, you can get mounts for HDDs like @Levent posted that have a FAN mounted already in the front.

I'd say not in my case. I routinely lend and give out devices to friends and family that need them. So my devices generally find a home at some point. There's only a select few I've held onto. Oddly enough I gave away a OnePlus 8T recently with Lineage and offered to flash it back to stock for the new owner (a friend of the family who broke their phone), and they actually preferred LOS. Brought it back to be updated to LOS 21 recently.

Only devices I own that old at this point are tablets. The answer is still no, as I own tablets that are much faster (Also running Lineage). While this varies from device to device, it's been quite a while since Widevine was even a concern. All of my unlocked, rooted Lineage devices still carry L1 Widevine certification. As for banking / payment apps, from what I've read this depends on the company. Everything I need use works. Also there are some other alternatives that may help with problematic apps? Although I haven't needed to try as usually rooting and hiding things works for me. I'll preface this with a gigantic WARNING, you better know what you are doing. However it is possible to relock the bootloader with Lineage installed.