[00:33] <OvenWerks> zequence: have you tried turning all audio interfaces off in pavucontrol? (internal too)
[23:22] <OvenWerks> disks, aka gnome-disks, appears to have a use after all. I had a drive that kept quitting on me. Drives has a "drive settings" dialog which showed standby off, I turned it on and off again and the drive seems to have been fine since.