GrumpyBear17

You can power 60 directly off the header, but if you intend to run more than this, you will need to inject 5v into the strip, otherwise you'll burn the addressable header out due to overcurrent. Some strips allow for this, but it's easy enough to splice in additional wires to run the strip off 5v molex.

Yep, this will work perfectly fine. A little work may be required on the plastic connectors, but nothing a small knife won't fix. The ROG connector is very similar to the JST SM connector on that strip. For peace of mind I would recommend cablemod strips, you can use the voucher in the motherboard box and they come with an ASUS Compatability adapter to convert the connector on the board to one for their strips.

The latest bios is 0612 Did you try the strip without the extension cord attached to it? I know it will be difficult, but try with the strip directly attached to the board please. Also check the BIOS behaviour for how the RGB acts when the system is in an on/off state. Turn them both to ON. If you set it to ON, the strip will work when the system is not on, meaning you can rule out the software being an issue The ADD_STRIP will show up in the software regardless of a strip being connected or not.

Hi @Hamtid1, do you see the ADD_STRIP in your ASUS Aura software? Is it linked (the chain next to the ADD_STRIP) in the software? Did you set the LED count to match the number of LEDs on the strip? can you try the strip plugged directly into the board, without an extension lead? Are you running the latest version of Aura? I had issues until I got the latest version. Your strip should work out of the box, as it's impossible to put the connector in the incorrect way because one of the holes is blanked, so the polarity of the strip will be correct.

Cheers. My M2 is in the rear slot. The front M2 slot is an insulator - on the back I havent seen temps exceed 55c running ATTO and other disk benchmark programs

Any WS2812B strip will work. I got one off ebay for $10. Here is one I rigged up to my z370i strix. It uses 5v, so I ordered a 5v strip. I used some old motherboard header cables to create a 3-pin plug. Tag me if you need any more information Grumpy

Hey man, ended up finishing my build. I ended up using your idea of placing the top rad on top of the rear fan - works perfectly, that thing isn't moving anywhere. Redoing the top rad -> CPU bend this weekend and replacing the fans with ML120 Pro whites, but pretty happy with it. I managed to retain the power button/leds but had to get rid of the USB and Audio connectors. I'll probably vinyl sticker it or something.

I was gonna cut up some strips and glue them to the inner sides of the front panel as a dust guard. Seen a couple people do this and it appears to work quite well!

Bummer. In my build the fans intersect perfectly at the corners, and I didn't feel confident with the radiator just being held by pressure and not much else on the panel-side (even though its tight!). Keep in mind that I have the fans for the front rad on the outside, so I have a lot more room to move I also noticed the rivets on the inside of the case get in the way of flush mounting a front 280mm radiator, I'm gonna grind them down and re-clamp. They stick out about 4mm.

Thanks for the pictures and info - appreciate it. I'm doing the same, except I am using a perspex "L" shaped shelf bracket, cut to size, which will connect the two fans that intersect at the back of the case to support the other side of the radiator. By doing this I can use the standard fan holes/screws - minimal modding required. Hard to explain but it sort of looks like this (the bracket is in red) Cheers ps. I also discovered you can slip a piece of paper between the top of the CE280 and the case lid to prevent scratches when angling the radiator into place. It also makes the job a lot easier.

Hey Mike, this is a super inspiring build and I'm definitely going to take on a few things from it! I stumbled across this whilst looking for ideas with my nano S build. I have a similar one in the works but on a z370i strix/zotac 1080ti mini arcticstorm. w/c components are similar, the z270i block also fits on the z370i so I'm going to use that. I'm going for the d5-res combo and will have the CE 280 at the front in push only (fans in the front). Thankfully this board has a USB2 header so I've got a Aerocool Project 7 hub doing the fans/RGB control (very cool little piece of kit - $25 RGB and PWM fan hub!). Sadly they got rid of the 4-pin RGB header on this edition of the board, and instead replaced it with a programmable 5v header for LED strips. I wanted to ask how you mounted the top radiator, as I have the same RAM and I know from eyeballing it will cause clearance issues with the SE240+25mm high fans. How far did you mount it away from the standard mounts, and how did you do it? When pushed closer to the side window, only the screw holes from the far side of the radiator will line up for me. I was thinking of fabricating a bracket and screwing it in from the rear of the case, just to hold the radiator up on that side - I'm not sure yet. I already scratched the paint on my SE just from lightly test fitting it.. did they coat these things wafer thin or what! I can't believe how difficult it is to find fans that have decent static pressure, are PWM controlled and use a standard 4-pin RGB connector.. I think that's the component I struggled with the most! One suggestion I can make is for the moduvent, if you wanted to raise it up evenly to give it a meaner look (and some airflow to those top fans), some screws with bump stops over the mounts might do the trick.. I was going to try and do something similar. Something like this but with a larger rubber bump stop that you can cut to your needs. Cheers for any information you can provide, and again - awesome build. Sean