Darkside (dimmable) LED strip off fan header

[atomicus]

I have a Darkside white LED strip I was looking to put in my case, but I don't want it operating at 'full beam'... do I need a fan controller to control this (I don't have one)? The strip comes with a 3-pin connector which I can connect to a fan header on my mobo (MSI X99A), but can I control brightness from this via the BIOS? I'm sure I've read some people have done this, but I don't know if it's motherboard/bios dependent.

[W-L]

Just now, atomicus said:

I have a Darkside white LED strip I was looking to put in my case, but I don't want it operating at 'full beam'... do I need a fan controller to control this (I don't have one)? The strip comes with a 3-pin connector which I can connect to a fan header on my mobo (MSI X99A), but can I control brightness from this via the BIOS? I'm sure I've read some people have done this, but I don't know if it's motherboard/bios dependent.

While theoretically you can power and control the LED strip via voltage control off a 3/4 pin fan header it will solely depend on the motherboard, since when I did testing on something like this I found that at least my motherboard (Asus) will not output a variable voltage if there is no RPM return for it to base the voltage or speed off of. It only provided a 12V power with no variation on voltage unless I have a faked an RPM line to make it seem like it was receiving a signal. 

[pagani123]

2 minutes ago, W-L said:

While theoretically you can power and control the LED strip via voltage control off a 3/4 pin fan header it will solely depend on the motherboard, since when I did testing on something like this I found that at least my motherboard (Asus) will not output a variable voltage if there is no RPM return for it to base the voltage or speed off of. It only provided a 12V power with no variation on voltage unless I have a faked an RPM line to make it seem like it was receiving a signal. 

wow you are like the god of modding on this forum. seem to know a bit of everything about modding 

[atomicus]

OK... so sounds like I won't know until I try it then lol!

[W-L]

Just now, Maybach123 said:

wow you are like the god of modding on this forum 

When you have too much time on your hands you tend to find stuff to tinker with to keep yourself busy  

 

1 minute ago, atomicus said:

OK... so sounds like I won't know until I try it then lol!

If you just want a constant brightness once you set and forget and don't mind DIYing a little you can get a small DC to DC buck converter to set the voltage so that it's not overly bright at the full 12V.

[atomicus]

1 minute ago, W-L said:

If you just want a constant brightness once you set and forget and don't mind DIYing a little you can get a small DC to DC buck converter to set the voltage so that it's not overly bright at the full 12V.

 

I have never heard of such a thing, what is that? And yes it would be set constant once correct brightness level was found.

[Enderman]

13 minutes ago, W-L said:

While theoretically you can power and control the LED strip via voltage control off a 3/4 pin fan header it will solely depend on the motherboard, since when I did testing on something like this I found that at least my motherboard (Asus) will not output a variable voltage if there is no RPM return for it to base the voltage or speed off of. It only provided a 12V power with no variation on voltage unless I have a faked an RPM line to make it seem like it was receiving a signal. 

On my ASUS motherboard the LED strip changed brightness based on the fan curve that was there previously, clearly voltage control was working.

This was super annoying so I just disabled the variable control so that it just sent constant power to the strip.

I also used the fan curve to set it at 70% voltage so it was dimmer.

 

Did you make sure the header was set to DC voltage control in the Q-fan control tab of the UEFI?

[W-L]

8 minutes ago, atomicus said:

I have never heard of such a thing, what is that? And yes it would be set constant once correct brightness level was found.

It's not a premade thing so you would need to do a little soldering and such to get everything adjusted but what I have setup is with my lights is this, it takes in 12V from the PSU and lower to voltage to around I think I set it to 10V or so volts on my LED strips which you can adjust with the little trim pot. If you wanted a slightly simpler method that should be basically plug and go Zalman makes a little voltage adjustable controller which would work well for this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mini-3A-DC-DC-Converter-Adjustable-Step-down-Power-Supply-Module-replace-LM2596-/291688413257?hash=item43e9fbf849:g:y8wAAOSwezVWxobW

 

Zalman:

https://www.amazon.ca/Zalman-Fan-Speed-Controller-FANMATE-2/dp/B000292DO0

 

2 minutes ago, Enderman said:

On my ASUS motherboard the LED strip changed brightness based on the fan curve that was there previously, clearly voltage control was working.

This was super annoying so I just disabled the variable control so that it just sent constant power to the strip.

I also used the fan curve to set it at 70% voltage so it was dimmer.

Did you make sure the header was set to DC voltage control in the Q-fan control tab of the UEFI?

Yeah I set it as DC voltage and faked the fan tuning so it thought it was a fan but without an RPM reading it thought the fan wasn't starting up I'm assuming, so it kept applying a constant 12V even when I changed the fan curve. Hmm may need to go back and give it another try then. 

[Enderman]

2 minutes ago, W-L said:

Yeah I set it as DC voltage and faked the fan tuning so it thought it was a fan but without an RPM reading it thought the fan wasn't starting up I'm assuming, so it kept applying a constant 12V even when I changed the fan curve. Hmm may need to go back and give it another try then. 

Yeah it's weird because it definitely worked properly for me.

Definitely not impossible