Baby's first RGB - need help with synching

[serguzzle]

I have RGB fans, RGB RAM, and RGB LEDs on my cooler and my graphics card -- but I honestly have no idea how to make them work together. My TridentZ RAM, Corsair RGB fans and H115i, and EVGA FTW 1070 don't seem to hold any common ground, and I honestly don't know where to start. I haven't seen a good overview of RGB hubs and controllers anywhere in my search, and no digital controller that I know of would even be able to interface with the LEDs on my graphics card, RAM, and cooler... much less at the same time. How does an RGB system come together? What do I use for controlling and synching my new hardware?

 

I recently had to get a new motherboard and jumped all the way up from a Z77 to an X99 motherboard. As such, I had to get DDR4 RAM and thought, hey, why not get RGB RAM? It is 2017 after all. So I got myself started with some TridentZ RGB RAM. Then I got my grubby hands on some Corsair RGB fans to go along with my H115i, because I thought I could use Corsair Link to control their LEDs. As it turns out, my $100 in fans did not include a digital interface, and then my little RGB controller turned out to have a borked 3rd port so that I couldn't use more than 2 fans.

 

My RAM and GPU are happy little independent rainbows, 2/3 of my fans are shifting with the help of a little controller I set up manually in the case, and my H115i is warning me by turning its LED red if my CPU gets too hot. But like I said, I don't have a control center and they are all independent. I am thinking of buying an LED strip too, but I have no idea how I'd even begin configuring it. Further, 1070 SLI is a near-certainty in the future and I am worried my MSI Gaming X 1070 would cause an implosion in control systems.

 

Current system in an Air 540:

 

oh god how did this get here i am not so good with computer

pls help

 

What do you guys think? Any guides for beginners that may be up to date?

[themctipers]

my eyes!

 

 

asus aura sync thing, or manually set them all as rainbow

 

[serguzzle]

Oh, follow-up question I should've originally posed: what's the best way to control a bunch of RGB fans? Do I definitely need to dump 60 bucks on a Corsair Commander or RGB Lighting Node Pro or whatever it's called?

5 minutes ago, themctipers said:

my eyes!

 

 

asus aura sync thing, or manually set them all as rainbow

 

Currently I have three asynchronous rainbows, which is... fine, I guess. I am somewhat looking for coordination. Now, I have zero pieces of ASUS hardware on my computer (including the motherboard): will this cause issues even as I try to control RGB fans/RAM with it? And I definitely couldn't connect the EVGA graphics card, I reckon. However, if it worked, I guess that could work.

[iamthecpu]

44 minutes ago, themctipers said:

my eyes!

 

 

asus aura sync thing, or manually set them all as rainbow

 

asus aurora sync will only work on asus motherboards and with asus cards. Unfortunately their is no unifying software out there to my knowledge. To answer you question this will cause issues with your computer.     

[serguzzle]

1 hour ago, iamthecpu said:

asus aurora sync will only work on asus motherboards and with asus cards. Unfortunately their is no unifying software out there to my knowledge. To answer you question this will cause issues with your computer.     

That's pretty annoying. It's a bit of a smorgasbord of color, but eh.

 

As for fan controls/LED strips, what would you guys recommend? NZXT HUE+, Corsair Commander, or the Lighting Node Pro? Is there a shoot-out between them anywhere?

[iamthecpu]

I have an NZXT hue+ and love it. The fans are not as good as corsair but the led strips are fantastic and super bright. The amount of customisation that I can do is enormous. My current setup is four fans and three led strips. The best part is I can control it from my phone with no problems.

[Corsair Nick]

On 7/15/2017 at 9:34 PM, serguzzle said:

Oh, follow-up question I should've originally posed: what's the best way to control a bunch of RGB fans? Do I definitely need to dump 60 bucks on a Corsair Commander or RGB Lighting Node Pro or whatever it's called?

Currently I have three asynchronous rainbows, which is... fine, I guess. I am somewhat looking for coordination. Now, I have zero pieces of ASUS hardware on my computer (including the motherboard): will this cause issues even as I try to control RGB fans/RAM with it? And I definitely couldn't connect the EVGA graphics card, I reckon. However, if it worked, I guess that could work.

Since you already have the Corsair HD RGB fans, I would go with the new Corsair Commander Pro over the Lighting Node Pro.  The Commander Pro has the same LED ports as the Lighting Node Pro, so you can connect the HD RGB LED fan hub and control each fan individually through the Corsair Link software.  You also have 6 PWM ports so you can control fan speed as well.  LED strips are currently only available with the Lighting Node Pro, but can be connected to the Commander Pro.  If you don't care about the fan speed control, then the Lighting Node Pro may be the better choice right now.

[serguzzle]

12 hours ago, Corsair Nick said:

Since you already have the Corsair HD RGB fans, I would go with the new Corsair Commander Pro over the Lighting Node Pro.  The Commander Pro has the same LED ports as the Lighting Node Pro, so you can connect the HD RGB LED fan hub and control each fan individually through the Corsair Link software.  You also have 6 PWM ports so you can control fan speed as well.  LED strips are currently only available with the Lighting Node Pro, but can be connected to the Commander Pro.  If you don't care about the fan speed control, then the Lighting Node Pro may be the better choice right now.

That sounds pretty nice, if I have similar control to what I get in my H115i. I have all of my Corsair HD fans running at a constant 50% because below that they just turn off -- my motherboard refuses to run them at 40% and lower. It is $60 so I think I'll wait until I get paid to drop that.

 

My big problem is that my current HD RGB LED fan hub that came with the HD fans seems to be borked. Only two RGB LED fans seem to be able to connect to it at a time: any more and the third and fourth begin flashing white intermittently, and cannot attain similar colors to the first two. I can't find any information on how to get a new RGB LED hub outside of buying more fans to get the free add-on hub. Any guidance you can provide? One of my fans just has no lights on at this time, and the other one is in the closet.

[ShoshinUK]

On 16/07/2017 at 5:22 AM, serguzzle said:

I have RGB fans, RGB RAM, and RGB LEDs on my cooler and my graphics card -- but I honestly have no idea how to make them work together. My TridentZ RAM, Corsair RGB fans and H115i, and EVGA FTW 1070 don't seem to hold any common ground, and I honestly don't know where to start. I haven't seen a good overview of RGB hubs and controllers anywhere in my search, and no digital controller that I know of would even be able to interface with the LEDs on my graphics card, RAM, and cooler... much less at the same time. How does an RGB system come together? What do I use for controlling and synching my new hardware?

 

I recently had to get a new motherboard and jumped all the way up from a Z77 to an X99 motherboard. As such, I had to get DDR4 RAM and thought, hey, why not get RGB RAM? It is 2017 after all. So I got myself started with some TridentZ RGB RAM. Then I got my grubby hands on some Corsair RGB fans to go along with my H115i, because I thought I could use Corsair Link to control their LEDs. As it turns out, my $100 in fans did not include a digital interface, and then my little RGB controller turned out to have a borked 3rd port so that I couldn't use more than 2 fans.

 

My RAM and GPU are happy little independent rainbows, 2/3 of my fans are shifting with the help of a little controller I set up manually in the case, and my H115i is warning me by turning its LED red if my CPU gets too hot. But like I said, I don't have a control center and they are all independent. I am thinking of buying an LED strip too, but I have no idea how I'd even begin configuring it. Further, 1070 SLI is a near-certainty in the future and I am worried my MSI Gaming X 1070 would cause an implosion in control systems.

 

Current system in an Air 540:

 

oh god how did this get here i am not so good with computer

pls help

 

What do you guys think? Any guides for beginners that may be up to date?

LOL welcome to my world, I set everything RGB to red and static and life got much better!

[xsimplyjosh]

4 hours ago, ShoshinUK said:

LOL welcome to my world, I set everything RGB to red and static and life got much better!

i agree with u... did red and black theme, set RED leds n things just looked better. any more than 3 colors is just too washed n mixed...

 

found RGB way too mixed and distracting [also red led mecha keyboard is cheaper than rgb by 60$ here... ] o_o so i save/cut corners at least somewhere

[Corsair Nick]

12 hours ago, serguzzle said:

My big problem is that my current HD RGB LED fan hub that came with the HD fans seems to be borked. Only two RGB LED fans seem to be able to connect to it at a time: any more and the third and fourth begin flashing white intermittently, and cannot attain similar colors to the first two. I can't find any information on how to get a new RGB LED hub outside of buying more fans to get the free add-on hub. Any guidance you can provide? One of my fans just has no lights on at this time, and the other one is in the closet.

Couple of things you can try to make sure everything is working right:

 

1) Make sure all the fans are HD RGB, and the (3) button controller is labeled "HD Lighting Controller"

2) Test one fan at a time in port 1 to make sure all the fans work

3) Check that the fans are in sequential order starting with port 1

 

If the LED hub is bad, we replace it through an RMA.  Just submit a ticket through our support site, and one of our Technical Support reps can help you out with that.

[serguzzle]

1 hour ago, Corsair Nick said:

Couple of things you can try to make sure everything is working right:

 

1) Make sure all the fans are HD RGB, and the (3) button controller is labeled "HD Lighting Controller"

2) Test one fan at a time in port 1 to make sure all the fans work

3) Check that the fans are in sequential order starting with port 1

 

If the LED hub is bad, we replace it through an RMA.  Just submit a ticket through our support site, and one of our Technical Support reps can help you out with that.

Thanks for the note on the RMA process. I tried calling the corsair support line today and I was stuck in queue, so I was troubleshooting: at some point, the hub started working somewhat properly, but there's definitely issues with the hub. I'll pursue that line, and I think I'll definitely be getting the commander. Thanks for the help! This will assist synching once MSI starts supporting my RAM properly.