RGB fans with stuck LED's

Gareque · March 16, 2019

Hey all,

So last week I bought myself a new PC and built it up, not a hitch to speak of really, other than a slightly hotter than I expected CPU. So, I ordered myself a couple of new case fans to help out a little, no big deal right?

The newly installed ones work fine, connected them up to the controller no problems, but on booting back up, one of the 3 front fans has 1 LED stuck yellow and one stuck white. Turning the colours off leaves these on, so guessing they are genuinely stuck.

They are cheap fans, being Sahara Pirate Turbo RGB, so I'm not about to send the case back to the manufacturor/supplier for the sake of a single £7 fan, but I do have 2 questions:

1 - Is it possible that this was caused because with it being cheap, it's an inferior controller and if it isn't drawing enough power (connected through a Molex, so not sure why it wouldn't), could this potentially cause LED's to get stuck, or would the LED's just fail to light up?

2 - Is there a way to fix the LED's that doesn't involve ripping the fan apart and soldering new LED's on?

Case: Sahara P35 RGB

Fans: Sahara Pirate Turbo RGB x6

Thanks in advance.

Wormhole · March 16, 2019

contact the business you purchased it from or buy another fan

Gareque · March 16, 2019

I was able to sort it just now. Basically figured it mist be a power issue as the LED's remained on when the PC was turned off.

So if anyone else has this problem, I powered down the PC, unplugged the PSU until all power was gone from the capacitors, then started it up again. Works fine now.

Steeeeeve · August 20, 2019

I actually have a similar issue. I’ll have LEDs get stuck sometimes in the fans but not ALL of them. Some will continue to rotate or whatever they’re “told” to do by a small external remote. Even if I power them off from the remote, the stuck ones stay lit. However my situation sounds “slightly” different than the original post’s. When the PC is asleep or if I turn my PC off entirely (shutdown) all of the lights shut off.

Also ONLY when shut down does it sorta “reset” the LEDs, and it’ll be ok for a while then go nuts again. Sometimes it’s within the same day, sometimes days later, sometimes even weeks later. But it always comes back. If woken up from sleep they’re still stuck the way they were prior.

Would love if I could have it connected directly to the motherboard for control of the LEDs but I imagine that requires specific types that would fit the connection and be “designed” to be fully addressable by a motherboard instead of its own controls.

Any advice/input on that? Still kinda new to this stuff so any feedback is appreciated immensely. Also doing some digging online myself while at work as time permits. It’s not an emergent issue by any means, just a nuisance is all.

Apologies if my response was was too verbose/lengthy.

Edited August 20, 2019 by Steeeeeve
Spelling error.