Big problem with Commander pros - build was working fine before

[Enochian]

Hi Guys,

I have and Obsidian 1000d with 2 x Commander Pro and 3 x Lighting node pro + h150i and i was also monitoring the HX1000i psu
Everything was working fine, all the led strips, fans and fan leds. 
Today they started to disconnect every few minutes and connect again, but they kept working. Everything was one. 

Suddenly the fans stopped spinning, but the leds of the fans were working fine. 
I started to restart the pc, reinstall ICUE, istalled Link , checked if there are some drivers to update etc. 

Now im only left with the h150i 3 fans working properly, without leds. In ICue i dont see anything except the H150i and the 3 fans. 
Everything else is gone. 8 fans on front not spinning. 2 fans on back not spinnining. 

The USB headers on the mobo seems to work fine as i switched the usb connection for h150i and it was working on both headers. 

From the other header i have the connection to the commander pro and another one daisychained to it. 
The PSU was connected also to the copro. 

Basically everything was working fine for several weeks so.. no clue. 
It happened suddenly, during normal use. No OC was applied. 

I switched also the connections on the PSU but i guess its not possible that some connections will work and some not? GPU, CPU works fine, all Drives works fine. Front panel temp display molex powered works fine. 

 

[Bombastinator]

RGB is not my thing and iCue even less in my wheelhouse.  So I doubt I can be of much help.  I doubt I can be even vaguely helpful with anything RGB or iCue.  Fans I am somewhat familiar with.  I’m mostly trying to understand things enough to be sure I am in fact useless here.  I’m a bit confused by the language though so perhaps my lack of understanding can help define what is going on for someone who will be of more help.

 

To define things a bit, there was no cpu crash.  This an issue with Corsair iCue software and Corsair commander pro lighting and fan systems.  There is also a Corsair h150i AIO CPU cooler that was feeding data to the iCue software.

Prior to the major event there were repeated but brief connection issues. (This sounds like a major clue. The particulars might prove interesting. Exactly what was disconnecting and how might be critical)

The major event:

first the fans died briefly but the RGB stayed on. (Did this include the AIO?)

Emergency restart and reinstalls were started (but not finished?)

things never came on again correctly.

currently the h150i is functional though it’s RGB is not.

No other fans are working and no RGB is working at all.

 

In which I speak from a base of lack of understanding of the main system involved and provide possibly useless supposition:

I don’t know RGB, or how Corsair does it’s rgb/fan thing with iCue, but my memory is that fans and the RGB on them are generally more or less completely separate systems to the point that they have separate cables.  An RGB fan is basically two devices. Everything (except the AIO which is still working) is plugged into these commander pro boxes which are also daisy chained together.  That’s a total of 20 devices (none of which individually draw much) all daisy chained together to a single power port in the PSU and feeding data to iCue via a different connection (USB?)

 

Im wondering if maybe 20 devices which individually draw near nothing together made enough draw to overload something somewhere.  The commander pro closest to the PSU, which was bearing the load of all 20 items might have given up somehow.

 

Note:

This thought may be overly influence by me watching “a Christmas story” for the first time yesterday (I don’t know how I missed it either) and remembering the electrical box near the Christmas tree with all the plug adaptors hanging off the socket

Edited December 28, 2019 by Bombastinator
Note added

[SlayerOfHellWyrm]

Do you have the Commander Pros/Lightning Node Pros/and AIO all on the same SATA power line coming from the PSU? What happens if you disconnect the fan headers from the Commander Pro (CP) and plug some of them into the board's header's directly?

As much as I love Corsair and iCUE, it can sometimes be very, very buggy. For instance, on my account, I can't click on the dashboard or it crashes, but another account on my system can do so just fine. Not sure what's different. I've had devices disappear and reappear with a restart sometimes, other times I need to reinstall. iCUE is feature rich, which  also means it's bug rich.

[Enochian]

Looks like that possibly i found the issue. One of the two commander pros died. There was some voltage still going trough it as it managed to power up fans at like 100 rpm or so, but it was not getting detected. This caused the other COPRO daisy chained to it to also go nuts. That's why only the h150i managed to keep working. Althought without lights as those were feeding from the COPRO as well. 
Looks like also the HX1000I psu got a hit , cause its no longer geting detected even if i connect it directly to another USB header. 

I RMA'ed the copro , cause i assumed that this is the issue. Will see what answer i get. 

 

13 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

to define things a bit, there was no cpu crash.  This an issue with Corsair iCue software and Corsair commander pro lighting and fan systems.  There is also a Corsair h150i AIO CPU cooler that was feeding data to the iCue software.

yes

 

13 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

but my memory is that fans and the RGB on them are generally more or less completely separate systems to the point that they have separate cables.  

yes, ll120 fans has one 4 pin connector for the pwm fan control and a separate cable for leds. Those you plug either into the COPRO led slot, mobo led slot or some other hub light the lightning node pro (which i have)

13 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Im wondering if maybe 20 devices which individually draw near nothing together made enough draw to overload something somewhere.  The commander pro closest to the PSU, which was bearing the load of all 20 items might have given up somehow.

The scheme actually is that you have : 

1 Commander Pro connected to mobo usb 2.0 header + power from psu : has 6 fans connected + 2 led channels ( 1 channel is lighting nodes with the 6 fans , 2 channel is led strips + obsidian 1000d chassis lighting)

 

2 Commander pro connected to the first commander pro with usb 2.0 + separate power from psu : has also 6 fans connected + 2 led channels ( 1 channel 3 h150i fans , 2 channel remaning fans). To this COPRO i was also feeding the HX1000i diagnostics - maybe that was the reason ? 

True is that both commanders were connected to one outlet from the psu. Could this be the reason? 



 

13 hours ago, SlayerOfHellWyrm said:

Do you have the Commander Pros/Lightning Node Pros/and AIO all on the same SATA power line coming from the PSU? What happens if you disconnect the fan headers from the Commander Pro (CP) and plug some of them into the board's header's directly?

Fans are not the issue. After reainstalling everything , together with windows 10 I played a bit more with the connections and manage to have some fans running if plugged in another setup. For now i stick with the idea that the Copro is at fault. Will see the results of the RMA...

[Bombastinator]

21 minutes ago, Enochian said:

Looks like that possibly i found the issue. One of the two commander pros died. There was some voltage still going trough it as it managed to power up fans at like 100 rpm or so, but it was not getting detected. This caused the other COPRO daisy chained to it to also go nuts. That's why only the h150i managed to keep working. Althought without lights as those were feeding from the COPRO as well. 
Looks like also the HX1000I psu got a hit , cause its no longer geting detected even if i connect it directly to another USB header. 

I RMA'ed the copro , cause i assumed that this is the issue. Will see what answer i get. 

 

yes

 

yes, ll120 fans has one 4 pin connector for the pwm fan control and a separate cable for leds. Those you plug either into the COPRO led slot, mobo led slot or some other hub light the lightning node pro (which i have)

The scheme actually is that you have : 

1 Commander Pro connected to mobo usb 2.0 header + power from psu : has 6 fans connected + 2 led channels ( 1 channel is lighting nodes with the 6 fans , 2 channel is led strips + obsidian 1000d chassis lighting)

 

2 Commander pro connected to the first commander pro with usb 2.0 + separate power from psu : has also 6 fans connected + 2 led channels ( 1 channel 3 h150i fans , 2 channel remaning fans). To this COPRO i was also feeding the HX1000i diagnostics - maybe that was the reason ? 

True is that both commanders were connected to one outlet from the psu. Could this be the reason? 



 

Fans are not the issue. After reainstalling everything , together with windows 10 I played a bit more with the connections and manage to have some fans running if plugged in another setup. For now i stick with the idea that the Copro is at fault. Will see the results of the RMA...

Re: found the issue

so perhaps not entirely useless.  I am buoyed a bit.

 

Re: Could this be the issue?

Doubtful.  It should have plenty of wire thickness.

 

re: fans are not the issue

fans were not powered by controller? They were in motherboard ports?  That’s a lot of motherboard ports.  Just the RGB in the controllers?  Maybe doesn’t matter now.  

[SlayerOfHellWyrm]

5 hours ago, Enochian said:

True is that both commanders were connected to one outlet from the psu. Could this be the reason? 

Yes. I tried running a WD Black, my 850 Evo, and my CP off one SATA plug to an RM850x, and it was drawing so much current to power the lights, the fans, and both drives, that I initially had detection issues and my WD Black wouldn't even show in Windows.

I've now got the CP on it's own SATA line back to the PSU. I'm not sure if it was too much on 1x 12V rail, or just for the cable itself. You should NOT be daisy-chaining CP's like that, it's a lot to power that many fans and that much RGB off a single SATA connection to the PSU.

[Enochian]

3 hours ago, SlayerOfHellWyrm said:

Yes. I tried running a WD Black, my 850 Evo, and my CP off one SATA plug to an RM850x, and it was drawing so much current to power the lights, the fans, and both drives, that I initially had detection issues and my WD Black wouldn't even show in Windows.

I've now got the CP on it's own SATA line back to the PSU. I'm not sure if it was too much on 1x 12V rail, or just for the cable itself. You should NOT be daisy-chaining CP's like that, it's a lot to power that many fans and that much RGB off a single SATA connection to the PSU.

Make sense. If they accept the RMA and I get a new one i'll plug in a different way.