Help me understand fans and RGB... because it's overwhelming

[dimforest]

Fans and RGB... the one thing I just cannot seem to grasp perfectly and unfortunately I don't have the luxury of having a ton of parts available to me to tinker with and find out the hard way before going all in and making a dumb purchase. I've been watching a bunch of tech tubers to try and grasp it but none of them really hit the basics and it's kind of assumed that I just understand fans and how all these different RGB platforms and software work.... but I don't.

 

For reference, this was my last topic where I talk about my build that I am working on currently. The one part right now I struggle with the MOST.... is the damn fans. 

 

So, here's some of confusion when it comes to these things:

1. Let's say I want 9 fans in my case. It doesn't appear that any of the motherboards I've been looking at have headers to support 9 different fans. On the motherboard I listed in the other topic, it does show 3 but then I noticed separate headers for RGB and ARGB.... first question... can fans be daisy chained together so I could *hypothetically* link 3 fans to each header?
2. What is the difference between RGB and ARGB and what do those headers actually control here? 
3. I've seen a ton of fans like the LL120's which come with a controller that you can link 6 or so fans into... but then I've seen another controller (Commander Pro) that ALSO gets integrated into all of that... how many freaking controllers does one need to run RGB fans and couldn't you just run that all entirely off of the motherboard?
4. Fans aside... now RGB. How do you get everything from the RM, fans, radiator fans, additional LEDs, GPU, etc... to all "link up" under one platform to control it so I don't have a hot mess of random lights in the case?
5. It seems like there are a ton of different software out there for this but I still don't understand if I buy Corsair fans, for example, do I need a Corsair RGB compatible motherboard and software or is all of this stuff agnostic and anything will work?

I'll leave it at 5 question but I'll also add.. if anybody has a solid YouTube vid which breaks fans down for dummies, I would very much appreciate it. I feel like I have zero issues with 99% of these builds but that 1% is just my utter lack of knowledge when it comes to fans and RGB... which are two things I've never really thought too much about.

 

 

[Bombastinator]

I get the impression rgb wasn’t originally confusing but was made that way on purpose by marketing departments. Fans happened before RGB and for a long time were totally seperate. An rgb fan had two different plugs.  One for the fan, and one for the rgb.  It was effectively two different devices stuck together.

[connorkincaid]

20 minutes ago, dimforest said:

Fans and RGB... the one thing I just cannot seem to grasp perfectly and unfortunately I don't have the luxury of having a ton of parts available to me to tinker with and find out the hard way before going all in and making a dumb purchase. I've been watching a bunch of tech tubers to try and grasp it but none of them really hit the basics and it's kind of assumed that I just understand fans and how all these different RGB platforms and software work.... but I don't.

 

For reference, this was my last topic where I talk about my build that I am working on currently. The one part right now I struggle with the MOST.... is the damn fans. 

 

So, here's some of confusion when it comes to these things:

1. Let's say I want 9 fans in my case. It doesn't appear that any of the motherboards I've been looking at have headers to support 9 different fans. On the motherboard I listed in the other topic, it does show 3 but then I noticed separate headers for RGB and ARGB.... first question... can fans be daisy chained together so I could *hypothetically* link 3 fans to each header?
2. What is the difference between RGB and ARGB and what do those headers actually control here? 
3. I've seen a ton of fans like the LL120's which come with a controller that you can link 6 or so fans into... but then I've seen another controller (Commander Pro) that ALSO gets integrated into all of that... how many freaking controllers does one need to run RGB fans and couldn't you just run that all entirely off of the motherboard?
4. Fans aside... now RGB. How do you get everything from the RM, fans, radiator fans, additional LEDs, GPU, etc... to all "link up" under one platform to control it so I don't have a hot mess of random lights in the case?
5. It seems like there are a ton of different software out there for this but I still don't understand if I buy Corsair fans, for example, do I need a Corsair RGB compatible motherboard and software or is all of this stuff agnostic and anything will work?

I'll leave it at 5 question but I'll also add.. if anybody has a solid YouTube vid which breaks fans down for dummies, I would very much appreciate it. I feel like I have zero issues with 99% of these builds but that 1% is just my utter lack of knowledge when it comes to fans and RGB... which are two things I've never really thought too much about.

 

 

1. You can buy a fan hub to minimize the amount of headers you utilize on your actual MOBO. IE: https://www.newegg.com/cooler-master-mfx-mhhn-10nn1-r1-black/p/1W8-0049-00060?Description=fan hub&cm_re=fan_hub-_-1W8-0049-00060-_-Product 

 

You can daisy chain w/ a MOLEX connection, but if you're getting newer RGB fans, you're not going to be utilizing that connection type anyway (at least on new fans). 

 

2.RGB is self explanatory, but the difference in question is ARGB, ARGB = the "a" meaning Addressable. You can change the colors on the fan dependent upon what you input. 

 

3.The LL120's come with TWO hubs. One is for RGB control, which enables you to change colors on your fans. The COMMANDER PRO is what enables the ICUE (Corsair's proprietary software) to work with the fans. 

 

All in all, you can run all 6 fans with a total of 3 hubs. A fan hub on its own, (which I linked above), and the two included controllers that come with the fan pack. 

 

4. To have ALL of your RGB's sync on the same pattern, you need to purchase products that are from the same manufacturer (typically). The reasoning behind this is that these companies generally associate their products with proprietary software. *cough*Corsair*cough*. Obviously there are a variety of reasons for this. Most of them dumber than the rest. 

 

5. I find it best to just buy products from about one manufacturer. Everyone has this headache when it comes to RGB lighting. Trust me, you are not alone.

[LIGISTX]

You can get 3 or 4 pin FSB splitters as well. Each mobo fan header can likely do 1 amp. So if each fan is say .25 amps, you can very safely do 3 fans off a single header. Cable Matters 2-Pack 3 Way 4 Pin PWM Fan Splitter Cable - 12 Inches https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PXLHNZ6/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_Y4A6CMFH3W3FXK6205YE
 

just wanted to add that detail. 

[Chris Pratt]

The difference between RGB and ARGB is whether it's addressable. That's what the "A" stands for. An RGB header can only do one static color, whereas ARGB supports multiple different colors at once.

 

The main limiting factor is how many and what kind of headers (fan and RGB/ARGB) your mobo has. You're never going to have nine of either, so any setup for you is going to require splitters or a hub. You can usually do 2-3 fans per header with a splitter, but frankly that gets messy real quick. A hub would be a better choice all around.

 

When it comes to controlling them, you need to make sure everything is part of the same ecosystem. There's no RGB standard, so every manufacturer pretty much does their own. Some fans are cross compatible with say Asus AuraSync and MSI MysticLight or maybe others. The one exception is Corsair, which only works with their own iCUE ecosystem. iCUE is compatible with Asus AuraSync for mobo, graphics cards, etc., but not fans. They must be iCUE fans to work with iCUE. The compatibility is not two way either, i.e. you can't control iCUE stuff from Asus Armoury Crate.

 

Basically, you need to decide on the ecosystem first, and then make sure you buy components that work with that ecosystem. That's the only way to ensure you can control everything with one piece of software.

 

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, Chris Pratt said:

The difference between RGB and ARGB is whether it's addressable. That's what the "A" stands for. An RGB header can only do one static color, whereas ARGB supports multiple different colors at once.

 

The main limiting factor is how many and what kind of headers (fan and RGB/ARGB) your mobo has. You're never going to have nine of either, so any setup for you is going to require splitters or a hub. You can usually do 2-3 fans per header with a splitter, but frankly that gets messy real quick. A hub would be a better choice all around.

 

When it comes to controlling them, you need to make sure everything is part of the same ecosystem. There's no RGB standard, so every manufacturer pretty much does their own. Some fans are cross compatible with say Asus AuraSync and MSI MysticLight or maybe others. The one exception is Corsair, which only works with their own iCUE ecosystem. iCUE is compatible with Asus AuraSync for mobo, graphics cards, etc., but not fans. They must be iCUE fans to work with iCUE. The compatibility is not two way either, i.e. you can't control iCUE stuff from Asus Armoury Crate.

 

Basically, you need to decide on the ecosystem first, and then make sure you buy components that work with that ecosystem. That's the only way to ensure you can control everything with one piece of software.

 

Which is more or less why no computer I build will have rgb or argb until the manufacturers get their stuff together.  I view the whole rgb/argb thing as a multi-year long dance of incompetence and greed.  You could remove the greed and would never have happened.  You could remove the incomptence but leave the greed and there would be a standard.  It’s the both together that made rgb/argb what it is today.

[dimforest]

Thanks for the replies so far! So far what it's looking like is my board of choice right now only has 3 fan headers, so I'll want to get a hub instead and just use that. That connects via SATA it appears so I'm assuming we're all good then and my fan headers would be empty?

 

Secondly... I am looking at the marketing crap for this board and it says it has PWM fan headers... so I'm assuming that is just tech-speak for "you can daisy chain fans into these ports but it wont control RGB"... right?

 

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, dimforest said:

Thanks for the replies so far! So far what it's looking like is my board of choice right now only has 3 fan headers, so I'll want to get a hub instead and just use that. That connects via SATA it appears so I'm assuming we're all good then and my fan headers would be empty?

 

Secondly... I am looking at the marketing crap for this board and it says it has PWM fan headers... so I'm assuming that is just tech-speak for "you can daisy chain fans into these ports but it wont control RGB"... right?

 

Correct.  If there are light headers on the board there’s a pretty good chance they’re some sort of proprietary thing and will only connect to fans made by the company that made the motherboard. Possibly only a particular line of fans made by that company. So another controller for the lighting. The requirement of the “kit” opens up all sorts of marketing possibilities like pricing one part cheap so people reading things will look ant think “oooh cheap!” that won’t actually work without the other part that is wildly expensive. And generally doesn’t get advertised. 
 

   You mentioned sata.  Sata is two ports though.  Power and data. They’re seperate. To connect to the cpu it would need both power and data from somewhere.  Sata power is 12v power. As is pwm fan header power.  You can generally connect non pwm fans to pwm headers btw.  Fans are 2 pin 3 pin or 4 pin and they’re the same distance apart so you can plug a 2 or 3 pin fan into a 4 pin header and just leave the unused holes unused.  Likewise you can stick a 4 pin fan in a 3 pin header and leave on pin (the one with the yellow wire) dangling over the side.  It will act like a 3 pin fan though.  USB is data and power at the same time, but it’s 5.5(?)v. So this fan hub will attach to the pwm header on the motherboard for data, and the sata for power.   The lighting hub (which you will also need unless you buy a controller that controls both) will connect in a different way.

Edited July 13, 2021 by Bombastinator