RGB control for dummies (<- me)?

1sascha · August 12, 2023

Hi all

This is, of course, a first world problem and I feel a bit silly for even asking, but:

I'm getting kinda frustrated with the convoluted mess that is the state of my RGB SW and how I can't get anything to sync up or to behave as I would want it to behave.

It seems I have a ton of bling-bling in my case, all from different manufacturers and lots of different software to control it all - but nothing works as it should and generally none of the proprietary solutions reliably detect anything that's not their product.

I have:

MSI Z690 Tomahawk DDR4 - no RGB on it, but I'm using the RAINBOW headers to run a few components, like:

- rear exhaust fan

- 2x 120mm RGB fans and waterblock RGB of my LianLi Galahad CPU AiO.

- Sharkoon RGB-strip

These I run through MSI's Mystic Light, which sorta works. Except for the AiO's fans which sometimes work fine, sometimes some of the LEDs will flicker/cut out. Right now with the PC only up for 10 minutes or so, they're all lit, but they don't follow the same pattern as the rest of the Mobo-controlled LEDs. The waterblock's LEDs work fine all the time and they do act according to the selected RGB pattern.

4x 8GB Corsair Vengeance Pro RGB DDR4 - which I have to control through ICue, or otherwise they won't work. Just like with anything else not plugged into a JRAINBOW-Header, Mystic Light does not see them.

Gigabyte RTX 4070 Gaming OC - controlled through, you've guess it, Gigabyte's RGB Fusion. Mystic Light doesn't recognize the card's RGB either.

Now, I also have some external stuff from Razer (mouse-mat, keyboard, mouse) all of which is controlled via Razer Synapse, but I'm not expecting to be able to control that stuff through a third party app. Being able to control all the RGB-LEDs that are inside my case would be more than enough for me.

Problem is that all three programs I use for that only recognize a very specific set of components - none of them seem to be able to detect "third party" stuff, so I'm forced to have four RBG control-suites (and stupid MSI Center) installed on my PC and things probably clash a bit between those.

For example: I've found articles suggesting that RGB Fusion does detect third party components and lets you control them, but on my system it only shows the GPU as detected.

Same goes for Mystic Light which, at some point in the past, once detected my Corsair RAM, but didn't really work controlling it. Now it only detects my mainboard, anyway.

It also doesn't help that most of these programs seem to have been written by folks who know more about programming (maybe) than about how to design an easy to understand and use UI. And in some cases who don't seem to have a very good grasp of the English language (some funny typos in the context-menus of Gigabyte Control Center/Fusion for example.. ).

Is there any reliable option to choose in order to detect and control all this stuff in one place? If so: How do I go about it? Just uninstall all the other crap and install one single app or do I need to keep some of the proprietary stuff on the PC?

Thanks for your input!

S.

SorryBella · August 12, 2023

4 hours ago, 1sascha said:

Is there any reliable option to choose in order to detect and control all this stuff in one place? If so: How do I go about it? Just uninstall all the other crap and install one single app or do I need to keep some of the proprietary stuff on the PC?

Yep, just throw it all away for third party solution. In here its a duopoly between OpenRGB and its closed source counterpart, SignalRGB.

https://openrgb.org/

+:

Open source

Light on resource

Available for all platforms and architectures (Yes, including Apple Silicon MacOS)

Deep support for a lot of modern RGB devices

-:

Detection can be spotty for older RGB protocol

Minimum third party RGB effect support

Per LED RGB exists but not as strong as Signal

Minimum documentation

https://signalrgb.com/

+:

Deep RGB customization especially custom LED counts

Community and third party effects support

Idiot-resistant quick start guide

-:

Pretty miserable to use offline

Closed source, its not malicious but you gotta keep ToS in check if you are concerned about it

Verified list is quite sparse compared to openRGB

A bit heavier than OpenRGB

Windows Only

1sascha · August 12, 2023

Thanks for the advice!

I threw out all my bloatware - except for Synapse - and installed OpenRGB. Not sure I got the hang of it yet (some effects will simply grey out all those selection buttons and don't seem to work for some reason) and my new GPU isn't supported (yet, I guess ... GB 4070 Gaming OC). But at least I got most of my stuff to accept Rainbow Puke..

However: The fans on my Lian Li are still acting wonky. Not sure if I've set it up correctly.

As per the installation instructions, the fans are daisy-chained with the waterblock's LEDs and everything is connected to RAINBOW3. According to the manufacturer, the 240 has 35 LEDs - but they don't go into any detail. Looking at an exploded view of the device, I counted 11 LED-looking elements on the block, so I figured 35 - 11 = 24. 24 / 2 = 12 LEDs per fan. Went ahead and defined RAINB3 zone as having 35 LEDs, then I set up three segments - 11 for the block and 12 for each fan. The block responds correctly to my settings (as it did before when I ran it through Mystic Light) but the fans are still very much all over the place and I can't get them to simply light up in, say, plain white or yellow. They do light up, but it's some sort of weird and ugly mish-mash of colors and sometimes some of the LEDs will blink on and off for no apparent reason. Does that behavior sound familiar to anyone?

According to Lian Li, the fans should be ARGB, so I'm not sure what's going on. Perhaps my wiring is faulty or there's a defect in the cables. Not sure.

I was thinking about getting a new PSU anyway next week, so I'll have to re-route everything then. Guess I'll check and re-wire those fans, let's see what happens.

S.