How to connect these

I've got an AX860i and an H150i Pro, Commander and one Lighting Node. The 150 has three ML120RGB fans. I've got two open USB 2.0 headers. I know the Commander needs to plug into one of them, but can the lighting node plug into the CoPro and allow me to control the RGB on the fans? I've got the fans power cables plugged into the CoPro along with three ML140 LED fans. Also plugged into the CoPro are the two RGB strips that came with the kit.

Also plugged into the CoPro are the two RGB strips that came with the kit.

 

Are you sure that's a Commander Pro and not the Commander Mini?

It's a Pro. By two strips I meant I had both channels in use. I also purchased an extension kit.

 

What I settled on: CoPro plugged into one USB header.

Light Node into the second header.

AX860 into the CoPro, H150 into the CoPro.

Two RGB strips into the CoPro, one strip with 4 sections, other has two.

The ML140's into the CoPro, 3 ML120's powered by CoPro, RGB cable into the light node.

 

I had everything working last night, full control of fan speeds and all lighting. I get home from work tonight and now the AX860i isn't appearing in Link and there are no lights at all on the ML120 RGB's, fans are spinning. The Light Node isn't listed in Link either.

Have you tried restarting the Link Service? This will be in the services applet. Exiting Link (right-click on the tray icon, exit) will also restart the service.

I did try restarting the service to no effect. After reading a few other threads of people losing devices after shutting off the PSU, which I had just a bit earlier to reroute a couple cables, I powered off and removed the cables from the motherboard headers. I swapped the positions and rebooted, everything was detected and working. However if that happens every time I shut down the PSU it's gonna be a huge pain in the ****.

Also, note that the PSU and the cooler only use 1 USB port, even though the cables consume the entire 2 port header. It's possible to get 2 5 pin, single port USB extension cables that allow you to put both the PSU and the cooler on the same USB header.

 

Another question: How is the CoPro powered? Full SATA direct to the PSU or via an adapter of some kind?

Everything is powered with pure SATA connections on a dedicated cable. I do wish these came with single row USB header connections. On my (now) server I had to pull the pins from my addin card reader and add them to the plug of my H115i. I've got truck driver hands, those tiny pins and wires caused me to make up new and creative words.

If you look in this thread, I talk about how to use single row USB extension cables to combine the ports: http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=174964.

 

Using the 5 pin headers is pretty straightforward. Can't help you with the truck driver hands tho. ;-)

 

That said, I don't know if that'll help with the issue or not but if it works consistently with one header and not the other, that's an alternative (hook both devices to one header).

Everything is working after swapping plugs into opposite headers. It seemed that turning off the PSU causes the issue. I read a couple other threads with similar problems which is why I tried shutting down completely and swapping ports. I won't know for sure if that is the root issue, but I don't need anything else to plug into any USB headers, and I won't be doing any more tinkering for a while so shouldn't need to turn off the PSU. I hope anyway. Having the pill the plugs from the headers means removing the bottom graphics card, and with how I have the PCI-E cables run that's a PITA.

 

I do appreciate the help, thanks.

So now none of the fans connected to the LNP have any RGB at all. They're powered and spinning, I can adjust the fans, but no lighting. The LNP is listed, sort of, in Link. Honestly I'm about ready to throw everything Corsair in my system, and it's a lot, in the trash and switch back to NZXT gear. Cam is crap software but at least everything worked.

 

Edit1 to add: System was running, I was watching a movie in a different room, came back to the PC and all 6 fans were colorless. Rebooted, no effect. Full shut down, no effect. Shut down, turn off PSU, no effect. Shutdown, reseat USB headers, only one channel of fans has color, LNP not visible at all in Link.

 

Edit2: Reversing the two header plugs worked again. This is very weird behavior.

 

Do you have Fast Boot (in Windows) enabled? If so, try disabling this.

It was enabled, but Sleep and Hibernate have been disabled since the initial Windows install.

OK. The other thing to do is take a look in USBDView (http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html) and see if you see the NoPro in there. The Vendor ID will be 1b1c and the Product ID will be 0c0b.

It's in the list now. For some reason when connecting the light node into the commander it occasionally loses it's USB connection. It's happened to me twice, I've seen a couple other threads with the same problem. Only way I've found to get it back is to swap the header it and the commander are plugged in to.

Next time this happens, try opening USBDeview to see if you can reset the device there and if that'll work.

You might also want to disable allowing the system to turn off the device to save power. You can do this in Device Manager but the challenge is finding it in there. To make this easier, go into USBDeview, find the NoPro, right-click and select "Open In Regedit". Then, add a string value called "FriendlyName" with the value "Lighting Node Pro". You'll then be able to find this in Device Manager without digging into the device properties.