How I got my Corsair Link working...AX1200i + H100i + Cooling & Lighting Kit

Put simply: Use the links in the first Sticky post to install Corsair Link 2.1.1 on a Windows 7 box and update the firmware of the Commander to 2.06.

First of all, it really seems like Corsair needs to take better care of this product. If it wasn't for this forum and Google search, I have a feeling I'd have RMA'd a few products. It's no surprise that so many people are frustrated to that point.

Note: I had 2 usb headers available on my motherboard so I'm using both. Supposedly, this setup would work by connecting my H100i and Commander unit but it was late last night when I finally got my solution and I didn't try that setup.

I'm using Windows 8.

My initial setup was the cooler and the psu. Those worked great together. AX1200i connected to the H100i via Link cable and H100i connected to mobo usb header with provided usb cable.

When my Cooling & Lighting kit arrived, I first connected its usb connection, then moved the AX1200i's Link cable to the Commander. I connected the Cooling Unit and the Lighting Unit to the Commander as well. At this point the H100i still worked properly but I think that's it. Nothing else showed up in Corsair Link using the latest beta version or the current release version.

After lots of trial and error and reading/searching, I concluded that it had to be the Commander Unit that was causing the issue. When using the flash firmware options within the software, I could see both "Commander" and "H100i" so I figured the software knew it was there...but those 2 items are listed no matter what(now I know). What didn't exist at this time that I see now is the Corsair Commander actually shows up on the Options > Devices tab (I think that's where it is...I'm writing this from memory...it's where I currently have 3 columns for Commander, my PC devices like motherboard and cpu, and the cooler & psu). Unfortunately, I wasn't able to flash the Commander through Windows 8. I had seen in my reading that the Commander needed to be flashed to 2.06 before using a certain version of the Corsair Link software AND that the newest version that was needed to do the flash wasn't compatible with Windows 8.

***Something I just thought of: Somewhere in all of this I had the Commander Unit connected to the H100i via Link cable. This was both with and without the usb header cable connected to the H100i and when I did this only half of my H100i fans worked. One side would spin up and then stop***

The solution: Rip that Commander Unit out of my new machine and connect it to a Windows 7 machine. Lucky for me that I work in IT and I was building this at work. I had 1000 machines to play with if I wanted. I connected the Commander to a machine in our lab and installed Corsair Link 2.1.1....That installation even went crazy...I don't know exactly what was going on but a couple different processes were thrashing the hard drive for 5 minutes after the install seemed to end. I killed the processes and rebooted the machine...Corsair Link started right up and I believe this is the first time I saw the Commander in that Devices list. It had just a hyphen listed as a version. It allowed me to update the firmware to 2.06 and from then on it was all smooth sailing.

I moved the Commander back to my new PC and connected everything. The latest beta version now listed the Commander in Devices in Windows 8 along with my case fans, led strips, and temperature probes.

My current connections:

-H100i sits by itself and is directly connected to the motherboard via its own usb header cable.

-The Commander Unit is also connected to the motherboard via its non-removable usb header cable.

-Connected via digital Link cable to the Commander are: Cooling Unit with 3 case fans and 2 probes, Lighting Unit with 1 channel holding all 3 led strips on extensions, and the AX1200i psu.

It seems to me that Corsair really needs to go back through their inventory and update the firmware of these products. I just searched for "Corsair Link 2.1.1" and found a post over 8 months old mentioning it. I realize that this is a niche product and that they're probably not manufacturing many of these units every day but we're coming up on 11 months since the release of Windows 8. At the very least, come up with another piece of software that runs in Windows 8 and only does firmware updates. I was lucky enough to have lots of resources sitting around me but not everyone does.

Now that its working, I'll say that I had fun getting to this point. :P For me personally, I'll agree with a review that I read that said something to the effect of "Corsair Link is a solution looking for a problem." I've always disliked lights and windows and just wanted a box that was hidden and silent. This build is an Air 540 and while I was working on it there wasn't a single person that walked by that didn't stop to give a compliment on how great everything looked. The lighting is nice enough and can so easily be subtle enough that I'm now going to make sure it's sitting somewhere that it can be seen. My Asus motherboards control fan speed better because I have the option to handle non-PWM fans. It doesn't make sense to me that Corsair sells this product and still ships their cases with non-PWM fans in them...unless it's just a ploy to get people like me to go out and buy even more of their $20 PWM versions.

I'll stop rambling, now. I hope someone can find some help to their issues within my rambling.

I was able to follow a similar path, but I avoided the Windows 7 installation.

I installed Windows 8 64-bit, then the current 4186 beta version of the Corsair Link software. I initially plugged my ax1200i, H100i, and Commander into USB from the motherboard. I downloaded updates to my H100i, Commander, and Cooling node and updated all of them from within the software. After that, I was able to move the ax1200i and H100i USB cables to the Commander and all has been working OK.

However, after you do this you pretty much have to wipe our your profiles and start over as the existing one will have the ax1200i duplicated. Ugh.

I like the the Corsair Link too but I have some suggestions for improvement I'll put in another thread.

How I did,

Came to the forums, red about the problems and solutions and then bought everything and installed.

i just d/l the latest software,installed it,and woompa,rip roaring since day one.

as shown on my signature of my 3 working units

some say they work because i have simple systems,uummm whateva that means