Wireless devices like our recently released K63 wireless keyboard and DARK CORE RGB/SE wireless mice can be subject to interference from other wireless devices in your environment, so here are some tips and tricks to keep you unplugged and playing. There are three different plug-in configurations we recommend for positioning the USB wireless receiver as close to your device as possible for optimal performance: 1.A front panel USB port on your desktop system (or closest USB port on your laptop) 2.The included USB charging/data cable via the USB cable adapter which will allow you to place the wireless receiver closer to your device 3.A nearby USB passthrough port such as the one available on the K95, K70, K65, STRAFE, MM1000, MM800, or ST100 And here’s a useful diagram to demonstrate the three different configurations! To improve performance even further, it's best to make sure that the wireless receiver is kept away from other USB wireless devices, wireless networking equipment, or USB storage devices (such as flash drives). For more information on our wireless peripherals, join our community at the Corsair User Forum!
So you've got yourself the Dark Core RGB or Dark Core RGB SE, CORSAIR's first wireless gaming mouse! While you could use this mouse right out of the box, we recommend downloading the latest version of CUE and upgrading the mouse's firmware for the best experience. Here's a quick tutorial on how to grab the latest version of CUE and update the firmware of your Dark Core! 1. Open your favorite web browser and go to www.corsair.com/downloads webpage. 2. Select "Gaming Mice" from Product Category drop down menu. 3. Find "DARK CORE RGB/SE" on the list of products and click download button on the right to download the latest version of Corsair Utility Software (CUE). The version that supports DARK CORE RGB and DARK CORE RGB SE is 2.22.83 or later. 4. Install CUE by following on-screen instructions. A Windows restart may be required upon the completion of the install. 5. Start CUE 6. Plug-in the wireless USB transceiver (dongle) into the available USB port. NOTE: When using desktop PC, for best wireless performance it is highly recommended to plug the dongle into the available USB port on the front panel of the computer case. 7. The icon representing DARK CORE RGB will appear on the top of the CUE window. Click on the icon, if a firmware update is available, the "Update" button will appear at the bottom of the CUE window. 8. Connect mouse to your PC with USB charging/data cable included. 9. Ensure the power toggle switch on the bottom of the mouse is in ON position, and the wireless connectivity toggle switch on the bottom of the mouse is in 2.4GHz position. 10. Click " Update" button in the lower left hand side of the CUE window and the following dialog will appear "New firmware version is available. There is a new firmware version available for DARK CORE RGB. Do you want to update Firmware now?" 11. Click the "Update" button at the top of the FIRMARE UPDATE box to continue, a “Settings” screen will appear, and the firmware update process will start automatically. 12. After a few minutes, a firmware download will be completed, followed by the appearance of a "Warning" button at the bottom of the CUE window. 13. Click the "Warning" button and follow the instructions to complete the firmware upgrade: a. Unplug the wireless USB dongle from the PC. b. Disconnect the USB cable from the PC and the mouse. c. Move the power toggle switch to OFF position on your mouse. d. Plug the wireless USB dongle back into the PC. e. Move the power toggle switch on the mouse back to the ON position. And that's it! You're ready to experience all that the Dark Core RGB and Dark Core RGB SE have to offer!
We see a lot of modded PC’s with custom parts being made every day, but how often do you see someone modding a keyboard? Today we are going to follow the modder Laine and how he built a custom case for our Corsair K63 keyboard from scratch! <br>I started off by removing the original K63 housing and trimming the PCB by removing the top row media keys and function LEDs, since they were either not needed or will be remapped to the FN key. <br>
Next step is to make concept renderings to try out the design before making it a reality. Modelled in Autodesk Inventor and rendered in Luxion Keyshot. Time to make this thing happen! One large piece of 2 mm aluminium and a few sketching tools. <br> A simplified technical drawing is used as a guide to outline the main body. Checking the measurements by mirroring the original housing, since the cutouts will need to be the same size. <br> First the cutouts are made with a jigsaw, then trimmed to size with a metal file. Test fitting the metal plate with the necessary keycaps in place to check for clearance. With the help of a sheet metal brake the ends are bent to a 70° angle on both the top and bottom. <br> Another test fit, the trimmed down PCB helps to make this new housing quite a bit smaller than the original for the K63. Next step is making the sides. To make this thing built like a tank, the sides are made out of 5 mm aluminium. Initial cuts made to the metal, leaving plenty of room for more precise adjustments to the shape of the main body. With the help of a file and a rotary sanding tool, the metal is easily shaped and excess material removed. Repeat on both sides. And that’s the metalworking phase done for this project. Here is the raw aluminium mounted together. An earlier keyboard mod called Aeronaut pictured above Titan in the testing. Finishing the mod by painting the new aluminium housing in a silver metallic paint. Thank you Laine for sharing this amazing build with us, stay tuned to our blog for more projects like this!
Firmware can be thought of as the operating system of a device and in the world of components and peripherals, firmware is everywhere! Sometimes firmware updates are introduced to improve the performance or squash bugs that may pop up, so today we're going to take a look at how to check to see if your peripherals are updated completely in the CORSAIR UTILITY ENGINE. If a firmware update is available for one of your peripherals in CUE, you'll notice a yellow notice in the bottom left corner of the window. In this case, we're wanting to manually check/update our firmware so we're going to go to the global settings menu by clicking the gear icon at the top.<br style="margin:0px;padding:0px;text-align:left;color:#000000;letter-spacing:normal;text-decoration:none;background-color:transparent;"> Once in the global settings menu, you'll see a download icon next to each peripheral you have plugged in, this is the firmware update menu. Go ahead and click it to proceed with the update process. Once you've clicked on the download icon, you'll see the firmware version your device currently has installed, click update to continue. Once you click update, you'll be given an option to force update to the current latest version available on our servers. Alternatively, if you're trying to roll back to an older version of the firmware in order to troubleshoot an issue, you can select firmware image to update from a file that's saved locally on your computer. Once you've made your selection, click on update to proceed. Once you've started the update process, you'll see a progress bar, once this is complete, the device will disconnect from CUE and reconnect automatically. Do not disconnect the device during this process! And it's as easy as that! Hopefully this helps to clarify the update process in CUE.
I was really excited when we released our Carbide 460X case as it has awesome potential for modding and making themed builds, I wanted to do a Overwatch build as that is the game I play the most right now, so I started to think about a design. Gigabyte was really nice and helped out with a GA-Z170X-Designare and a Gigabyte Xtreme Gaming GTX 1060. All the hardware I ended up with was this: Corsair Crystal 460X<br>
Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Designare<br>
Intel Core i5 6600K<br>
Gigabyte Xtreme Gaming GTX 1060<br>
Corsair Vengeance RGB<br>
Corsair MP500<br>
Corsair RM650X<br>
Corsair H100i v2<br>
Corsair HD120 RGB<br>
Corsair Lighting Node PRO Our Vengeance RGB is a really good choice when doing theme builds as it is easy to fit it together with the color scheme you have. As the theme of the build is Overwatch I went for a white-orange color theme. Modguru was nice again to help out with sleeved cables for our RM650X. We have two other products that recently was released as well that I am using, our first M.2 SSD, MP500 and our Lighting Node Pro which makes it possible to control our RGB-fans through Corsair Link, it also comes with RGB LED-strips. It is really nice with M.2 SSDs as there is less cables to route in the case. This is how the cable management behind the motherboard ended up like. I mounted one of the RGB LED-strips around the IO-plate on the case, just to make it easier to see in the dark when you need to plug something in. The other RGB LED-strips was installed inside the case to sync up with rest of the theme. Next thing I wanted to do was to cover up the fans on the inside of the case, together with a friend I designed a fan-grill with Corsair and Overwatch logos. It was milled out in clear acrylic. This plate was painted, the small bit in the Overwatch logo was painted orange and the rest white. The PSU cover was also painted white and orange. This was how it ended up looking, I know the fan-grill probably stops some air from the fans, however, this case is extremely open so it did not do any big change in the temperatures. I wanted the front glass to have a Overwatch logo as well, I thought about vinyl at first, but then I decided on engraving it to the glass with a rotary tool. I used something called carbon paper to transfer the logo to the glass. Then I used my rotary tool with a engraving bit to do the engraving, I made a complete guide on how to do engraving that you can find here. When engraving glass though you need to be extra careful and not use any sharp engraving bits, I recommend using the “ball” ones. Remember to engrave on the backside and not the outside too! The top part of the Overwatch logo is orange, which I wanted it to be on the glass as well so I bought an acrylic pen and filled it out. With the three front fans set to white LED the fan-grill really shines up! The RGB LED-strips on the IO-plate looks like this, really useful when its dark. This is how the build ended up looking, for more and better photos, check out the Builders Gallery! If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.
The next evolution of our popular VOID headset lineup is here with the VOID PRO, featuring a slew of upgrades and tweaks under the hood. The VOID PRO, like the original VOID headset, is available in surround, USB, and wireless versions.These headsets all share the same great basic features: breathable microfiber mesh fabric contoured earcups packed with memory foam for comfort, metal structural components and glass fiber infused plastics for durability, tuned 50mm neodymium drivers for audio quality, a redesigned unidirectional microphone with flexible boom (and included pop filter) for added clarity in-game, and integrated headset volume and microphone controls. The wired and wireless USB versions of the VOID PRO also feature RGB illumination on the CORSAIR logo present on each earcup which can be adjusted in the CORSAIR UTILITY ENGINE (CUE). Additionally, these two versions of the VOID PRO automatically mute the microphone when you lift the mic boom (the base of the microphone will light up in red when it is muted). So, what’s different? The memory foam cushions on the VOID PRO have been adjusted for more comfort while blocking out more outside noise. The drivers of the VOID PRO have also been tweaked for a better audio experience overall. However, the most obvious difference is that the microphone has been redesigned. This new microphone has increased audio capture quality, allowing you to be heard clearly in-game (the included pop filter is also a nice touch) while also being flexible for easy adjustment. With the latest version of CUE (version 2.16 at the time this blog post was written), you’re able to control all the audio and lighting settings of the VOID PRO USB and wireless easily. In CUE, we’ve built-in a selection of common audio EQ presets, but you can also create a custom EQ if you wish. We've also got headset/microphone volume sliders along with the Dolby Surround/Stereo toggle.These settings can also be switched through on the fly with the controls on the VOID PRO itself. Simply short press the volume dial in to switch between different EQ profiles or long press the volume dial to toggle between stereo and Dolby Surround modes. You can also adjust the lighting on the headset to match the rest of your peripherals with the built-in lighting effects. As an added bonus, there are two basic lighting modes that you can apply to any of our CUE-enabled keyboards, VOID PLAYBACK VISUALIZER and VOID MICROPHONE VISUALIZER, which display a customizable audio visualizer effect based on the VOID PRO’s microphone input or audio playback. The VOID PRO is a product refined by the feedback we’ve gathered from users of the original VOID headset line and its improved comfort and audio quality is sure to keep your head in the game. For more information on where to buy, check it out over on our webstore.
NVMe storage is ridiculously fast, but runs pretty hot. While the more common M.2 form factor makes it incredibly easy to install fast storage in cramped spaces, this also leads to higher temperatures which may lead to throttling. Our new NEUTRON NX500 puts super-fast NVMe storage in an add-in-card (AIC) form-factor that stays cool under pressure thanks to its custom-designed heatsink. Looking at the NX500, you’ll quickly notice the massive black aluminum heatsink and backplate as well as its stealthy black shroud. This cooling solution keeps the NX500’s controller nice and cool, peaking at close to 50C when compared to an M.2 drive which can reach temperatures of up to 90C or higher under load. Under the hood, the NX500 is built with multi-level cell (MLC) flash memory which is more reliable and faster than more common triple-level cell (TLC) flash. Installing the NX500 is incredibly easy, simply find an open PCIe slot on your system’s motherboard with at least 4x PCIe Gen 3.0 lanes available, slot the card in, and secure it in place with your cases thumbscrews. On the OS side, you can optimize the NX500’s performance by ensuring that its write-caching policy is set to “enable write caching” on the device as well as having it set to turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing. Additionally, when you first setup the NX500 as a secondary drive, you can setup a MBR partition table with a 1024B alignment and a 4KB allocation unit size. Now, just how fast is the NX500? It’s ludicrously fast. Topping out at around 2800MB/s and 1300MB/s on sequential reads and writes respectively, the NX500 is an awesome solution for reading and writing large files as fast as possible, though it's important to note that this performance can vary depending on your system configuration. Here’s a quick screenshot from my test bench after running a few quick synthetic benchmarks.. How does this translate to real-world performance? First of all, the NX500 rarely throttles thanks to how cool it stays when under load. Here’s a quick snapshot of NX500 in a test system alongside an identical system that’s using an M.2 SSD (NX500 on the left and M.2 SSD on the right). In gaming, larger game assets can be loaded into memory much faster, however that varies from game to game and the files are generally small enough to not be as effected by the bump in speed, that being said, large file transfers such as video files and other massive workloads can take full advantage of NVMe storage. And that’s pretty much it! The NX500 is a fantastic solution for fast, reliable storage that stays cool and is backed by our 5-year warranty.
AMD Ryzen Threadripper features the massive SocketTR4 which ensures that your Threadripper processor is installed in the correct orientation with the appropriate amount of force. Let's take a look at the install process for a Threadripper processor as well as one of our HYDRO SERIES coolers with the new SocketTR4 bracket. Installing Your AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPU: Taking a look at the socket on our X399 motherboard, you’ll notice 2 blue tabs, the CPU socket cap, the Pin One Triangle, and the CPU load plate screws. To prep the socket, first unscrew the CPU load plate screws using a T20 bit in 3-2-1 order. The main retention frame will popup since it’s spring-loaded. Gently pull up on the blue tabs so that the CPU rail frame springs up (this is also spring-loaded). You’ll now see a clear CPU carrier frame occupying the rail frame, pull this out by the tab and set it aside. Now, grab your AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPU and align it with the CPU rail frame. Gently slide it into place until it clicks into place. Remove the CPU socket cap to expose the socket’s pins. Lower the CPU rail frame over the socket until it locks into place with the blue tabs on the socket. Lower the retention frame into place and hold it down gently. Screw the CPU load plate screws with the T20 bit in 1-2-3 order, be careful to hand tighten these screws evenly so that your CPU is installed with appropriate force. <br>
Installing Your Hydro Series Cooler:<br>
AMD Ryzen Threadripper comes with a CPU cooler bracket that’s compatible with our H80i V2, H100i V2, and H115i coolers. To install this bracket, rotate the cooler’s pre-installed bracket and remove it. Grab the Threadripper cooling bracket and gently insert and rotate it onto your liquid cooler. Take note of the orientation of the bracket in relation to the pump as well as the mounting holes on the SocketTR4. While our liquid coolers come with pre-applied thermal interface material (TIM) that does the job for Threadripper, we recommend cleaning off the stock TIM and applying TIM directly to the CPU’s IHS (Integrated Heat Spreader) as shown below. Once the TIM has been applied, gently place the CPU block of your cooler over the socket. Line up with the mounting holes around the socket and secure the pump in place with a standard Philips screw driver. Don’t forget to plug in the 3-pin lead coming off of the cooler into your motherboard’s CPU_FAN or AIO_PUMP header, as well as connect SATA power if your cooler requires a separate power connection. Then go ahead and install the cooler's USB 2.0 cable. And that's it! Once the rest of your system is built, make sure to set the CPU_FAN header (if you chose to connect the 3-pin connector to it) to 100% or PWM mode if your cooler draws power directly from your motherboard (this is required if your cooler doesn't feature a SATA power connector). CORSAIR HYDRO SERIES liquid coolers are ready for AMD Ryzen Threadripper, providing excellent cooling performance for AMD's new high end desktop platform. For any questions about AMD Ryzen Threadripper, our HYDRO SERIES coolers or any of our other DIY components, feel free to ask in our User Forums!
The Crystal Series 570X RGB tempered glass chassis launched last year to much critical acclaim for its open design that puts everything in your build within view. We’re introducing a new PSU shroud cover plate that allows you to hide away the cables coming from your power supply! Unboxing the shroud cover, you'll find the shroud cover plate, and some screws. Installation of the shroud cover is simple. 1. Remove the tempered glass side panel so you can access the internals of the chassis, we also recommend that you remove your graphics card 2. Ensure that there aren’t any large cables or other items blocking the opening of the 570X RGB’s PSU shroud 3. Hold the shroud cover in place inside of the PSU shroud, lining the top screw holes on the shroud and shroud cover 4. Secure the shroud cover with the included screws 5. Adjust angle of the shroud cover as necessary for a clean look And that’s it! You can also take off both side glass panels to make it a bit easier to install to line things up just right. The shroud cover is available now and allows you to cap off the PSU shroud if that’s the look you’re going for in your build.
The CORSAIR K95 RGB PLATINUM has been on the market for quite some time now, the feedback from our customers has been stellar, especially from the gaming communities. Besides the fact that the K95 RGB PLATINUM uses 100% Cherry MX RGB switches, the aircraft-grade anodized brushed aluminum frame is one key feature that sets it apart from the competition. The per key RGB backlighting is next to none, allowing you to create virtually any possible lighting effect that you can think of. The K95 RGB PLATINUM feels phenomenal during intense gaming sessions and you can tell that it’s a PREMIUM piece of gaming hardware. Now, I can go all day and talk about the other great features of the K95 RGB PLATINUM, but thankfully if they’re not obvious, they also happen to be printed on the box it comes in. Since the K95 RGB PLATINUM’s debut, I’ve seen all kinds of discussions on the forums and in user reviews, however not many of them cover one cool feature that the K95 RGB PLATINUM has, its integrated cable routing on the underside of the keyboard itself. Let’s go ahead and check it out. Here is a pic of the cable routing channels on the underside of my K95 RGB PLATINUM, each channel crosses the other so that you can route one cable over the other from either side of the keyboard. Pretty cool, right? We’ve got plenty of examples of typical gaming setups at our office which include a wired gaming mouse such as the GLAIVE RGB and a wired gaming headset like the VOID USB. Here’s an example of the kind of cable mess you could potentially run into. For guys like me, who tend to consider themselves as neatfreaks, this wouldn’t pass.Now, let’s take a few minutes and tidy up the cables a bit using the K95 RGB PLATINUM’s integrated cable routing. The following example looks much cleaner and only took two minutes to route the cables for the mouse and headset. But what does this setup look like underneath the keyboard? Well, here’s what it looks like on the underside. As you can see the mouse’s cable crosses on one side and the headset’s cable crosses on the other. And there you have it, integrated cable management is a simple, but incredibly useful feature to help create a clean gaming set-up on your desk. If you’re an owner of a K95 RGB PLATINUM who takes pride in your gaming rig (after potentially hours of cable management), why not take the time to make sure the peripherals on your desk are also managed accordingly?
