iCue soesn't play nice with other RGB software

Hello everyone. This is my story about trying to get iCue to play nice.

 

I built my system originally in late 2017. Right from the beginning, I wanted to have a good AIO so i bought a H110i v2. It was perfect. Plenty of cooling, subdued RGB and solid street cred.

 

I had an ASUS board and installed it and the AIO along some other RGB strips (not Corsair). The RGB was all connected to the board and running ASUS Aura to control it. I installed Synapse for my keyboard and mouse and LGHUB for my headset. Yeah... a lot of different software but, what can you do..the RGB scene is a total mess.

 

So, my first problem after only a few days was that in iCue, I could not see my H110 anymore. Check in the device manager and I have an exclamation mark. Funny since I had made no changes and everything was working the night before. Try as hard as I want... I couldn't get the H110 to be detected anymore.

 

After about a week, the H110 came and went several times. So, I decided to investigate.

 

Seems that your only option is to remove all the other RGB software in order to keep iCue happy. There are no other solutions... even from Corsair's own support in forums they readily admit that iCue and other RGB controlling software don't play nice.

 

Actually this is not exactly true.

 

All other RGB software plays nice on my system..the only one that has hiccups is iCue. So, this means that iCue is the problem.

 

Not my video card, keyboard, headset, motherboard or my CoolerMaster AIO (i bought another one) have any issues controlling RGB in the presence of other software. Only iCue (or the previous LINK).

 

Sorry to say this Corsair but this is a problem YOU need to fix. The choices you made to control your AIO (and everything else) is what causes the issues. Even if I would go full bore with Corsair RGB Galore, My motherboard still requires it's own software (and it will make iCue fail to detect hardware)

 

So..... Corsair... For the sake of uniformity and simplicity... make iCue play nice. At this point, I am not going to expand into the Corsair ecosystem knowing I may have issues with my keyboard, mouse, motherboard, videocard and case...:mad:

Edited October 2, 2019 by 3dRikal

Sorry to say this Corsair but this is a problem YOU need to fix. The choices you made to control your AIO (and everything else) is what causes the issues.

 

Did you come to this conclusion because you installed iCUE last? Or because you consider the keyboard and audio more important?

 

Regardless, most of us are all using motherboards with a different RGB control program. I have been running Aura, Mystic Light, and iCUE for some time (lucky me). Interaction issues are rare and mostly come in when Asus tries to do something... creative. You may may very well be having some sort of issue, but you are going to have to do some genuine troubleshooting and not make guesses. If the cooler is not being detected, that is a problem on the USB 2.0 line. Your motherboard RGB program won't use that. Might start by looking at the keyboard interaction since that is likely USB. As for telling Corsair to go fix their stuff, perhaps you would like to clarify what hardware you want them to guarantee compatibility with and if you have already secured agreements with the other manufacturers to reciprocate.

Did you come to this conclusion because you installed iCUE last? Or because you consider the keyboard and audio more important?

 

Regardless, most of us are all using motherboards with a different RGB control program. I have been running Aura, Mystic Light, and iCUE for some time (lucky me). Interaction issues are rare and mostly come in when Asus tries to do something... creative. You may may very well be having some sort of issue, but you are going to have to do some genuine troubleshooting and not make guesses. If the cooler is not being detected, that is a problem on the USB 2.0 line. Your motherboard RGB program won't use that. Might start by looking at the keyboard interaction since that is likely USB. As for telling Corsair to go fix their stuff, perhaps you would like to clarify what hardware you want them to guarantee compatibility with and if you have already secured agreements with the other manufacturers to reciprocate.

 

Genuine troubleshooting?

 

Ok... not accounting that my trade is QA and DEV... I think I was pretty thorough in my troubleshooting. Yes, I have tried all combination of software and startup sequences (disable one, then the other, etc...) so... I did come to the conclusion that ONLY iCue misbehave. Only iCue has an error preventing it from functioning as it is meant to (controlling RGB plus fans on AIO).

 

I'm just telling this so that Corsair CAN at least have the feedback (feedback is not always positive and it's purpose is to improve). I have already submitted my problem to Corsair (hence the responses that iCue does not play nice with other RGB) but have yet to get a resolution.

 

And if all goes well for you...great! What was the purpose of your response? Improving iCue or arguing that I don't have the issues or don't know how computers work? I missed your point.

 

I may also add that the same issue happens with other RGB software (EVGA, RGB Fusion...)

Edited October 2, 2019 by 3dRikal

Are you running any other monitoring software?

And, to c-attack's point, other software has had a history of actually not playing nice with Corsair's devices. In particular, one issue is that the devices such as coolers can only have a single application accessing them at a time. This is a limitation of the hardware and is not exclusive to Corsair. However, there have been numerous cases where other monitoring and RGB software has not only accessed but tried to control the Corsair hardware when iCUE is running. This often leads to the exact symptoms that you described.

 

Don't be so dismissive so quickly. While you may be in DEV and QA (I've been in DEV for 25 years so I get that), you don't necessarily have the amount of experience with this particular hardware/software stack that some of us that frequent the board do. I mean ... let's say that I jumped in on a project that you've been on for a year and started telling you all kinds of things that you knew, from experience, to not be entirely accurate or not representative of issues that I, even though I have 25 years building large, enterprise systems, may not be aware of because I just don't have the hands-on experience with the tool. Reasonably, yes? Well, that's likely what we have here.

 

So ... I do suggest that you at least consider what we have to say as we've got a LOT more experience with this stuff. c-attack, in particular, is highly knowledgeable not only about the Corsair stuff but also about other systems.

 

And ... for the record ... I've run iCUE with Aura, Mystic Light, RGB Fusion and Synapse. Most, if not all, of the issues are from non-Corsair software trying to access/control the Corsair device. That's not kosher, IMHO.

Have been having an issue with ICUE keeping my cpu at near full power 4.3-4.4ghz while it is open when closed it goes back to norm going from 800mhz to 4.4ghz as needed and this is on an msi z390 board without mystic light installed my gigabyte z370 aorus ultra gaming never had the issue so at the point where I either try a new motherboard non msi brand or get all new fans and keybbboard and mouse and cooler, power supply and not have to run Icue sorry about the double letter this keyboard is being rma for 3rd time

This is the User Forums and people typically post here looking for help with problems or trying to learn more about products and their operation. You have apparently already sent your feedback to Corsair directly, so what was your purpose in posting here? You haven’t given any details necessary for someone to help and do not seem interested in doing so. That leaves calling attention to yourself and the perceived problem as your goal. You have now done so, but you can’t possibly think that everyone is going to pat you on the back for telling your story.

 

Even with the scant details above, there are some issues with your analysis. (The program being interfered with is at fault, not the program creating the interference). However it is now clear you are not looking for help, so there does not seem to be a need to continue the discussion. You have successfully posted a rant and most people will now recognize it. Anyone with usb detection issues should start a new thread with hardware specs and appropriate details.

Sorry if it sounded like a rant I am having issue with ICUE Yes I could have left the rest out for that I am sorry like I stated when ICUE is running it doesn't let the cpu clock down if not running it clocks down fine but I am guessing it is an incompatibility issue with the MSI board

Sorry if it sounded like a rant I am having issue with ICUE Yes I could have left the rest out for that I am sorry like I stated when ICUE is running it doesn't let the cpu clock down if not running it clocks down fine but I am guessing it is an incompatibility issue with the MSI board

 

No, I was not referring to you. I think we can handle your issue in the other thread.

Oh ok well I didn't know but thanks

I suppose my post doesn't have all the details...that is because of a little over 2 years of trials of different configs, motherboards, software loads and even complete rebuilds.

 

The issue is always the same. Now, it may be that my H110 is defective in some capacity but since it cooled the CPU (pump & fans work) but the USB connectivity is ALWAYS the one that failed. I don't want to sound dismissive or bash against Corsair... or people on this forum. My goal is twofold:

 

a) Let people know that this problem exists (new users or not-so-new users)

b) there is currently no solution offered aside uninstalling anything else that controls RGB.

 

IF I remove synapse, rgb fusion (changed board to Gigabyte), and LGHUB, H110 is detected and works, never goes away. If I install any or all of the other programs, eventually iCue will not detect my H110. It's that simple. Everything else works on the USB bus except the H110.

 

Now, digging through the registry, I see the ID for the H110 that used to be identified but a new entry is added and try as hard as you want, it will not recognize the drivers that USED to work. I even turned off my USB3.0 & 3.1 off to see if a conflict was occuring... Nada.

 

Folks... I've done my homework. I've debugged the hell and researched this issue for 2 years. It took all that time for me to finally say I can't fix it myself... other than writing a standard for RGB control that would need to be adopted by ALL mfgs.

 

I'm not trying to be ab ***... not trying to cut corners.

 

But the end result (at this point) is that the H110 is off my system since I can't rely on it to monitor (and be able to adjust) my cooling perf.