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Where is the "intelligence" in the Link system?


Citizen Crazed

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Apologies if this has been explained or answered elsewhere, if it has, haven't seen it yet! Anyway...

 

Corsair peeps (or someone else who knows), I was wondering exactly where the brains of this system is: Is the Link Commander a self-contained microcontroller capable of functioning without a continuous interconnect with the Link software application (and therefore the host system's CPU), or...

 

Is the commander a relatively "dumb" component, permanently reliant on the host system (and the Link software) to do the calculations necessary to instruct fans/pumps/lighting etc according to the user-set zones?

 

In addition, will the software be able to monitor, log and control fans/lighting etc in response to data from other system hardware - for example, system monitor chips/digital thermal sensors etc?

 

Thanks for any info! :)

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  • 4 months later...
Apologies if this has been explained or answered elsewhere, if it has, haven't seen it yet! Anyway...

 

Corsair peeps (or someone else who knows), I was wondering exactly where the brains of this system is: Is the Link Commander a self-contained microcontroller capable of functioning without a continuous interconnect with the Link software application (and therefore the host system's CPU), or...

 

Is the commander a relatively "dumb" component, permanently reliant on the host system (and the Link software) to do the calculations necessary to instruct fans/pumps/lighting etc according to the user-set zones?

 

In addition, will the software be able to monitor, log and control fans/lighting etc in response to data from other system hardware - for example, system monitor chips/digital thermal sensors etc?

 

Thanks for any info! :)

 

Need answers for these questions. As it has been released, can I get someone to respond to this?

 

I second this question. Running a triple boot system and interested in using the Corsair link with my H80 and hopefully the 550D when it comes out; however, are the profiles saved to the link commander so they work prior to OS, or are they Windows dependent (running a Windows (main), hackintosh, and Linux triple boot).

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Need answers for these questions. As it has been released, can I get someone to respond to this?

 

I second this question. Running a triple boot system and interested in using the Corsair link with my H80 and hopefully the 550D when it comes out; however, are the profiles saved to the link commander so they work prior to OS, or are they Windows dependent (running a Windows (main), hackintosh, and Linux triple boot).

 

I would also like this info. I'm planning a major water-cooling upgrade of my 700D case, that will include a "popular" pump that includes the number "6", plus other non-Corsair fans, reservoir, etc. However, I really like the idea of a USB link to the motherboard, so that I might not need an external fan controller. Ideally, I can record and track system temps over time, so that I can endlessly tweak my new setup. ;):

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x509, you can say the name of the pump.

 

Jaspreet, your duplicate posts have been removed as posting the same thing 3 times serves no purpose.

 

Is it possible to get an answer then, I've PM'ed admins, I have respectfully left messages and waited for answers, but no response? So, I asked the same question in two earlier threads (that pretty much asked the same question as I did) as well as created a new thread with the same question.

 

I did not create 3 separate threads asking the same question. Instead of chastising me, can we not just get an answer?

 

A similar question was also asked in this thread: http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=99637

 

But again, no response.

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I have no idea how the system works, but a few things you can safely assume:

 

If you're using the 'on board' sensors of your MB, you ARE going to need the software at least so that the Commander gets the necessary data. If the software is not running the only way it's going to know anything is if that data is provided by a "CorsairLink" sensor.

 

If I look at the behavior of my system, I see that when booting the lights go to some kind of "default" and only after starting the software do they go to the "profile" I've set for them. So apparently that "lighting profile" at the least is not saved into the Commander.

 

If I exit the software while the system is running, I see no change in the lighting, so if the Commander should time out after a while I figure that time-out is longer than a minute or so.

 

I have not tried whether the Commander will still follow the set profile, although obviously as I've pointed out above it will no longer get updates from the MB sensors.

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It was my understanding that the CorsairLink plugged into a USB header, so is it not possible to pull environmental values, etc, straight from the motherboard (via the SMBIOS). Don't know anything about programming at the hardware level, so if that seems like a silly question, I apologize in advance.

 

I have no idea how the system works, but a few things you can safely assume:

 

If you're using the 'on board' sensors of your MB, you ARE going to need the software at least so that the Commander gets the necessary data. If the software is not running the only way it's going to know anything is if that data is provided by a "CorsairLink" sensor.

 

If I look at the behavior of my system, I see that when booting the lights go to some kind of "default" and only after starting the software do they go to the "profile" I've set for them. So apparently that "lighting profile" at the least is not saved into the Commander.

 

If I exit the software while the system is running, I see no change in the lighting, so if the Commander should time out after a while I figure that time-out is longer than a minute or so.

 

I have not tried whether the Commander will still follow the set profile, although obviously as I've pointed out above it will no longer get updates from the MB sensors.

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Well, the USB interface is just a serial interface from the system. It is not directly connected to anything in the computer.

 

So SOMETHING has to read the SMBIOS info and output that in an appropriate format to the USB, either by itself or on request. There is no way to "pull" information on a HW level.

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I have asked the product manager to help us with these questions sorry for the delay but please give us some time to give you a more accurate answer.

 

And tell the product manager to release enough info about the hardware or firmware that third-parties can control Link. Imagine how much more you would sell if HWInfo or similar programs could either send commands to Link or get readouts of temp data. And not just for Windows, also for Linux.

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I installed the software under Win7, and configured custom fan profiles.

I then powered off, and booted Linux. Fan profiles still intact, at least for the fans on my H100.

 

The sensors directly connected to the Link still work as configured.

I also run Win7 virtually under Linux (presenting the USB-device of the Link controller to the virtual machine) When I installed the Link software on the virtual machine, it shows my custom profiles are still active. Of couse, the virtual machine can not read the temp of the motherboard, CPU and GPU, so no adjustments can be made based on those temps.

 

Hope this answers part of your question. :)

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