Is Commander Pro Reliable?

Oh dear, worrying development on the Pro today ( second day of it running with ML fans).

For some reason it has suddenly started to turn one of the fans off at random times. It will turn it on and off over a period of a few seconds. A few minutes later it had recovered and everything was working OK again.

I have to say I really am getting very worried about the Commander Pro, it seems to be completely unreliable. It completely baffles me how a company like Corsair can mess up something so simple.

Has anyone encountered this issue before?

Also, why on earth are graph axis a strange mix of RPM and % ? Some RPM on the graph axis ( I am guessing the ones that are "normally" three-pin ) and others, such as the H115i fans, are displayed as %. Surely that should change according to the type of fan??

And one suggestion here, Corsair, please allow people to manually configure the fan type. It would save so much hassle.

Oh dear, worrying development on the Pro today ( second day of it running with ML fans).

 

For some reason it has suddenly started to turn one of the fans off at random times. It will turn it on and off over a period of a few seconds. A few minutes later it had recovered and everything was working OK again.

 

I have to say I really am getting very worried about the Commander Pro, it seems to be completely unreliable. It completely baffles me how a company like Corsair can mess up something so simple.

 

Has anyone encountered this issue before?

 

Also, why on earth are graph axis a strange mix of RPM and % ? Some RPM on the graph axis ( I am guessing the ones that are "normally" three-pin ) and others, such as the H115i fans, are displayed as %. Surely that should change according to the type of fan??

 

And one suggestion here, Corsair, please allow people to manually configure the fan type. It would save so much hassle.

Hmm. That is interesting. I have not posted about this, but twice I have been sitting at the computer with the [Link Fans] panel open in SIV and saw EVERY fan speed go to 0 and then back to where they were in 1 second or so. Not a reporting anomaly as I heard the fans slow down then speed back up.

When this happened, I was not touching anything and nothing unusual or a possibly conflicting program was running. It happened very quickly, twice so far. Other than these 2 instances (that I am aware of), it has been working great. Could be the CLCP, could be a software issue, or maybe something else I am not aware of. All I can do is keep an eye on it.

As for Corsair messing up the Commander Pro, after years of reading this forum, I fully expected firmware issues and bugs with this product. I can't comment on Link issues as I gave up on Link long ago, and there have not been any recent improvements to make me reconsider. Link is as buggy as ever.

Hmm. That is interesting. I have not posted about this, but twice I have been sitting at the computer with the [Link Fans] panel open in SIV and saw EVERY fan speed go to 0 and then back to where they were in 1 second or so. Not a reporting anomaly as I heard the fans slow down then speed back up.

 

When this happened, I was not touching anything and nothing unusual or a possibly conflicting program was running. It happened very quickly, twice so far. Other than these 2 instances (that I am aware of), it has been working great. Could be the CLCP, could be a software issue, or maybe something else I am not aware of. All I can do is keep an eye on it.

 

As for Corsair messing up the Commander Pro, after years of reading this forum, I fully expected firmware issues and bugs with this product. I can't comment on Link issues as I gave up on Link long ago, and there have not been any recent improvements to make me reconsider. Link is as buggy as ever.

I suddenly noticed that one fan was sat at zero. I checked the configuration and it was fine. I changed the configuration and it started to work again, so I changed the configuration back to the original and it continued to work, but for the next few minutes it was behaving badly. It would report an RPM of zero then suddenly go back up to normal RPM again, for no reason. It was unstable for about five minutes or so and since then ( several hours ago ) it's been fine. Well, lets see how the updates go for a while. Do Corsair have a bug reporting process?

I suddenly noticed that one fan was sat at zero. I checked the configuration and it was fine. I changed the configuration and it started to work again, so I changed the configuration back to the original and it continued to work, but for the next few minutes it was behaving badly. It would report an RPM of zero then suddenly go back up to normal RPM again, for no reason. It was unstable for about five minutes or so and since then ( several hours ago ) it's been fine. Well, lets see how the updates go for a while. Do Corsair have a bug reporting process?

Well you could report it in the thread about the current version of Link, though Corsair does not seem to monitor the thread consistently as their posts are very sporadic.

http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?t=167913

Or you could open a service ticket about it through Corsair Support. They will respond if you do that but you may not get the response you want (or even one that makes any sense). I have done that about the hot plugging issue but was told that their position is that hot plugging is not supported and a "restart of the PC is recommended when connecting new devices".

http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?p=908861

So Corsair has spoken and said that they do not consider hot plugging to be an issue that needs resolving. Just don't do it. They do seem to be concerned about Noctua and some Corsair fans not working at all or behaving strangely and are hopefully working on a fix for those issues.

As for trying to figure out what is causing your problem - I don't know if Link has any logging functions you can turn on that would produce a log file that they could review. I find myself wondering if SIV has such a logging function that could catch what happens when fans misbehave - in my case all of them going to 0 then back to where they were. Then again, the cause could be external to the control program - bad power connection to the CLCP perhaps, though SIV would "see" that...

In your case, I wonder if what you are seeing is a symptom of the CLCP having difficulty detecting what type of fan you have. Maybe it checks periodically and if it's getting conflicting data, or has a firmware bug, it keeps jumping between control modes. Then the detect issue will setting down for a while and the fans are fine. That or erratic temperature data. What input source is controlling your fan speeds?:thinking:

Well you could report it in the thread about the current version of Link, though Corsair does not seem to monitor the thread consistently as their posts are very sporadic.

 

http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?t=167913

 

Or you could open a service ticket about it through Corsair Support. They will respond if you do that but you may not get the response you want (or even one that makes any sense). I have done that about the hot plugging issue but was told that their position is that hot plugging is not supported and a "restart of the PC is recommended when connecting new devices".

 

http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?p=908861

 

So Corsair has spoken and said that they do not consider hot plugging to be an issue that needs resolving. Just don't do it. They do seem to be concerned about Noctua and some Corsair fans not working at all or behaving strangely and are hopefully working on a fix for those issues.

 

As for trying to figure out what is causing your problem - I don't know if Link has any logging functions you can turn on that would produce a log file that they could review. I find myself wondering if SIV has such a logging function that could catch what happens when fans misbehave - in my case all of them going to 0 then back to where they were. Then again, the cause could be external to the control program - bad power connection to the CLCP perhaps, though SIV would "see" that...

 

In your case, I wonder if what you are seeing is a symptom of the CLCP having difficulty detecting what type of fan you have. Maybe it checks periodically and if it's getting conflicting data, or has a firmware bug, it keeps jumping between control modes. Then the detect issue will setting down for a while and the fans are fine. That or erratic temperature data. What input source is controlling your fan speeds?:thinking:

The temperature I was using at the time was the H115i, and the fans on the cooler were fine. Up until now it just followed the fans on the H115i then suddenly 0rpm.

Honestly, this device is truly rubbish. Sometimes I see that fan go to 0 rpm when I "apply" a profile to another fan. Corsair really need to start firing their Software Engineers and hiring decent ones. Not to mention System Test Engineers who have released a product that simply is not ready for the consumer.

The latest issue is that it suddenly decided that it could not read the GPU temperature. Honestly, there are endless apps out there written by enthusiasts that are far more reliable than this. I think I may use something other than Commander Pro for important fans, and just use it for "secondary" ones that aren't so important.

I have to say, Corsair, you are in real danger of destroying your reputation. SORT IT OUT.

OK I have to apologise to Corsair here. In fact, the 0rpm on the GPU was correct. It seemed that there is a fault in just one of the fans and it was failing ( it has now completely failed ). So truth is that LINK gave warning of the failure.

Sorry Corsair. I was tooo quick to judge.

OK I have to apologise to Corsair here. In fact, the 0rpm on the GPU was correct. It seemed that there is a fault in just one of the fans and it was failing ( it has now completely failed ). So truth is that LINK gave warning of the failure.

 

Sorry Corsair. I was tooo quick to judge.

Well that is good news but are you SURE it was the fan itself and not some incompatibility between that particular fan model and the CLCP? I guess if your GPU has 2 identical fans and only 1 of them has issues then you can be sure it's the fan. Have you tried plugging it into a MOBO header or some other non-CLCP / Link controlled header just to make sure it's the fan? Since others have experienced erratic behavior with some fans, it's worth double checking.