The K95 is utter garbage

[Lumbee1]

After much research and even buying 4 or 5 keyboards, I finally decided on the Corsair RGB K95. My previous keyboard was a .75 cent IBM Rapid Access II keyboard from the clearance bin at CompUSA circa 1999.

 

When I first received my RGB K95 in Feb 2020, I loved the tactile feel and default lighting but much to my dismay I spent days trying to make the RGB colors work right. All the default color effects were cool however, I could only modify the colors in iCUE and as soon as I exited the application it reverted back to default.

 

I finally found a post recommending I update the application and keyboard firmware. I did this and everything worked perfectly. I created three HW profiles saved to the keyboard, I could customize them at any time, and they worked in all of the other accounts as well. Changes in iCUE were visible in all tabs on the left.

 

Fast forward to Feb 2021 and I am tweaking my Windows 10 system and decide to uninstall a few apps, install some new ones, and update iCUE and the fw on my keyboard. BIG MISTAKE. I time traveled to the day I got the keyboard but now it is worse.

 

The keyboard turned black after the firmware update and I could not restore any of the colors. ICUE would light the keyboard with HW lighting selected but as soon as I left the app, the keyboard went dark. I deleted all the HW profiles and created Lighting profiles however those only work when iCUE is running and the keyboard was black for any other accounts. I reset the keyboard and spiral rainbow loaded however opening iCUE wants to load the previous HW profiles which hitting Save or Cancel results in the keyboard overwriting the default profiles. I cleared the profiles and reset the keyboard multiple times only to have it revert to something different each time and I cannot identify a working sequence or configuration. As of right now, my keyboard color is hung in one of the rainbow patterns.

 

Before posting here I searched google and the forums and found LOTS of issues with the k95 and iCUE but nothing as bad as what I am experiencing.

 

Next steps, uninstall iCUE. Delete all components. Reinstall the latest software and attempt to create a default HW profile that actually stays.

Edited February 17, 2021 by Lumbee1

[Lumbee1]

• Uninstall iCUE and remove everything.
  
• Unplug keyboard and reinstall keyboard. One of my old HW lighting profiles loaded... wth.
  
• Reinstall iCUE.
  
• When iCUE opens it tries to download HW profiles off the keyboard and everything is in a sudo default state and confused. It loaded default profile number 2. Whatever.
  
• Modify the default HW lighting only to Rainbow down fast. With any other tab but HW lighting, the keyboard is black.
  
• Exit iCUE and the keyboard is black.
  
• Exit iCUE minimized and the keyboard lights up.
  

This worked! One HW profile loaded. Unplugged keyboard and reinstalled and my HW lighting profile loaded. I'm shocked. I launched iCUE again and the keyboard went black. I configured two more HW profiles with the HW lighting tab and saved to slots 2 and 3 and exited iCUE. This worked and I can cycle through the lighting.

 

Hopefully the HW profiles will stay through a reboot and I will be sure NOT to upgrade the firmware again.