H100i V2 Per Profile lighting in iCUE 4 no longer possible.

[Boomstomp]

So I recently built a new PC for Win 11 and reused some parts from my old system. One of the parts I reused is my H100i V2 AIO cooler. I was still using iCUE 3 on the old system so I decided to switch to iCUE 4 on the new one. iCUE 4 detects it and it's all working as it should, but when I started creating more profiles I noticed that I can only customise hardware lighting which is the colour it displays when iCUE is not running and this is not linked to your profiles anymore. In iCUE 3 I could assign a different colour for each profile but not in iCUE 4. Fine it's only a small single colour rgb corsair logo, but still, what gives?

[c-attack]

Can you post a screen shot of the H100i v2 device panel in CUE?  Is there a "Lighting Effects" option right at the top of the list?

[Boomstomp]

59 minutes ago, c-attack said:

Can you post a screen shot of the H100i v2 device panel in CUE?  Is there a "Lighting Effects" option right at the top of the list?

This is all options I get in iCUE4. It used to be called "Lighting Effects" in iCUE3 but now it's only called "Hardware Lighting".

[c-attack]

Hardware Lighting is to save a single effect to device for use when CUE is not running.  As you said, it's missing the proper Lighting Effects option above.  I have not seen this before and I would contact Corsair Support. 

 

This seems like it has to be a software glitch.  Try running a repair install from Windows Apps List.  Click on Corsair iCUE and select "modify".  This will not erase profiles or settings.  

[Boomstomp]

Just repaired my iCUE installation like you suggested and sadly still no Lighting Effects tab for the cooler.

So you believe this is not normal and worth asking support about it?

I assumed that this is normal and they just removed the ability to link the lighting to profiles in version 4 of iCUE. Don't know why they'd do that, but quite disappointing if that's really the case. Sure, like I said it's a single RGB LED that can only do a static colour effect, but still sucks if they took away an ability that was possible in the previous iCUE.

[Boomstomp]

I Actually just noticed something else apart from not having lighting per profile. There is no longer an option to have a temperature warning colour. This function was also in the "Lighting Effects" tab in iCUE 3.

The only way to kind of implement this in iCUE 4 is by creating an alert to trigger all rgb led's, but doing this causes a whole event in iCUE that changes all of your rgb to the alert colour and overrides your current profile until you click the notification to "restore to normal operation".

This is in a way worse than just not having the light match your profile because the rgb LED actually served a function in this case.

[c-attack]

4 hours ago, Boomstomp said:

So you believe this is not normal and worth asking support about it?

I can't believe this is the intended result.  Originally, the older GTX/v2 AIO coolers and several other hardware pieces from the very early RGB days were not included with the CUE 4 version of the software and those users were left behind on CUE 3.  A lot of owners were unhappy and this left you in a pinch when buying new gear that was CUE 4 only.  Later on all the legacy devices were slowly worked back into CUE 4.  So if this was "the fix" to make it part of CUE 4, there would have expected a lot of push back that this was not the promised result and I have not seen anyone else mention this.  Not being able to control the pump lighting with CUE running is not really making it part of CUE 4.  There must be another explanation.

 

Since the easy repair install did not work, the next step is to do a full clean installation as described below.  Make sure you export any valuable profiles before doing this and you may also want to copy the C:(user name)/App Data/Roaming/Corsair folder to the desktop in case it does not work or is worse in some way.  It can be dropped back into place with CUE not running in order to restore yourself to the previous state.  Otherwise, the full clean install deletes everything.

 

https://help.corsair.com/hc/en-us/articles/360025166712-Perform-a-clean-reinstallation-of-the-Corsair-Utility-Engine-iCUE-

[Boomstomp]

2 hours ago, c-attack said:

Originally, the older GTX/v2 AIO coolers and several other hardware pieces from the very early RGB days were not included with the CUE 4 version of the software and those users were left behind on CUE 3.  A lot of owners were unhappy and this left you in a pinch when buying new gear that was CUE 4 only.  Later on all the legacy devices were slowly worked back into CUE 4.

Yes that's right, the H100i v2 was originally not supported in the first release of 4. You can still see it in this forum post:

They only added it in later I'm not sure in what version. At this time iCUE 4 was not compatible with my cooler or the mouse I had at that time so I sticked to iCUE 3 until I built the new pc.

2 hours ago, c-attack said:

Since the easy repair install did not work, the next step is to do a full clean installation as described below.  Make sure you export any valuable profiles before doing this and you may also want to copy the C:(user name)/App Data/Roaming/Corsair folder to the desktop in case it does not work or is worse in some way.  It can be dropped back into place with CUE not running in order to restore yourself to the previous state.  Otherwise, the full clean install deletes everything.

I'll give the full clean install a try but I'm not sure it will do anything because I did a complete clean install of Win 11 on this new system so there were nothing left behind from any previous versions of iCUE that may cause problems. Thanks for the replies I'll post an update once I've done the steps to clean reinstall it.

[c-attack]

11 hours ago, Boomstomp said:

did a complete clean install of Win 11 on this new system so there were nothing left behind from any previous versions

No, if this was not an in place copy over the CUE 3 data then it may not help, unless the problem occurred at initial installation. 
 

As this type of limitation was never mentioned by users in the old compatibility thread (I know I would have complained) and I have not seen it mentioned elsewhere, it stands to reason this is a aberration. I’m not sure if it’s criss-crossed on FW vs CUE version or a general corruption of the lighting file, but since the AIO is functional it probably makes sense to wait it out for Support rather than chase an problem with unknown origin. 

Edited August 21, 2022 by c-attack

[Boomstomp]

1 hour ago, c-attack said:

since the AIO is functional it probably makes sense to wait it out for Support rather than chase an problem with unknown origin.

I think before I go through the entire process of clean reinstalling iCUE, I'll ask support about it so they can confirm if there is a problem or if this is normal behaviour for iCUE 4.

1 hour ago, c-attack said:

this type of limitation was never mentioned by users in the old compatibility thread

I know, I tried searching the web about this and I could not find anyone else mentioning it anywhere. That's why I decided to make a forum post about it to just find out if there's any reason for the removal of this feature or like you said it could be an issue with iCUE.

[Boomstomp]

So I thought I'd just post a quick update since more than a week has passed now since I last posted.

Support has responded to me and also suggested I repair my iCUE. They told me to uninstall "Corsair composite virtual input device" in device manager and ticking the box to remove the driver for it. Then when that's done I ran the installer for iCUE and used the repair option. Luckily I still had the installer in my downloads folder.

Unfortunately this still made no difference and the cooler still only has hardware lighting.

[Boomstomp]

Alright, Got an update from support. They asked me to send a screenshot of my lighting settings for the cooler so they can show it to a specialist.

I'm starting to believe that I was incorrect in the beginning thinking this was intentionally removed from iCUE 4 since support said they'll look into it. Hopefully the guys at Corsair will sort this out.

[c-attack]

I don’t have any good ideas either. I’ve never seen this reported. 
 

Are there any other weird UI glitches with CUE?  Missing options for the RAM?  It reminds me a little bit of when you run another program that attempts to access the device at the same time as CUE. It’s common for the cooling tab to disappear with HWinfo or AIDA when not properly set up. But again, I’ve never seen the lighting option disappear without massive and obvious interference. 

[Boomstomp]

7 hours ago, c-attack said:

Are there any other weird UI glitches with CUE?  Missing options for the RAM?

Nope nothing out of the ordinary. Checked my ram settings too, all there and all working. The only other software I have installed that interacts with iCUE is ArmouryCrate and Wallpaper Engine and I'm having no issues with them.

Around the time before I contacted support I decided to test iCUE 3 with my system and it works fine. The cooler's lighting settings is also there in version 3 and are linked to profiles like it always was. Then I uninstalled 3 and reinstalled 4 again, and then still only hardware lighting in iCUE 4.

This confirms that the issue is only present in version 4 and I believe the only fix would be a patch for this in the next update.

[Boomstomp]

Been a while again since the last update so time to share what's been happening.

Not much has happened so far, the issue is still present and support asked me to do a forced firmware update to the cooler via the settings cog in iCUE. When I was about to do the forced firmware update I noticed that I can't do it because the cooler isn't even showing up in the list of devices for updates. The device settings tab also usually has an option to update firmware, but as seen in the previous screenshot there is no device settings tab for it when the cooler is selected in iCUE.

I reported this back to support and they said they are seeking additional info. Will update this post when I get more news from them.

[Boomstomp]

Okay so I've been asked to do the complete clean install of iCUE and redownloading the installer from corsair to reinstall it.

After completing the clean install I sadly still don't see any changes. No firmware update option or lighting effects.

What I've also tried doing was plugging the pump's USB cable into a different header on my motherboard and reseating the cable on the pump's side to make sure it's properly connected.

[c-attack]

On 9/22/2022 at 2:43 PM, Boomstomp said:

When I was about to do the forced firmware update I noticed that I can't do it because the cooler isn't even showing up in the list of devices for updates.

So the USB connection would be meaningful if the cooler did not show in CUE at all or was dropping in and out.  The quote above suggests to me that there is a serious firmware/hardware issue going on with your specific cooler.  If CUE detects the AIO, but then does not list it as a valid device to be updated, then there is something wrong with the device.  I've never seen this reported, so I do not believe it to be a widespread firmware version problem.  Something is physically wrong and it seems like Support should move things in the inevitable direction.  

[Boomstomp]

22 hours ago, c-attack said:

Something is physically wrong and it seems like Support should move things in the inevitable direction.

Perhaps you are right, I thought I'd download iCUE 3 one more time just to see if it gives me any firmware update options and I was surprised to see that it also doesn't have it. iCUE 3 just tells me "H100i v2 has no settings" however the lighting still works correctly in version 3.

This time I took screenshots of it in 3 for future reference.

I am wondering if Corsair LINK will give me any firmware related options, I won't try anything, I'll wait for support to advise before I take any further action, but I think it won't hurt to just see what comes up with corsair LINK installed instead of iCUE.

Edited September 29, 2022 by Boomstomp

[Boomstomp]

Been really long since I posted an update, wow.

I've reached a point where support has asked me to do another clean install of Windows. They say that these symptoms indicate that it is not a hardware problem but a software one deeper than just iCUE.

Doing a clean install of windows again is asking a bit much and I don't want to end up doing all that for nothing. So I asked if these specific lighting options mentioned are supposed to be in iCUE 4.

I never really got an answer on this question form support, they just starting providing troubleshooting steps and that made me assume that there were something wrong with my setup.

I really feel that this whole thing is still a wild goose chase. I would greatly appreciate it if support could just confirm that these options aren't supposed to be in iCUE 4. I don't even care if they don't plan to add them back, I just want to get to the bottom of this already.

Will update again if I get more details on this.

[c-attack]

This is an odd circumstance.  I suppose in theory something could be blocking communication between software and device, but I would expect to see issues on the other components as well.  Unfortunately I do not have any of the H1xxi GTX/v2 AIO models to hook up and test.

 

Hopefully someone in this forum still has a H1xxi GTX or v2 and can confirm the options are there or are also missing.  

[Boomstomp]

16 hours ago, c-attack said:

Hopefully someone in this forum still has a H1xxi GTX or v2 and can confirm the options are there or are also missing.

I went searching everywhere in the forum for any other posts about the h100i v2 and found this recent post:

In this post the author uploaded a screenshot of the cooler in iCUE version 4 where you can clearly see only the three options being available (hardware lighting, cooling and alerts). The author also mentioned it in the post: "H100i v2 gives me 3 options - hardware lighting + cooling + alerts."

This is identical to how the cooler shows up for me in the latest iCUE and confirms to me that I'm not the only one only getting these few options.

[c-attack]

I see that. We were talking about something else in the thread and that was not in play. 
 

So one possible explanation would be as follows:  The only lighting on the H1xxi GTX/v2 series is the pump led. It is a simple 12v led from the prior RGB generation and was never capable of more than static, blinking, color shift types of effects. So rather than try and implement it into CUE with addressable lighting in lighting effects that can’t work, it uses the simple hardware lighting interface that is limited to one effect and are easier to generate. 
 

So I guess the critical question is does that hardware lighting effect display on the pump LED when CUE is running (as if it was intended)?

[Boomstomp]

I saw that I got a reply from the support agent and they stated:

"I did receive confirmation that the lighting and settings that are available in iCUE 4 are as intended as there is minimal lighting settings that can be changed but also limit you with the profiles as this would have to be changed individually."

From that response I understand that the settings I get in iCUE 4 are normal and it's also normal that the lighting is no longer linked to my current profile. With that being said I asked support if we should continue troubleshooting or if we can close the support ticket.

42 minutes ago, c-attack said:

It is a simple 12v led from the prior RGB generation and was never capable of more than static, blinking, color shift types of effects.

That is true, it's only a simple RGB LED, but it can only do a static colour effect and nothing else. So no blinking or colour shift.

56 minutes ago, c-attack said:

So I guess the critical question is does that hardware lighting effect display on the pump LED when CUE is running (as if it was intended)?

Yes. I can confirm that it is working and I can customise the colour of the pump LED. The difference is that in the old iCUE (version 3.x) the static colour effect was linked to your current profile. Now in the latest iCUE (version 4.x) it stays whatever colour you set it to in the last profile no matter what profile is active.

While researching this I read that these older early RGB coolers where designed with hardware lighting only, no software lighting like the newer ones. Hardware lighting is the effect that plays when iCUE is not running e.g. the effect you see playing after turning on your PC before your OS loads or while you are in the bios. Thus hardware lighting is not linked to profiles, however Corsair did link the hardware lighting for this cooler to profiles in iCUE versions prior to version 4.x.

So looks like Corsair decided to remove this possibility when they added this now considered legacy cooler into the latest iCUE.