1 of my QL 120 has wrong colour LED after little use?

[Ady1976]

Hi I purchased 10 QL 120 Fans 2 years ago and have hardly used them! in total they have only been on around 10 hours in that time, (Don't have them on all the time) and one of them already has a different colour LED for eg when I select white the LED is Pink and when I select green the LED turns Red.

Where do I go from here as they have had little use in terms of lighting and were very expensive to boot.

[c-attack]

Unfortunately this a somewhat common failing on the QL model.  The green LED in the middle of the LED group burns out.  Contact Corsair Support so they can replace it.  

[Ady1976]

28 minutes ago, c-attack said:

Unfortunately this a somewhat common failing on the QL model.  The green LED in the middle of the LED group burns out.  Contact Corsair Support so they can replace it.  

Wow after such little use? I wouldn't mind they were the most expensive fans I bought, Last time I purchase these I reckon, I'll contact support thanks.

[LeDoyen]

it's not just the QL, just about any brand of LED will suffer when doing white lighting. it makes the LEDs run hot and that kills them way quicker than if they were doing any other color

[Ady1976]

2 hours ago, LeDoyen said:

it's not just the QL, just about any brand of LED will suffer when doing white lighting. it makes the LEDs run hot and that kills them way quicker than if they were doing any other color

Haven't had others other than Fractal ARGB fans but never had any issues with them during ownership.

 

I don't run them white at all that was just a test to see what was going on with it, They have probably ran white about 20 mins of their lifetime, I don't think that's normal.

For the little use they've had probably about 10 hrs runtime I've always used cycling RGB.

[c-attack]

We've seen it both ways. For some users it was X number of months down the line and then bam....  several fans all do it at the same time.  Others have seen it on one or two fans almost right out of the box.  I think it is more indicative of an electrical failing rather than burning the LED out like a lightbulb filament.  

[Ady1976]

8 hours ago, c-attack said:

We've seen it both ways. For some users it was X number of months down the line and then bam....  several fans all do it at the same time.  Others have seen it on one or two fans almost right out of the box.  I think it is more indicative of an electrical failing rather than burning the LED out like a lightbulb filament.  

Yeah it definitely sounds like some electrical sort of failure as LEDs shouldn't matter what colour you run them at as they're normally extremely reliable, They last for years in all sorts of other devices,

So far it's only the 1 out of the 10 but I fear it's just going to be a domino effect if I started to use them more.

I've done a bit of googling and these fans do seem to be plagued with this particular fault, I wonder if it's the software causing too high voltages to be sent out to the LEDs during transition or something.

Corsair is sending me a replacement out thankfully.

[LeDoyen]

most of the time it's like in your case an early failure from a bad quality LED, or it's temperature issues (which is silly since we're in a fan :p)

each LED has 3 color dies, and the more you light up, and to a higher brightness, the more the whole LED will heat up.

That's why white lighting is so prone to killing RGB leds, and probably why more home lighting devices use RGBW with a dedicated white die. Making white off the 3 primary colors is extremely inefficient. People may use QL fans for years and years doing colors, but may burn the LEDS up in 2 or 3 months doing a white themed build.

[Ady1976]

Yeah maybe it is because they're just RGB LEDs.

 

I did find a post on Corsair Reddit somewhere that a Corsair employee has said this issue has been fixed with newer replacement fans so there obviously was an issue in manufacturing quality or components used.

I don't know where to go from here as I've literally had them 2 years and the warranty is run out just but if I start to use them more I can see all the others failing as all my are from an early batch not the newer revised one's.

[c-attack]

I tend to believe this is a LED temperature issue. It’s almost always the middle green that goes out and most users had been running white, which would create the greatest amount of power draw (heat). We’ve also seen the QL do a white point shift somewhere in its life where it goes from something like a 8000K cool white to a whole fan warmer white tint. I had a couple of QL do this and started the replacement process, only for the remaining 8 fans to all join them over the following several weeks. Once they were all the same, it was less of an issue. 
 

I think the general advice with the QL is if you want white, turn down the intensity a bit — either in terms of color value (180/180/180 R-G-B) or the opacity slider if you prefer. Another option is to use a “shade”. That’s a 0/0/0 static black layer on top, then you turn lower the opacity value to let light through. That works on all underlying effects including complex ones without output control like watercolor spectrum. 

[Ady1976]

It is the middle ring that went on mine I don't use white though, I always use RGB.

I've had 1 replacement now but haven't fitted yet.

I'm hoping no more follow.