RGB on my 6 QL 120 fans not working properly

I got 2 packs of the 3 QL 120 fans about a month ago and everything was working fine until yesterday. My fans are stuck with a singular blue LED lit up. Since i got 2 boxes of the fans i had 2 of the Lighting node cores which i tried to swap out but nothing changed. any help??

They all have that 1 blue LED on them? That is a strange issue. The lighting along the fans is serial, so when you have a bad fan you normally expect the lighting to stop or be corrupted after the "bad fan", but OK before. Try swapping the #1 fan with #6 on the Core device and see if things change. If no change, try the steps below.

 

With lighting glitches on all the fans, I might normally suspect the controller, but you've already swapped that out. Run a repair install of CUE to make sure there isn't a corrupted configuration file for the lighting arrangement. Windows Apps -> left click Corsair iCUE and select 'Modify'.

 

When backup and running, try the Instant Lighting from the top drop down menu for Red, Blue, Green, and White to see if the fans respond or are lacking specific colors.

so i tried moving the different fans around the controller and no configuration works. i also ran the repair install but still have the issue. i already contacted support about the issue, hopefully they have some input that may be helpful. thank you for the reply!

I'm afraid I don't get this one either. With no other information besides the picture, my first guess would be the Core device has a physical problem, but that was the first thing checked with no change.

 

If you force quit iCUE from the task manager or the menu bar drop down, what do the fans do? Stay on the blue pattern? Or revert to Rainbow wave or whatever is set as the Hardware lighting option?

i cant do a single thing to change the color of the fans, i did a fresh install of icue yesterday with no profiles and still the same blue. ive went into the task manager and did all that stuff with no change. i even switched the usb header that i use to see if there was a communication problem with my motherboard. im not sure what the issue could be so for now i guess i just wait to hear back from support to see if they can solve my issue. thanks again man!

I am hoping a firmware flash for the for Core might resolve this. That's really the only thing that makes sense at this point. Did you already try a force update of the Core firmware? Current version is 0.9.0.16. Click update. It will tell you it's already updated. Click the force update option.

 

Make sure all these steps you've already done are in your Support Ticket or they will ask you do to them again and you'll go to the back of the queue.

yes, i have forced the update already. is there a way to restore a previous update? maybe that will fix the issue

I think you would need a file copy of the prior firmware. However, pretty much everyone running QL or SP-Pro fans is using the Core and this is not something that comes up. I don't think it is version related.

Did you manage to fix this? I'm having the same issue and going to contact support, but if you've got a solution that'd be super helpful!

No, i havent been able to fix them yet. im waiting to hear from support still, i will post if they have an answer to this issue.

Damn, it's been a few months I had hoped Corsair would have managed to help you resolve it. I've created a ticket with them so will post any updates. If I don't get anywhere in a couple of weeks I'm just going to return them all while I can and find an alternative.

 

I've got 10 QL 120s connected via 2 Commander Pros and 2 Lighting Node Cores. All my fans have always just been blue.

 

I've tried swapping in a 3rd Lighting Node Core, switching fan positions and repairing iCUE. I haven't updated the firmware as everything was already on the latest.

is it the entire fan that is lit up or only a couple of LEDs?

I've attached a picture. It's just 2 LEDs lit on each, 1 blue, 1 the colour used to identify the fan in the iCUE lighting setup panel.

looks very similar. hopefully we can find a resolution to our issue. i will keep you posted on anything i come across man.

Do either of you have the SATA power for the Core on the same ribbon with multiple HDDs or something else that draws on the 5v line or heavily across all three (like a HDD)? The blue dots is not what I would expect to happen in that scenario, but I don't have any other plausible explanations at this point.

Good idea, I had a commander pro on the same ribbon as a SSD, a HDD and my cooler so that easily could have been the issue.

 

Sadly I just moved both commander pros and lighting node cores onto a separate ribbon and no difference :(

 

I'm wondering if it's something to do with the internal USB headers/cables. That's what's used to control the RGB via iCUE right? I've bought the NZXT internal USB hub and a male to male internal/external usb cable so going to do some testing later today.

 

With these being my first RGB fans and having 20 fan cables, 4 hubs and 8 cables coming from those there's a lot of places thing can go wrong. I can see why the new Lian Li uni fans have been so popular, I'd only need 4 fan cables and 1 hub with 3 cables running from it. Hopefully it's something Corsair can replicate!

i have two SSDs on the same sata power cord, not HDD.

i have two SSDs on the same sata power cord, not HDD.

 

That should a non-issue. You might pull 5-6W combined from the 3 rails at max write for 1 drive, but that’s not enough to cause issues and an isolated condition that might only appear during a benchmark - not a permanent state.

 

I don’t understand this issue. Why blue? That’s not what I would expect from a LED malfunction nor a controller crash. Most things don’t default to blue. Is this a very strange software glitch?

i still havent heard from support yet, maybe they can help out or possibly send new fans. i have no idea what could be causing this. i didnt expect having an issue like this with fans of this price.

Is this a very strange software glitch?

 

From BNewt's post theirs worked for a while before turning blue so possibly. Mine have always been like that from initial power on after first installing them before booting into windows.

 

Because of that I don't think it's a software issue. I'm not sure if the fans have drivers? Updating the hub firmware in iCUE hasn't seemed to help.

I received this from Corsair support.

 

This issue is often caused by 1 or more fans having faulty LED. A fan with faulty LED tends to cause everything further down the chain to also experience issues.

 

Try hooking up each QL fan to slot 1 on the LED hub. If this doesn't cause any unusual behavior, leave one fan on slot 1 and test the remaining fans on slot 2.

 

Repeat on further slots until you run out of fans, but always make sure to fill up the slots in order (starting from 1) as they are wired in series. This will help determine which of the fans is faulty.

 

I've tried reordering fans before with no luck, but I'm going to disconnect all of them and do one at a time and see if I have any luck.

After taking everything out and trying each fan one at a time in slot 1 of both lighting node cores it made no difference. They all lit up with a single blue light when toggling instant lighting on/off with each connection.

 

I've forwarded this on to support and will see if they come back with anything else.

Mine have always been like that from initial power on after first installing them before booting into windows.

 

Would the software then correctly apply colors/patterns once CUE was up and running? Or was it the splattered blue all the time, software running or not?

 

The fan swap did not work for BNewt either and the the uniform nature across all the fans suggests the problem is with the controller (Core). However, swapping in a new Core did not work either and that is the puzzling part. If there is no change between HW mode and software mode, it suggests the Core controller cannot implement the changes it's supposed to. Both of you see the controller, so we know it's a viable device from a USB standpoint, yet somehow it's still "stuck" on the blue thing. It keeps reading like a bricked/frozen Core device that won't yield control to the software. Yet why did the new Core immediately do the same? Is something in the software putting it into that state?

 

I'm about out of ideas. One more thing you can try is the following:

 

1) Quit iCUE. Then navigate to C:Users/(name)/App Data (hidden)/Roaming/Corsair/CUE/hwlightings and then cut and paste that white hwlighting config file to the desktop.

 

2) Restart the PC. When CUE loads again it will generate a new HW Lightings config based on default values. If no change, you can throw the old config file back in if you like or simply reset your HW lighting (that doesn't work anyway).

 

I am not overly optimistic, but it seems like something is preventing the controller from picking up where it should. It's possible something in the HW lighting config won't let go.

 

 

 

The other way to address this is to navigate to the same C:Users/(name)/App Data/Roaming folder. Cut and paste the entire Corsair folder to the desktop. Uninstall CUE and check the box to delete all settings. Restart the PC. Before reinstalling CUE, what does the lighting do? Still blue? That does suggest to me the issue is at the controller. Reinstall CUE, see if the lighting changes. If not, you can drop the Corsair folder back into place in the Roaming folder to put all your profiles and settings back into place.

 

You both might also want to turn on debug logging in the CUE settings. Perhaps there are errors being generated. I am not sure I can read it, but eventually someone is probably going to want it.

Thanks c-attack, I really appreciate the help/suggestions. I agree it feels like a core issue failing to apply the settings to the fans. The fans spin and 1/2 leds light up so it seems unlikely there's issues with them. I'd just be surprised if I have 3/3 broken cores, so again I agree it's more likely software related. I've seen a few people have compatibility issues with asus motherboards, but I'm using a gigabyte board (x570 aorus master).

 

I've disconnected all my fans from the lighting node cores, disconnected a core so I now have 1 and have connected a single fan to it to simplify testing.

 

I'm in the process of uninstalling iCUE and will delete the Corsair directory in appdata afterwards (as I'm not using any other corsair software). I'll let you know what happens to the fans after restarting and after reinstalling iCUE. Fingers crossed!

 

I did an export of the logs a few days ago, I did spot this:

2020-09-08T17:01:18 W libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
2020-09-08T17:01:19 C cue.server.device: Unknown device type: 0
2020-09-08T17:01:19 C cue.server.device: Unknown device type: 10
2020-09-08T17:01:19 C cue.server.device: Unknown device type: 11
2020-09-08T17:01:19 C cue.server.device: Unknown device type: 12
2020-09-08T17:01:19 C cue.server.device: Unknown device type: 13
2020-09-08T17:01:19 C cue.server.device: Unknown device type: 14
2020-09-08T17:01:19 I cue.lightings.direct_player: Stopped lighting worker in 0x57e0

 

If this doesn't work I'm happy to share whatever logs might help.

So sadly no change through the entire process. My mouse and ram kept their profiles until iCUE was reinstalled and they changed to rainbow wave.

 

The only change to the fans was the rpm lowering when ICUE booted up. I've tried connecting a few different fans and they're all the same, although some have a second green led light up :[pouts:

 

I've attached the logs generated now after reinstalling iCUE

2020-09-11T15-38-17.log

lla-2020-09-11T15-38-04_1.log

Edited September 11, 2020 by pie_masters