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iCue not controlling properly RGB fans (LED hub + commander pro)


MateoTTR

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Hi All,

 

I have an Obsidian 500D RGB SE that comes directly with a commander pro and a LED hub connected to it.

I have 6 fans connected to the LED HUB:

- 3 LL 120 RGB that were bundled with the case

- 2 ML 140 PRO RGB that cool the H115i AIO

- 1 ML 120 PRO RGB at the rear of the case

 

Since the latest update of iCue, there is no way I can control the lighting of the 6 fans correctly.

I am not even sure what option I should pick in the lighting setup menu of the commander pro: for the lighting channel where the hub is connected, I have options for RGB led strip, HD, SP, SP PRO, LL, ML, QL Series fans etc...

I don't even know what to pick: the hub has six fans (3 LL and 3 ML) and is connected to a single channel on the commander pro.

 

No matter what options I pick, either no fans are lighted, or only the first 2 are lighted and the other are either off or blinking weirdly (I have tried also the 1, 2, 3 ,4 5, 6... fans are connected options but it does not change anything).

 

Could anyone please advise me on how to have the 6 fans lighted and synced properly?

Many thx in advance,

MateoTTR

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This is why the general suggestion is to not mix fan types. It makes setting quick and clear lighting options much more difficult. However, this can be made to work.

 

The program counts LEDs, both in total and on a per fan basis. A LL fan is a base 16 LED count. The ML-RGB is base 4. Assuming you have it set up on the RGB Hub as LL 1-3 and ML 4-6, then you will likely want "LL x 4" in your lighting set up. This will make the first three LL fan behave normally. Then the next 3 ML fans act like 3/4 of a normal LL. Using normal presets across all fans, this is likely to appear normal for static patters but for any moving effect the light will race through the ML very quickly. On your lighting effects list, you may want to apply one effect to the 3 LL and then apply a separate or different effect to 4th LL. Each 4 it's outer ring LEDs will apply to 1 of the ML fans. Running different effects for the front rail and interior should normalize the patterns, but this will take some experimentation to figure out what you like.

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Thanks a lot for this explanation.

What is hard to understand is that for the last 2 years I could use the RGB strip option stating that 4 fans are connected and lighting patterns such as rainbow wave were rendering just fine on both the LL and ML fans.

Otherwise what would be your recommandation? Adding another fan hub to separate the 3 ML fans and control them separately on the 2nd channel of the commander pro?

 

Thanks again for your explanations.

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That is another way to tackle this problem and it removes the "whole fan" programming effect since there are no effects that jump entire strip to next strip like a fan. Of course, that means you loose the special LL effects like heartbeat, pong, etc. as the strips are not capable of this.

 

So you have 16-16-16-4-4-4 for a total of 60 LEDs. You can set LED Strips x 6 to generate the (10 x 6) 60 LEDs. I don't know how this will compare. It might be better for something like visor or color wave, but again you will lose effects. It will also make it slightly more difficult to address specific fans. You just have to memorize which LEDs correspond to which fans. It will be sequential.

 

Two separate RGB Hubs or controllers would allow each to function as originally intended, but you may want to give the "One lighting effect for each group" a try before moving that direction. You might also look at using custom waves or ripples on top of static patterns for the ML to compliment rather than replicate the LL. I have 3 ML in the side wall of my case surrounded by 6 QL. There is nothing I can do to make them look like QL, so instead I try to blend them into a background or motherboard/RAM lighting compliment and not a continuation of whatever I have the QL doing -- usually a complex moving pattern.

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Thanks again for your comments, I understand much better how things work when controllin,g multiple fans connected to the hub.

I guess there is a specific issue for me with the latest iCue software (and maybe the fact that I use the latest builds of windows with insider).

In the LED strip mode, I can control the 60 LEDs (6x10) one by one. Everthing works fine until LED #32 (first 16 for fan #1, next 16 fpr fan #2) and from LED #33 and on it is all f*cked up: multiple fans light up and kind of blink all together.

Not sure if the problem is HW or SW, but for sure it worked much better before.

I will try to test the fans separately on port 1 of the hub to make sure they work OK and the LEDs are not dead.

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After some debugging, it turns out that one of my LL120 fans is defective (it has a blinking LED btw). What happens is that any fan connected after the defective one is not functionning properly (either LEDs are off or some of them are blinking weirdly).

The best I can do for now is put the defective fan on the last port (#6) so that at least the other fans work OK. I guess I will replace the LL120 and probably order another LED hub so that I can control better the LLs and the MLs separately.

 

Thanks again to c-attack for explaining to me how the fans and LEDs are enumerated on the hub.

Edited by MateoTTR
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