Question Have I mess up the ARGB lights of my PC? And what fans and fan hub to buy?

raccoon1

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Nov 2, 2019
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This is my PC: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/wNZJPJ Problem is I don't know if I can control the ARGB lights of the water cooler together with the fans on the case. Can I control the ARGB fans of the water cooler in the motherboard together with the fans on the case? Is there a problem if they are not in sync? What fans and fan hub should I buy? Sorry I'm a noob.
 
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No, not unless you have OCD and the mismatch is annoying you. Correct me if I'm wrong but the case doesn't come with fans, neither do I see fans showing up in your PCPartPicker listing.

What fans and fan hub should I buy?
You can look into Lian-Li's fans to round off your Lian-Li chassis/build. You should mention your location, your preferred site for purchase and your budget for said fans.
 
The answer is yes, but you need to understand a few details. First one is your list does NOT include any case ventilation fans, so I will simply assume that you will get some and that they WILL be STANDARD fans with ARGB lights in their frames. Do not get odd third-party fans that have non-standard connections, and ensure the lights in them are ARGB, and not the older plain RGB.

Your mobo has THREE ARGB headers to power and control ARGB lights - two on the front edge, and a third at the bottom to rear of centre. Do NOT try to use the plain RGB header (with FOUR pins) next to the THREE-pin ARGB header on the bottom edge.

Your case comes with two ARGB light strips pre-mounted and connected to an included lighting control system that uses front-panel buttons to control their displays. Its manual explains those buttons well. ONE option accessed using the MODE buttons allows you to have the control signals from a mobo lighting header take over control (and this would synchronize the lights with your fans) so the buttons are not controlling. This feature must include some cable from the case system that plugs into a mobo lighting header to get those control signals, but the case manual does NOT show that detail anywhere. Contact Lian Li to ask them for that detail. For now I will assume you can get that info and find the cable to make this connection.

Your AIO system includes a pump and rad fans of course, and each of these has separate cables for their motor and for lights. You have not asked about motor connections so I won't deal with that. But if you need advice on that, post back. The lighting cables of these units have an extra feature that many fans dso not have. The lighting cables each have TWO connectors on them, one male and one female. This allows you to connet them in a "daisy chain". You plug the female of ONE of them into a mobo male ARGB header. Then you plug the female of the NEXT one into the male from the first one, etc. That way ALL of the lighting units of the AIO system are connected to only ONE mobo ARGB header, leaving your other two headers free. When you get your fans, they MAY have that same feature. More likely they will not and you will need an ARGB Splitter to connecgt several fans' lighting cables to one mobo header. (SOME sets of case fans may come with such a Splitter.) Then you can either connect the CASE lighting strips' cable (paragraph above) to your third header OR to the Splitter you are using for the case fans.

That gets all lighting units connected to mobo ARGB headers for power and control. In most systems that means that all those lights will receive the same signals and be synchronized, and that all control of their display will be done using a software tool provided with the mobo called ASROCK Polychrome RGB. SOME such tools actually allow you to choose an option to have each of the three mobo ARGB headers operate independently which can allow each header to create different lighting displays for its group. I do NOT know whether Polychrome RGB can do this.
 
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The answer is yes, but you need to understand a few details. First one is your list does NOT include any case ventilation fans, so I will simply assume that you will get some and that they WILL be STANDARD fans with ARGB lights in their frames. Do not get odd third-party fans that have non-standard connections, and ensure the lights in them are ARGB, and not the older plain RGB.

Your mobo has THREE ARGB headers to power and control ARGB lights - two on the front edge, and a third at the bottom to rear of centre. Do NOT try to use the plain RGB header (with FOUR pins) next to the THREE-pin ARGB header on the bottom edge.

Your case comes with two ARGB light strips pre-mounted and connected to an included lighting control system that uses front-panel buttons to control their displays. Its manual explains those buttons well. ONE option accessed using the MODE buttons allows you to have the control signals from a mobo lighting header take over control (and this would synchronize the lights with your fans) so the buttons are not controlling. This feature must include some cable from the case system that plugs into a mobo lighting header to get those control signals, but the case manual does NOT show that detail anywhere. Contact Lian Li to ask them for that detail. For now I will assume you can get that info and find the cable to make this connection.

Your AIO system includes a pump and rad fans of course, and each of these has separate cables for their motor and for lights. You have not asked about motor connections so I won't deal with that. But if you need advice on that, post back. The lighting cables of these units have an extra feature that many fans dso not have. The lighting cables each have TWO connectors on them, one male and one female. This allows you to connet them in a "daisy chain". You plug the female of ONE of them into a mobo male ARGB header. Then you plug the female of the NEXT one into the male from the first one, etc. That way ALL of the lighting units of the AIO system are connected to only ONE mobo ARGB header, leaving your other two headers free. When you get your fans, they MAY have that same feature. More likely they will not and you will need an ARGB Splitter to connecgt several fans' lighting cables to one mobo header. (SOME sets of case fans may come with such a Splitter.) Then you can either connect the CASE lighting strips' cable (paragraph above) to your third header OR to the Splitter you are using for the case fans.

That gets all lighting units connected to mobo ARGB headers for power and control. In most systems that means that all those lights will receive the same signals and be synchronized, and that all control of their display will be done using a software tool provided with the mobo called ASROCK Polychrome RGB. SOME such tools actually allow you to choose an option to have each of the three mobo ARGB headers operate independently which can allow each header to create different lighting displays for its group. I do NOT know whether Polychrome RGB can do this.
Thank you for helping me though english is not my first language I will re-read many times until I understand. It seems like the fans must not connect to the PSU but must be three pins with a splitter to connect to the ARGB entry in the mobo that excluding the RGB one. It seems also this male and female ARGB cable of the water cooler is like a splitter. If I get my fans I will need to connect three of them of the side and of the bottom in two separate splliters so I dont need a fan hub. I think I will understand soon. Thank you.
 
Sorry for this - I'm about to give you more information, but will try not to add confusion!

There are two different types of devices for connecting several fans to mobo motor headers, but they can appear similar. Worse, the sellers of these use the two labels as if they mean the same thing, and that is wrong. A SPLITTER is a simple device. When it looks like a collection of cable "arms" it has one arm ending in a female connector (with holes) that plugs into a mobo fan header. Then it has two or more output arms (male connectors with pins) where you can plug in fan motor cables. The Splitter merely connects all the fans' wires in parallel to the outputs of the mobo header so they all get the same signals. This means that ALL of the fans involved must share the power available from the host header, and most headers have a limit. They all supply power at 12 VDC up to a max current load of 1.0 A. When using a Splitter you must find the max current spec for each fan (from its label or from its internet web page) and add up all those for the group of fans on this Splitter / header, and that total cannot exceed 1.0 A. (SOME mobo fan headers specify (in their mobo manuals) that they have a higher current limit.) A Splitter may look like a collection of cable "arms", or like a small circuit board, or like a closed box with output connectors recessed inside holes, but they all work the same.

A HUB is different in one clear factor that is easy to find when you know what to look for. It has an extra THIRD type of input that must be connected directly to a 4-pin Molex or a SATA power output connector from the PSU. This device still connects all fans to some of the host header's pins, but changes the POWER source for the fans. ALL the fans get their 12 VDC power direct from the PSU and draw none from the host header. So the current limit of the header does NOT apply. (A Hub still has a max curent limit, but it is much higher so you are VERY unlikely to exceed that with any reasonable number of fans.) HOWEVER, a HUB is designed so that it can only share out to its fans the PWM signal for its header to all its fans. That signal is how the SPEED of a fan is controled IF it is a new 4-pin PWM-style fan. But for an older 3-pin fan this signal can NOT be used and speed is controlled differently, so you cannot control the speed of a 3-pin fan using a HUB. So for 3-pin fans you can use only a SPLITTER.

Any mobo fan header receives from its fan a speed signal (a series of pulses) that it counts to display speed, although it does NOT use this information to actually control speed. It DOES monitor that signal for NO signal, though. That indicates fan FAILURE and prompts a warning message on your screem, and often even more actions for the CPU_FAN header to protect the CPU from overheating. However, that header can deal the speed signal of pulses from only ONE fan, so any Splitter or Hub will send to its host header the speed signal from only one of its fans, and will ignore all the others. The speeds of those "others" will never be seen (or monitored) anywhere. For a Splitter or Hub that looks like a collection of cable "arms", this is easy to see. The speed signal is sent along Pin #3 of each connector. So among the output arms, only one of them will contain all 4 pins, and the others will be missing Pin #3 so that those fan's signals cannot be sent anywhere. On a unit that looks like a circuit board or a box with recessed outputs, ONE of those will be marked as the only one that can send a speed back to the host header. In all cases you must ensure that the one output that can send back the speed signal HAS a fan plugged in there.

Before proceeding let me alert you to a confusing thing. We use the labels "3-pin" and "4-pin" a lot, BOTH for fan MOTOR connections and for fan LIGHTING connections. That is becasue that really is how the connectors appear. But these are DIFFERENT connectors on the ends of SEPARATE cables from a lighted fan. In fact, the lighted fan really is two seperate devices in one unit - a fan MOTOR, and LIGHTS - each with their own power and control needs. The two are NOT related, so a "4-pin fan" motor may have NO lights in its frame, or "4-pin" lights (the plain RGB type). or "3-pin" lights (the newer ARGB type.)

For LIGHTING connections, the cables on the fan are separate, the connectors on the ends are wider than for a fan motor and they go to different mobo headers. But very similarly to the discussion above for fan motors, you can get Splitters or Hubs for the LIGHTS in the fan frames. The difference between a Splitter and a Hub for lights is the same - the HUB has that third extra connection direct to a PSU power source so that its lights get all power from the PSU and NOT from the mobo header. Because older plain RGB (4-pin) and newer Addressable RGB (ARGB, 3-pin) require differnet connections, UNlike the way fan MOTOR connectors are designed, lighting Splitters and Hubs must be different for the two lighting types. Typical mobo lighting headers CAN supply power and control to several lighting units (say, 3 or 4 lighted fans) from EACH such header - usually the mobo manual will tell you of the lmits. So you need a lighting HUB only if you have a lot of lighted fans to connect to only one header. Because your mobo has THREE ARGB headers to work with, you will NOT need a HUB, OP. You can simply connect all the AIO system lights to one header using the "daisy chain" feature they include (you are RIGHT, this is just like using a Splitter), then use one ARGB Spltter to connect the case vent fans' lights to another, and plug the cable from the case's built-in strip light control system into the third header.
 
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Thank you for helping me though english is not my first language I will re-read many times until I understand. It seems like the fans must not connect to the PSU but must be three pins with a splitter to connect to the ARGB entry in the mobo that excluding the RGB one. It seems also this male and female ARGB cable of the water cooler is like a splitter. If I get my fans I will need to connect three of them of the side and of the bottom in two separate splliters so I dont need a fan hub. I think I will understand soon. Thank you.
It might help if you go to the AIO manufacturer's website, download the manual, and study the diagram on page 14:

https://download.msi.com/archive/mnu_exe/lc/7ZW4.pdf

Also you may not need a hub for the ARGBs since the Amazon website has numerous splitters which allow multiple devices to be connected to a single motherboard ARGB socket.

https://www.amazon.com/Jstincal-Ext...s&sprefix=argb+ex,electronics,116&sr=1-6&th=1

It is unfortunate that the manual for the case does not make it clear that the case includes an ARGB cable which can be connected to your motherboard to allow control of the case lights. As page 4 of the manual indicates you press and hold the Mode button on the case for 3 seconds to place the case into the mode where the motherboard controls the case lights and they are therefore synced with the other motherboard controlled lights:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DFMeXUfTGDAPeMUpAT4y0pCN2yxlUNRi/view?usp=sharing
 
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