Question How are standard 12v 4pin RGB headers wired on a gigabyte gaming SLI

[CharlesK_]

My Gigabyte z390 Gaming SLI has a standard 4pin RGB header onboard that syncs a strip with the onboard leds. The onboard LEDS are blue to match the rest of the build, but I want the strip, which is under my desk to be white.

I assume the way they work is the 12V pin provides voltage for all Leds and when the red, green or blue pins are grounded by the onboard controller, the respective leds turn on, meaning I assume that with what I have made below everything will be fine but I don't want to plug it in and risk damaging my motherboard until I know for sure its safe.

With a bit of heat shrink, some wireclippers and a couple of RGB male to male connectors I have made this connector for my rgb strip to effectively short the red and green terminals on the strip to the blue pin on the motherboard, thus making the strip white. Is this safe? Or is there any way it will damage the RGB controller on my motherboard? As well as this, will this then mean the white light of the led strip is not as bright? I expect this although It's not a major issue

Note, the red and green pins on the motherboard are not connected to anything and are clipped on the connector that plugs into the motherboard, only the blue pin is shorted to the red and green of the strip.

Thanks in advance

 

[Paperdoc]

I do not have one of those, so I cannot tell you for sure. I expect you would have no problem and it will work. BUT you should be aware that it's not quite as simple as you think. As you know, the shades of colour you can achieve with this plain RGB system are a huge range, and the brigtness of the lights also can be varied. The control system run by the header does not merely switch each ground line to open or connected. It actually manipulates a resistance between the header pin and real Ground for each of the three LED Ground lines. This means it regulates the actual current flowing though each of the three colour Ground lines, effectively mixing the brightness of each colour to achieve all those intermediate shades and brightnesses. I do not know exactly what mix is required to achieve White, but it may NOT be totally on for all three LED colours. So the White you get MAY be tinted in some way.