Question How do I get my NZXT fans to show RGB and not run at a high speed?

[iiFlukeyy]

Hi there,

I'm having two issues with my fans since I upgraded, firstly the lights on them aren't working and they are running at a high speed and never change.

I upgraded to the NZXT H7 Flow RGB case which comes with the NZXT F360 RGB fans at the front and I purchased two NZXT F120 fans for the back which are all running through the deepcool SC790 hub.

The hub is plugged into the PSU via sata and is also connected to the motherboard into sys_fan1 on my gigabyte b450m ds3h motherboard.

Have tried to research on what to do here but not having much luck and this forum helped me heaps with putting it together so thought I would ask.

Thanks!
Luke

 

[Paperdoc]

Fan motors and lights should be dealt with separately, since they actually are two different devices in one unit (the lighted fan).

You say the fan MOTORS all are connected somehow to the Deepcool SC790 Hub. I believe these fans come with non-stanrdard cable connectors, but may have included an adapter cable to let you connect them to a standard 4-pin PWM header (or hub port). When using that Hub one thing you must do: make SURE that one fan's motor is plugged into the ONLY port with a blue-green marker in it. ONLY that one port can send back to the mobo host header a fan speed signal. Then ALSO check the configuration of the SYS_FAN1 header you are using that Hub with. It MUST be set to use PWM Mode, not Voltage or DC or "Auto" Mode so that the hub gets a PWM signal for its fans.

Regarding the fans' LIGHTING cables, again the non-standard connector issue comes up. Do you have some adapter that allows your fans' lights to plug into a normal 3-pin (4-1 pin) male header or port? If not, plugging a NON-standard cable into a standard port can cause BIG problems!

 

[iiFlukeyy]

Hi there, thanks for looking at this for me.

So yes each fan/set of fans has a 4 pin connector that I have in a port labelled PWM. One of these is plugged into the blue/green one. Unfortunately the PWM setting didn't have any effect.

The fans lights each go into a port labelled ARGB which is a 3 pin port so I believe they are in the right place.

Could my issue potentially be that I am only running a connection to my motherboard sys_fan1 from a connection on my hub labelled MB ARGB?
The hub has another labelled MB PWM but i'm not sure where this would go. From the guide I believed I got it correct but clearly not!

Cheers again

 

[Paperdoc]

YES. BOTH of your issues are because you have made a wrong connection.

The SC790 Hub came with THREE cables to make connections. One with two wide connectors plugs into one end of the Hub, and goes to a SATA power output connector from the PSU. That gets power for all hub functions. On the opposite end of the Hub there are TWO sockets with cables to fit. One of these has 4 pins, and its cable must go to your mobo SYS_FAN1 header. THAT cable gets the PWM speed control signal for fan motors and returns to the header the speed signal of the one fan that is plugged into the Hub's marked port. From your description you do not have this cable connected, so the Hub has NO speed control signal for fan motors.

The second cable has only TWO wires and connector holes, and it MUST go to a mobo ARGB header. It gets the lighting control codes from that header. HOWEVER - and this is big! - your mobo does NOT have any such header! It has only one lighting header called LED_CPU that is of the OTHER type called plain RGB and you can NOT connect this to your hub! It will damage your hub! The cable plugged into that Hub port you have connected instead to odd fan speed control signals from SYS_FAN1 and that can NOT do anything to get the fan lights to work. Unplug that cable.

So, how do you get lights to work with NO source of lighting control signals? You need to buy and install a third-party ARGB lighting Controller and connect the 2-wire cable from your Hubs' ARGB input 2-pin socket to an output of that Controller. See my post of Nov 21 in this thread by another person who lacks an ARGB mobo header.

https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...p-read-the-replies-plz.3861192/#post-23376766

 

[iiFlukeyy]

Perfect, thank you so much for your detailed responses. Fans are working perfectly now and have ordered an ARGB controller that will fit my 3 pin.

Thanks, Luke