Question PC will not boot until SATA powered RGB controller is plugged in - but why?

[vlad-kzm]

Hello everyone,

Since last week I have this new case with an RGB controller board, I have only learnt how RGB works this past week. It uses 3-pin ARGB to the motherboard and a SATA cable for power. Well at first since I didn't know how this worked I didn't plug in the ARGB or the SATA. Then only the ARGB. Then both the ARGB and SATA and that worked fine. My question is, when not using the SATA cable I basically could not boot the Windows installer or sometimes I wouldn't even get a signal to the monitor. This all went away once I plugged in the SATA for the RGB control. But why? Why would this affect the rest of the computer like that? Can anyone explain?

Thank you

 

[Paperdoc]

My guess is that you have loaded the device driver for that Controller under Windows, so at boot time Windows goes looking for it and wants a proper response to confirm it is working. When it is NOT, Windows is stalled for a while (how long? who knows?) waiting. If you wait long enough it MAY give up waiting for the expected response and get going again.

If you plan to use that Controller, make its connections. If you plan NOT to use it, ensure it IS connected and go into Windows Device Manager and find that device. Delete and remove it there, then shut down and disconnect the cables to the Controller. Windows won't look for it if it has no driver, and Windows will not "foind" it as a new device if it is disconnected.

 

[vlad-kzm]

My guess is that you have loaded the device driver for that Controller under Windows, so at boot time Windows goes looking for it and wants a proper response to confirm it is working. When it is NOT, Windows is stalled for a while (how long? who knows?) waiting. If you wait long enough it MAY give up waiting for the expected response and get going again.

If you plan to use that Controller, make its connections. If you plan NOT to use it, ensure it IS connected and go into Windows Device Manager and find that device. Delete and remove it there, then shut down and disconnect the cables to the Controller. Windows won't look for it if it has no driver, and Windows will not "foind" it as a new device if it is disconnected.

Yeah yeah it's all good, I'm really liking this RGB stuff. I was just curious. Today I actually figured out how to sync the case fan leds with the motherboard. It has been a bit of a puzzle because my case does not come with a manual, but it's a good case.

I think that it's not the first time I see a PC refuse to load because some connector from the front panel is not connected. Crazy how they do that. I guess this is similar.

Here I don't think it was Windows, because when this happened Windows was not installed yet. But maybe the motherboard was expecting some response from the case fans or controller, and refused to boot when it didn't get it. I don't know.. That's why I'm curious. Maybe I could email the case manufacturer...