Question Separate argb fan color control?

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Mar 29, 2022
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I ordered a b550 tomahawk motherboard, my wish is to order 7 argb arctic coolers (3 front, 3 up, and 1 back), in addition I have an argb psu, and an argb cpu cooler, maybe I would install an argb led strip ...
The motherboard has 6 pwm connectors, and 2 argb connectors.
I can connect the fan control with splitters as I want, but is there a splitter / hub on which I can connect a lot of the listed coolers and control for each cooler colors separately?

Sorry for bad english...
 

Paperdoc

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In a manner similar to fan MOTORS, the LIGHTS of fan frames can be connected in groups to a single mobo LIGHTING header using either a Splitter or a Hub. A SPLITTER only connects your several fan lighting systems to one header, all lights in parallel and drawing power from the mobo header, so you need to obey the limit of max amps or lights on one header (see your mobo manual). This is NOT normally a problem. A HUB has an extra connection that must plug into a SATA power output from the PSU. It gets all power for the LIGHTS from the PSU and does not depend on the mobo header for power - required only for using a LOT of lighting devices from one header.

On surveying these units I see many Hubs with poor user ratings for quality, and fewer problems with Splitters from well-known makers. So I will recommend you get two SPLITTERS, like this

https://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-Addressable-Universal-Radiators/dp/B083X1W5G4/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2J87AVVUNSGH0&keywords=ARGB+Splitter&qid=1648575909&sprefix=argb+splitter,aps,87&sr=8-4#customerReviews

Each of these allows you connect up to five fans' lighting cables to a single mobo ARGB header with NO worry about overloading the host header. You have two such headers, so that allows up to 10 lighting devices. Just ensure that you configure the two lighting headers (using MSI Mystic Light on your mobo) identically if you want all of your lights to do exactly the same thing. This all assumes that all of the lighting units you have are built with common 3-pin ARGB connectors on their cables. Surely the Arctic fans will be - don't now for sure about the other lights.

You used the phrase "control separately". I'm not clear on what is to be separate from what. On almost all systems when you connect more than one lighting device to one mobo header using a Splitter or Hub, all of those devices do exactly the same thing because the Splitter or Hub can only distribute the SAME set of control signals to all lighting units connected. For example, four ARGB lighted fans on one header all will look exactly like each other all the time as their displays change. Lights connected to a different mobo header may also work the same OR differently, depending on how the two mobo headers are configured. However, it IS true of all ARGB lighting devices that, along one light strip at any one moment, every light point can have a different colour / brightness from others in the same lighting device. This is different from what a plain RGB system can do - in those systems, the entire light strip is all the same colour at any one moment.

There is a new version of ARGB lighting called Gen2 being introduced by ASUS (on some mobos) and Cooler Master (in a new Controller and some fans). Details are scarce yet, but they claim that every individual light point in any lighting device can be controlled separately from all others in a system, even with lighting systems that include up to four separate devices. So far it appears ONLY those two makers are selling Gen2 devices, so you will not be able to get that kind of unique performance from an MSI mobo and Arctic Cooler fans.
 
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Mar 29, 2022
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Are you saying that there is no hub that can convert more than 5v connectors through one 5v connector and thus manage the color argb for each fan separately, but only the color I choose through one connector, it can only be the main one?
 

Paperdoc

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I guess I was not clear. Certainly there ARE both SPLITTERS and HUBS that allow you to connect several ARGB lighting devices (fans, strips, etc) to one Controller output, whether that is a third party separate Controller or just the ARGB header built into a mobo. Whether you need a Splitter or a Hub depends mostly on how may lighting devices you plan to use. Any one ARGB header on a mobo has a limit of the max current it can provide to all connected lights, and a related limit on the max number of light nodes or LED's it can deal with. If you are planning many lighting devices, you MAY need to use a Hub which can provide more power.

Either way, a Splitter or a Hub can only distribute to ALL of its devices the SAME control signal. For example, if you have three fans with lights in their frames plus one light strip all on a single Splitter and mobo ARGB header, all of those items will show exactly the same display pattern at any moment. On one fan at one moment the pattern may be a single colour, one colour in different brightnesses, a rainbow, etc. - all of the possibilities of an ARGB display. But every fan will look exactly like that at that moment, and as your display changes they ALL will change the same. The only way to have different fans display different light patterns is to have them fed from different Controllers (or mobo headers) that are programmed to do different things. In your case, OP, your mobo has TWO ARGB headers, so using the MSI Mystic Light utility you CAN make each of those headers put out different signals. That way you could create TWO groups of lighted fan frames, and each group can be different from the other. But within one Group all fans would look the same at any one moment.

The new Gen2 version of ARGB lighting I mentioned above changes those limits. It appears what they can do is treat up to four light devices (fan, strip) separately on one circuit (mobo header and Splitter) so that each device (one fan) is controlled separately from the others. The result is that you could connect four fans via a Splitter to one mobo header and all four fans' displays can be different at any one moment. This takes a bunch of work to create the configurations for the fans, but is allows more diversity in your displays than the normal ARGB system. Again, I know on only two companies right now - ASUS and Cooler Master - who sell devices for this new Gen2 system.
 

Paperdoc

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Yes, the Razer Chroma ARGB controller together with their Razer Chroma Synapse 3 software may do what you want. It is a third-party ARGB Controller you can use in place of your mobo's ARGB headers to connect your fans and other lighted devices. Although the system web page does not make this point clear, that review you linked to does: what is unique is that it has SIX output ports and ALL of them are treated as individual Controller outputs so they ALL can be configured to do DIFFERENT displays. If you connect more than one lighting device to one port, all the devices on that one port will do the same thing, but that can different from any other port's displays. Unlike many such Controllers, it does not appear to have any way to input the signals from your mobo's headers and let that take over, so it cannot "sync" with Mystic Light. But even if it could, then the signal from ONE mobo header would have to take over ALL of the Razer Controller's six output ports making them all the same. I suspect you do not want to do that, anyway - you WANT the six ports to act differently.

You have more that six lighted devices to plug in. I don't have their details, but you may have one or more that do NOT have a separate cable to plug into an ARGB controller, and simply do their own light thing. But most WILL need connection to a Controller output. So the simplest plan would be to use a few Splitters to connect two or more devices to each of several ports, recognizing that this means all devices on ONE port will do the same thing. BUT you could do this trick, too. Your mobo has two ARGB headers that you can configure using the mobo software MSI Mystic Light. Those two would operate completely independent of the Razer Chroma system, and that software can configure those two mobo ports also to be different displays. So in total you could be using EIGHT separate Controller output ports, not six.

I note the Razer unit specifies its load limits: max 80 LED's per port, max 240 LED's total on the Controller six ports. It is highly likely that will not really be a limit for you. Each fan or strip or whatever will tell you the number of LED's it has. Many fans have 10 or 12 , and very few would have more than 20. You can look up their specs on their web pages.

Just a note on jargon. This unit does not convert a USB mobo port into a lighting Controller. It IS the controller and it contains a LOT of pre-programmed options that you can configure using the Synapse 3 software tool. That software merely communicates your choices to the Controller using the USB2 communication link.
 
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