iCUE and TD500 Case fans

[B4zookaw]

Hey all,

Finally took delivery of my build yesterday:
Case
COOLERMASTER MASTERBOX TD500 MESH ARGB GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12 Core CPU (3.7GHz-4.8GHz/70MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® STRIX B550-F GAMING (DDR4, USB 3.2, 6Gb/s) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3070 Ti - HDMI, DP, LHR
1st Storage Drive
2TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 256MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB INTEL® 670p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 3500MB/sR | 2500MB/sW)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W RMx SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Processor Cooling
Corsair H150i ELITE CAPELLIX RGB Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Monitor
PCS GD27 27" GAMING MONITOR - 1440p, IPS, 165Hz

First time having a PC with RGB, so been spending some time trying to get used to it. Based on my research to date, my understanding is that iCUE software can control non Corsair RGB items as well, as long as you have Armoury Crate installed to provide the plugin.

And indeed, in iCUE I can see my motherboard listed:

But none of my colour selections seem to have any effect on the three case fans on the front (Cooler Master fans). I'm wondering if Amoury Crate is the primary controller of the non Corsair RGB items, and overriding anything I set in iCue. And if that's the case, how do I set iCUE as the primary?

Any advice welcome!

 

[Martinr36]

Ok best of luck getting Armoury crate and Icue playing nicely together, I tried for ages and finally gave up and turned the plugins off, and set my motherboard and GPU to a similar setup as the rest of my fans were set in Icue (I have a CORSAIR iCUE 465X RGB GAMING CASE), seeing that you have the Corsair H150i ELITE CAPELLIX, what i would do is treat yourself to a set of these to replace the coolermaster fans with

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-120-Premium-Magnetic-Levitation/dp/B076VD725X/ref=sr_1_7?crid=1HPUNPCZMQLKE&keywords=corsair+ml120&qid=1640080737&sprefix=corsair+m%2Caps%2C80&sr=8-7

 

[B4zookaw]

Thanks Martin. Yeah, longer term I'll probably upgrade the front 3 fans and the single rear one to Corsairs for consistency. Just need the piggy bank to replenish first!

After more research, I'm wondering if it's possible at all. Corsair says it only supports controlling 12-volt RGB header fans. I suspect the TD500 fans are 5V ARGB...

 

[Martinr36]

After more research, I'm wondering if it's possible at all. Corsair says it only supports controlling 12-volt RGB header fans. I suspect the TD500 fans are 5V ARGB...

yeah i think your best bet for now is to turn off those plug ins, control the case fans, motherboard lighting etc through Armoury crate, and the cooler fans through iCUE, then when the piggy bank allows replace the coolermaster fan with corsair ones.

If you're interested have a look at what I did to "The Berserker" when i got it

The fettling has begun

Ok so the Berserker came with3 LL120 fans in the front of the case, mounted behind these is the radiator which then has a pair of ML 120 fans behind them. The 3 front fans are plugged int the fan headers on the motherboard and the lighting node, with the 2 cooler fans plugged into the...

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

 

[B4zookaw]

yeah i think your best bet for now is to turn off those plug ins, control the case fans, motherboard lighting etc through Armoury crate, and the cooler fans through iCUE, then when the piggy bank allows replace the coolermaster fan with corsair ones.

If you're interested have a look at what I did to "The Berserker" when i got it

The fettling has begun

Ok so the Berserker came with3 LL120 fans in the front of the case, mounted behind these is the radiator which then has a pair of ML 120 fans behind them. The 3 front fans are plugged int the fan headers on the motherboard and the lighting node, with the 2 cooler fans plugged into the...

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

Yeah, that's what I've now done: Capellix through iCUE and the remaining RGB through Armoury Crate.

My next knowledge hill to climb is how to control all the fans. iCUE for the AIO obviously, but what is best for case fans? BIOS? AI Suite? Armoury Crate? Not to mention trying to figure out if they are PWM or not. 🤯

I'm going to copy your custom curves for the AIO in that thread you linked to as a start @Martinr36, thanks.

 

[TonyCarter]

FanExpert within AISuite will let you control the case fans.

 

[B4zookaw]

FanExpert within AISuite will let you control the case fans.

Yes, but I’d like to avoid having yet another app running in background, they all add up to a performance hit. I might try my hand at Q fan in BIOS and see if that’s a viable option

 

[Ash]

Armoury Crate iCue integration only allows you to control certain aspects of the RGB and I don't think fans are one of them. From the look of yours it's just the RGB lights near the I/O at the back and whatever is plugged into the 4-pin RGB headers (not the 3-pin aRGB headers). I have an ASUS ROG motherboard and it allows me to control the RGB on the Back I/O, the PCB (which is covered up by the GPU!) and whatever is plugged into the 2 4-pin RGB headers (I use LED strips). My mobo also has 2 3-pin aRGB headers that don't show up in iCue.

What do the the RGB connections on your fans plug in to? I imagine they are daisy chained together and then they plug in to the 3-pin aRGB header at the bottom of your motherboard. If so, you can get a simple 3-pin aRGB to 4-pin RGB converter and plug them into the 4-pin RGB header instead, that should allow you to control them in iCue. This one looks like it'd do the job. https://www.overclockers.co.uk/phan...iWziP5l5HhFZAY8KSCJ90X8EbVaupCYxoCLdsQAvD_BwE

 

[TonyCarter]

Yes, but I’d like to avoid having yet another app running in background, they all add up to a performance hit. I might try my hand at Q fan in BIOS and see if that’s a viable option

That's why I went for an all Corsair set-up (case, case fans. AIO pump & fans, commander pro) and just left the motherboard lights to whatever random patter they were on from the factory. I removed the whole Armory Crate bundle that was pre-installed (I believe there's even an option in the Asus BIOS for 'Download & Install ARMOURY CRATE app' set to enabled by default.

 

[B4zookaw]

Yes, would have simplified things alright. Lesson learned for the next time!

 

[Vajra]

Armoury gave me so much headache. It would crash pc occasionaly as well. I got rid of it and no problems since then. Motherboard RGB can't really be seen much in my case so I'm not much bothered.

 

[TonyCarter]

Yes, would have simplified things alright. Lesson learned for the next time!

Don't worry.

In 5-7 years time I'm sure we'll have an agreed system for integrating/connecting/controlling all these disparate components...and they'll all be controllable by a single app.

Yeah, right

 

[Martinr36]

Don't worry.

In 5-7 years time I'm sure we'll have an agreed system for integrating/connecting/controlling all these disparate components...and they'll all be controllable by a single app.

Yeah, right

The thing is both Asus and Corsair say that Armoury crate do talk to each other nicely, however i reckon it must be in a parallel universe after reading various forums...............

 

[TonyCarter]

The thing is both Asus and Corsair say that Armoury crate do talk to each other nicely, however i reckon it must be in a parallel universe after reading various forums...............

Is that the current v1.0 spec of 'talk to each other nicely' or the older v1.0 spec of 'talk to each other nicely', or the v3.0 spec of 'talk to each other nicely' which is now v1.0 v2 revision ß4 which will shortly be v1.0 final?

 

[Martinr36]

Is that the current v1.0 spec of 'talk to each other nicely' or the older v1.0 spec of 'talk to each other nicely', or the v3.0 spec of 'talk to each other nicely' which is now v1.0 v2 revision ß4 which will shortly be v1.0 final?

I think it might have been 0.0.9 alpha

 

[RichLan564]

Is that the current v1.0 spec of 'talk to each other nicely' or the older v1.0 spec of 'talk to each other nicely', or the v3.0 spec of 'talk to each other nicely' which is now v1.0 v2 revision ß4 which will shortly be v1.0 final?

Reminds me of one of my favourite cartoons regarding standards……

 

[Ash]

I've never had any problems with Armoury Crate. The only hassle I've had with it is once you change a setting in AC it'll take ownership of your RGB away from iCue and the only way I could get it back under iCue was a restart. However once I got it all set up I've not had to touch AC since and it all runs fine. I never even haven the AC software open anymore.

 

[B4zookaw]

Armoury Crate iCue integration only allows you to control certain aspects of the RGB and I don't think fans are one of them. From the look of yours it's just the RGB lights near the I/O at the back and whatever is plugged into the 4-pin RGB headers (not the 3-pin aRGB headers). I have an ASUS ROG motherboard and it allows me to control the RGB on the Back I/O, the PCB (which is covered up by the GPU!) and whatever is plugged into the 2 4-pin RGB headers (I use LED strips). My mobo also has 2 3-pin aRGB headers that don't show up in iCue.

What do the the RGB connections on your fans plug in to? I imagine they are daisy chained together and then they plug in to the 3-pin aRGB header at the bottom of your motherboard. If so, you can get a simple 3-pin aRGB to 4-pin RGB converter and plug them into the 4-pin RGB header instead, that should allow you to control them in iCue. This one looks like it'd do the job. https://www.overclockers.co.uk/phan...iWziP5l5HhFZAY8KSCJ90X8EbVaupCYxoCLdsQAvD_BwE

Thanks, that might be worth looking at rather than a more expensive swap out to Corsair fans.

I think my main focus now is to have better control of the fan speed/noise.
I have my H150i connected to the CPU Fan head, the rear DC fan (3 pin plug so I believe this means it's DC and not PWM) and the three Cooler Master front case fans are plugged into the CPU Opt.

I'm happy I can control the AIO via iCUE, but still trying to figure out best approach for the case fans. The BIOS only shows CPU, chassis 1, 2 and 3 and AIO as options for setting curves, I can't see anything for CPU Opt.

In Armoury Crate, the only fan settings I can see are set profiles:

I can't see any option to set a custom curve per fan. It does show all the fan headers at least:

(Side note: I did have a serious meltdown of the Armoury Crate software earlier, I suspect installing AI Suite at some point and then uninstalling it corrupted the Asus applications. So just did a clean install of Windows to fix that.)

 

[B4zookaw]

So a bit more research seems to indicate that cpu_opt just mirrors cpu_fan, and is not directly controlled. So if I want to control the Cooler Master front fans, I need to set a curve on cpu_fan instead. And I believe what ever curve I set will be ignored by iCUE as it will set the rpm of the AIO based on the cpu temp and the settings in iCUE.

Having said all that, I’m finding Armoury Crate buggy as hell and less than impressive so sometime in the New Year I’ll be swapping out the front fans for Corsair ML120 Elites once they’re back in stock. That way all 6 fans can be managed in one app from an RPM and RBG perspective. And probably a BeQuiet 120 PWM Silentwings 3 for the current PCS fan in the rear.