PC Building

[cpurpe91]

I just went through three hours of repeating the same steps over and over trying to fix my motherboard RGB. 

So today I decided to reinstall Windows 11. No brainer. I made the installation media, and moved on to downloading drivers for my motherboard. 

I went through the setup process and even remembered to export my iCue profile so I could have my fancy RGB on my RAM, fans, and pump. Everything was going swimmingly, that is until I decided to try out ASRock's Polychrome software for my motherboard. It had been set in the BIOS to a static color and I wanted to see what I could customize. 

Mistakes were made. 

I launched Polychrome and it prompted me to wait while it updated firmware. I waited, and waited, and after about 10 minutes I realized my computer was frozen. Naturally I gave it a little more time, hoping everything would catch up. It didn't. I hard reset my PC. When I did this my motherboard RGB started to cycle different colors in each zone. I thought this was an indication that everything was fine and working properly. It wasn't. I now could not control RGB in the app or in my BIOS. I then spent the next few hours troubleshooting.

I found articles saying you need this firmware version or that version. I must have ran command lines for every firmware version available. Nothing changed. I could not control the lighting, and I had a specific scheme in mind. This was frustrating. 

At two hours into this unicorn vomit covered endeavor I decided, maybe my BIOS has the firmware built in, I proceeded to clear CMOS. This helped a whole zero percent. I went on to flash my BIOS. There must be a way to return this to factory settings.

After another hour of reading up on the matter I was about to give up completely and take a nap, admitting defeat. I tried the firmware updates again and again. I moved toward my closet to get my white flag and it came to me. iCue has been known to interfere with other software. Flag in hand I closed iCue. This was it. This was my last try. If this works I am going to set a static color in BIOS and get rid of Polychrome forever. I ran the command line and it worked. I could control my motherboard RGB in my BIOS again.

Now it's orange and it will stay that way. Orange is nice. I like orange.

[johnnyenglish]

Welcome to the world of trying to control the "pretty lights" in our computers 😑 

For me the first go to step is power cycling. Easy on peripherals but the Board and other internals will need a clean PSU button off for at least 5 minutes. Then the rainbow puke will make its triumphant comeback and everything is now back to defaults...  most of the times...

I heard that windows will control RGB natively soon.

[cpurpe91]

Yes I am hoping the leaks are real, regarding the native RGB support.

[Justifier]

I'm of the opinion that it's going to work about as good as generic drivers do for GPUs or monitors. It'll "work" but it won't work "right"

SOOOOOO many issues if you let it get its hands on them first

For monitors, colors are off, issues with free/g-sync, and on and on and on
🤢

[Axxemann]

And people wonder why I have a seething hatred for RGB. 

Gimme blue lights, or no lights at all.

[eebiii]

RGB is such a nightmare! I pretty much use an aftermarket controller big enough to handle everything with a USB to the motherboard. As far as ICUE is concerned, I think they purposely F*** up that software just to make our lives more miserable. Just my opinion.

[Justifier]

And this is why I go to lengths to disable all RGB on my rig.

External, independently controlled Ambient aRGB is the way.

[cpurpe91]

I would but my fans, and pump all need iCue to configure curves. I would switch to that open source RGB software people keep recommending, but I would still need iCue for the fans and pump to run at the right speeds.  

[johnnyenglish]

I find RGB very useful to me, although controlling it may be a bit of a hassle.

I have profiles for all my RGB, they will change dynamically between applications/games.

I may want to browse and type, like I'm doing right now and want a perceptive light for the night while on the keyboard/mouse. The RGB will let me know the active profile and the Macros for it, like video editing.

In a game, they will change AIO OLED to temperature readouts and the RGB to specific temp points to warn me when I'm focused.

Some games are AURA compatible and will change the color of specific keys or create light effects.
I also like to have the WASD with a different color.

Lastly, I like to build seasonal themes 🙂

[cpurpe91]

I like to experiment with themes as well. I am now kind of running with a sunset theme orange, red, and pink and its pretty sweet. 

[Axxemann]

You and @johnnyenglish both... you guys take geekdom to a whole ne level. Never, EVER stop! As much as I hate RGB, that's f***ing AWESOME!

[johnnyenglish]

Thank You 😊

Some examples of the things for controlling temperature during gaming:

Check temps on AIO OLED and if they go "nuts" RGB will turn red to warn me.

And The XMAS theme

https://youtube.com/shorts/iFdodsAurj0?feature=share 

[rtbh99]

of all the mobo manufacturers, i think asrock has the worst control software for argb, and also has compatibility with very few other apps

[cpurpe91]

I now know this. LOL I did my absolute best to get it to work and it kept screwing up and not even showing I had LEDs on the board. The X570 Taichi has 3 zones for RGB and none of them were shown in the app. BIOS saved the day allowing me to choose one color for the whole board.

[rtbh99]

luckily polychrome works well enough for my unicorn vomit settings on my b550 steel legend mobo.

but if i had done maybe ten minutes more research i wouldve gone with a different mobo manufacturer. probably asus.

[cpurpe91]

My X570 Taichi runs great. I just hate Polychrome now. Like I said I wanted orange and the BIOS let me set it to orange. I'm happy with that. The previous MSI MPG X570 Edge Wifi was a mess. It wouldn't let me customize RGB unless I use Mystic Lighting which likes to grab onto the RAM and conflict with iCue.