6 ms·

If you're in this thread "I built a PC, all my stuff has RGB, it's fine but I don't get it", try setting them all to the same color - you might be surprised how

If you're in this thread "I built a PC, all my stuff has RGB, it's fine but I don't get it", try setting them all to the same color - you might be surprised how nice it looks. I set everything to white, but my roommate has a nice shade of purple he uses for everything. My real golden rule is absolutely no motion. Can't stand cycling rainbows or whatever.

creaturemachine 6y ago
I went with white because my keyboard only has white LEDs, but RGB white (255,255,255) still has strange colour tinges that vary by component. This app is great but the tales of bricked RGB hardware during development are a little concerning.
Shared404 6y ago
This is the trick. If you get all of the lights set to the same color, plus maybe one that changes based on CPU temperature or something, and you make sure none of the colors clash, you can get a very nice/clean look.
- netizen-9748 6y ago
  For an added bonus, on keyboards such as the logitechs you may be able to have different colors for different key types for quick and easy reference
  - rozab 6y ago
    Some games like Factorio have nice contextual cues for certain key bindings. I'm sure there's extensions available for most editors to do the same thing.
sneak 6y ago
Doing this in Linux seems like a lot more time/trouble than just putting the side of the case on (and not getting one of those silly cases with a window in it).
- JeremyNT 6y ago
  When I went to build a PC recently, I was disappointed to find out that the most cost effective cases that otherwise met my requirements all had those silly windows, and that some RGB components were actually cheaper than non-RGB. So I ended up with a window and RGB, despite having no desire for either! I had to hunt around for the correct software to disable the stuff. Little did I know that this project existed at the time :)
  - avtar 6y ago
    I'm not sure what you're price range was but a lot of Fractal Design cases have solid side panels. I have their Meshify C case and the temps are great with a Noctua cooler.
908B64B197 6y ago
Or have the color encode a performance counter like total CPU.
- garaetjjte 6y ago
  After someone gave me mouse with RGB decorations I thought it would be nice to have CPU and RAM usage encoded into it. (in practice it isn't very useful, as it is usually obscured by hand) (https://gist.github.com/Milek7/f5669c00cf660c3984becb031c2ec17f https://gist.github.com/Milek7/f5669c00cf660c3984becb031c2ec...)
TheCapn 6y ago
I've always been about the red because I game so much in the dark. I set mine to pulse on/off gradually, almost like breathing and don't find it distracting at all.
simias 6y ago
My problem with that is that while it looks nice, I find it visually very frustrating if it's in your field of view. Those points of light that go in and out as your hands move over them are an annoyance for me. If you don't touchtype and need to see your keyboard to type effectively then being able to configure the color and intensity is nice, but for me all the intensity I need is 0. At night I'll just have some gentle ambient light in my room. I use an expensive Moonlander keyboard that comes with RGB lighting and I tried to give it a fair chance but I always end up finding it distracting and useless.
- devwastaken 6y ago
  When I was younger lights didn't fill my vision like they do now. Blue LED's in the dark become impossible to ignore. If the RGB LED's are really low then it's not bad, but it is still distracting on something like a mouse. I have a red led mechanical keyboard and that one doesn't bug me at all. But the white ones do.
MrGilbert 6y ago
What I love about RGB is the flexibility: I have a white case (Lian Li 011-D) with a custom waterloop. I run 9 cheap chinese RGB fans (EZDIY-FAB) and two custom rgb strips at top and bottom, which emit light against two white radiators. [1] The white allows the light to reflect from basically every surface in the case. They come with a custom rf remote, and I setup everything so I can control the strips and the fans separately. Currently, the fans are all white, with the strips being red at top and bottom. But if I want to, I can go all unicorn... - or turn everything off. [1]: https://imgur.com/7PqDhKo https://imgur.com/7PqDhKo
pugworthy 6y ago
Agreed yea. I recently shifted mine to all a single color and like the look a lot more. It makes the open Thermaltake Core P3 case look quite striking. In terms of the "why" for this kind of thing, I guess if I'm going to be staring at a computer screen and computer all day, I want it to look interesting. The P3 case is open with a large glass plate on the front (look it up), and I've got it mounted directly on my wall. It does nothing for my computer's performance, but it makes my time at the computer more pleasant.
wlesieutre 6y ago
I let my CPU fan do its default color changing rainbow, buuuut only because it's under my desk where I can't see it. If nothing else, I can quickly glance down there and see if the computer is powered on. AMD ships them standard with their Ryzen processors, I guess the market for enthusiast range parts has decided that we want RGB hardware. Personally I think case aesthetics peaked around the Antec P180 which looked like brushed metal fridge and was one of the first cases to care about sound isolation. No window panel, so nobody cares how much of a mess my wiring is, and I can buy the RAM that's on sale instead of the one with color coordinated heatspreaders. But if other people are into that, power to them. Someday I'd like to do a "desktop literally built into the desk top" build and ditch the suspended computer mount completely, assuming I still even want to have a full desktop computer 10 years from now.
- zdragnar 6y ago
  Might be nice to have the fan color change with the cpu temp, but otherwise it always seems gaudy. I like things having function in addition to form. Then again, I also gave up on desktops roughly 8 years ago. If it isn't my laptop it is a NUC or similar small form factor thing that can be mounted on the back of the monitor or otherwise hidden away.
- tylermenezes 6y ago
  > Someday I'd like to do a "desktop literally built into the desk top" For 7 years my desktop has been literally just a motherboard sitting on a cut-up yoga mat on my bookshelf. [1] The SSDs are piled next to it. My work PC is zip-tied to a milk crate. Don't let people fool you, you can be pretty creative with your definition of "case". [1] https://i.imgur.com/NkEmS4N.png https://i.imgur.com/NkEmS4N.png
  - gpanders 6y ago
    That’s awesome. Are yoga mats dissipative? Is this like a poor man’s ESD mat (figuratively speaking, not trying to imply that you’re poor)?
    - 6y ago
ksk 6y ago
Another cool usage is to light up specific keys based on the current application. This is quite useful in things like games or editors. You can have green for movement, white for actions, etc.
- viraptor 6y ago
  I never got that one. Who is it for? When you're playing a game, you're not looking at the keyboard. And with just the few buttons available covered by your hands, it's not really for others... Why is the game-layout lighting a thing?
  - ksk 6y ago
    Its mostly aesthetics. It could be useful if you come back to a game after a break and you forget some of the keys. I can see its use as a training mode too.
scrps 6y ago
I normally never have any RGB components in my personal builds but I was asked to build my niece a gaming rig for Christmas, figuring a kid would probably like a bit more of a blinged out system I sprung for RGB fans, RAM, water-cooler, and PSU and set them all to a light pink (the case is mint green, her other favorite color) and I have to say it turned me around on RGB lighting. It looked super clean and minimal once I tuned the brightness and color. The only downsides I encountered were color matching among different components, it was a bit tedious. The other was the control software (gigabyte fusion 2.0) was very touchy, at one point I had to do a hard reset and wait for the caps to drain before I could get the LEDs functional again. Edit: typo
- aspaceman 6y ago
  Not positive this does it, but I learnt this trick from some greybeards. Hit the rocker switch on the PSU, then attempt to power on the computer. Caps will be discharged from the attempted boot. It might not be perfect though. Just something I picked up.
alliao 6y ago
ooo and dim them if there's an disturbance, like ramped up cpu, gpu, or a key pressed on the keyboard would dim that key and radiating decreasing dimming from "disturbance" I'd get that
goodpoint 6y ago
It's still tacky, tho.

creaturemachine 6y ago

I went with white because my keyboard only has white LEDs, but RGB white (255,255,255) still has strange colour tinges that vary by component. This app is great but the tales of bricked RGB hardware during development are a little concerning.

Shared404 6y ago

This is the trick. If you get all of the lights set to the same color, plus maybe one that changes based on CPU temperature or something, and you make sure none of the colors clash, you can get a very nice/clean look.

netizen-9748 6y ago
For an added bonus, on keyboards such as the logitechs you may be able to have different colors for different key types for quick and easy reference
- rozab 6y ago
  Some games like Factorio have nice contextual cues for certain key bindings. I'm sure there's extensions available for most editors to do the same thing.

sneak 6y ago

Doing this in Linux seems like a lot more time/trouble than just putting the side of the case on (and not getting one of those silly cases with a window in it).

JeremyNT 6y ago
When I went to build a PC recently, I was disappointed to find out that the most cost effective cases that otherwise met my requirements all had those silly windows, and that some RGB components were actually cheaper than non-RGB. So I ended up with a window and RGB, despite having no desire for either! I had to hunt around for the correct software to disable the stuff. Little did I know that this project existed at the time :)
- avtar 6y ago
  I'm not sure what you're price range was but a lot of Fractal Design cases have solid side panels. I have their Meshify C case and the temps are great with a Noctua cooler.

908B64B197 6y ago

Or have the color encode a performance counter like total CPU.

garaetjjte 6y ago
After someone gave me mouse with RGB decorations I thought it would be nice to have CPU and RAM usage encoded into it. (in practice it isn't very useful, as it is usually obscured by hand) (https://gist.github.com/Milek7/f5669c00cf660c3984becb031c2ec17f https://gist.github.com/Milek7/f5669c00cf660c3984becb031c2ec...)

TheCapn 6y ago

I've always been about the red because I game so much in the dark. I set mine to pulse on/off gradually, almost like breathing and don't find it distracting at all.

simias 6y ago

My problem with that is that while it looks nice, I find it visually very frustrating if it's in your field of view. Those points of light that go in and out as your hands move over them are an annoyance for me. If you don't touchtype and need to see your keyboard to type effectively then being able to configure the color and intensity is nice, but for me all the intensity I need is 0. At night I'll just have some gentle ambient light in my room. I use an expensive Moonlander keyboard that comes with RGB lighting and I tried to give it a fair chance but I always end up finding it distracting and useless.

devwastaken 6y ago
When I was younger lights didn't fill my vision like they do now. Blue LED's in the dark become impossible to ignore. If the RGB LED's are really low then it's not bad, but it is still distracting on something like a mouse. I have a red led mechanical keyboard and that one doesn't bug me at all. But the white ones do.

MrGilbert 6y ago

What I love about RGB is the flexibility: I have a white case (Lian Li 011-D) with a custom waterloop. I run 9 cheap chinese RGB fans (EZDIY-FAB) and two custom rgb strips at top and bottom, which emit light against two white radiators. [1] The white allows the light to reflect from basically every surface in the case. They come with a custom rf remote, and I setup everything so I can control the strips and the fans separately. Currently, the fans are all white, with the strips being red at top and bottom. But if I want to, I can go all unicorn... - or turn everything off. [1]: https://imgur.com/7PqDhKo https://imgur.com/7PqDhKo

pugworthy 6y ago

Agreed yea. I recently shifted mine to all a single color and like the look a lot more. It makes the open Thermaltake Core P3 case look quite striking. In terms of the "why" for this kind of thing, I guess if I'm going to be staring at a computer screen and computer all day, I want it to look interesting. The P3 case is open with a large glass plate on the front (look it up), and I've got it mounted directly on my wall. It does nothing for my computer's performance, but it makes my time at the computer more pleasant.

wlesieutre 6y ago

I let my CPU fan do its default color changing rainbow, buuuut only because it's under my desk where I can't see it. If nothing else, I can quickly glance down there and see if the computer is powered on. AMD ships them standard with their Ryzen processors, I guess the market for enthusiast range parts has decided that we want RGB hardware. Personally I think case aesthetics peaked around the Antec P180 which looked like brushed metal fridge and was one of the first cases to care about sound isolation. No window panel, so nobody cares how much of a mess my wiring is, and I can buy the RAM that's on sale instead of the one with color coordinated heatspreaders. But if other people are into that, power to them. Someday I'd like to do a "desktop literally built into the desk top" build and ditch the suspended computer mount completely, assuming I still even want to have a full desktop computer 10 years from now.

zdragnar 6y ago
Might be nice to have the fan color change with the cpu temp, but otherwise it always seems gaudy. I like things having function in addition to form. Then again, I also gave up on desktops roughly 8 years ago. If it isn't my laptop it is a NUC or similar small form factor thing that can be mounted on the back of the monitor or otherwise hidden away.
tylermenezes 6y ago
> Someday I'd like to do a "desktop literally built into the desk top" For 7 years my desktop has been literally just a motherboard sitting on a cut-up yoga mat on my bookshelf. [1] The SSDs are piled next to it. My work PC is zip-tied to a milk crate. Don't let people fool you, you can be pretty creative with your definition of "case". [1] https://i.imgur.com/NkEmS4N.png https://i.imgur.com/NkEmS4N.png
- gpanders 6y ago
  That’s awesome. Are yoga mats dissipative? Is this like a poor man’s ESD mat (figuratively speaking, not trying to imply that you’re poor)?
  - 6y ago

ksk 6y ago

Another cool usage is to light up specific keys based on the current application. This is quite useful in things like games or editors. You can have green for movement, white for actions, etc.

viraptor 6y ago
I never got that one. Who is it for? When you're playing a game, you're not looking at the keyboard. And with just the few buttons available covered by your hands, it's not really for others... Why is the game-layout lighting a thing?
- ksk 6y ago
  Its mostly aesthetics. It could be useful if you come back to a game after a break and you forget some of the keys. I can see its use as a training mode too.

scrps 6y ago

I normally never have any RGB components in my personal builds but I was asked to build my niece a gaming rig for Christmas, figuring a kid would probably like a bit more of a blinged out system I sprung for RGB fans, RAM, water-cooler, and PSU and set them all to a light pink (the case is mint green, her other favorite color) and I have to say it turned me around on RGB lighting. It looked super clean and minimal once I tuned the brightness and color. The only downsides I encountered were color matching among different components, it was a bit tedious. The other was the control software (gigabyte fusion 2.0) was very touchy, at one point I had to do a hard reset and wait for the caps to drain before I could get the LEDs functional again. Edit: typo

aspaceman 6y ago
Not positive this does it, but I learnt this trick from some greybeards. Hit the rocker switch on the PSU, then attempt to power on the computer. Caps will be discharged from the attempted boot. It might not be perfect though. Just something I picked up.

alliao 6y ago

ooo and dim them if there's an disturbance, like ramped up cpu, gpu, or a key pressed on the keyboard would dim that key and radiating decreasing dimming from "disturbance" I'd get that

goodpoint 6y ago

It's still tacky, tho.