Help with CPU RGB pins

Hi,

First time PC building here. Would like your help with my CPU cooler. It has two separate pins different from the main one and I am unsure where to plug them and would appreciate some of the veteran help. I added 3 photos to show my motherboard and other relevant info. But I'm a bit lost.

My best guess is that the wire with the weird symbol that my CPU cooler guide says corresponds to "G" needs to go on the second pin starting from the bottom of #6, and the "D" wire should go on the second pin starting from the right of #5. But I'm unsure. Again, some help is appreciated.

Thanks!

 

Hi there!

If I understood your diagrams correctly, the power for the RGB lighting of your Thermaltake CPU cooler is supplied directly by your power supply instead of the motherboard's digital RGB header, thus it will only need to be connected to two pins instead of the customary three. In your motherboard manual, you'll see the header you'll be using under "5) D_LED (Digital LED Strip Header)". Connect the "D" (data) wire to pin no. 2 and the other (ground) wire to pin no. 4. Be sure to use the RGB header with only three pins, not four.

The header you see under "6) LED_CPU" is for the old, non-addressable RGB standard. Instead of providing colour data through a single pin, it has one pin for each primary colour — red, green, and blue. It also uses 12V instead of 5V, where each colour is a ground pin.

I hope you enjoy your new computer!

 

Hi Convel. Thank you very much for your comprehensive answer. I was about to put it on the 12V and perhaps fry the pins. Much appreciated.

 

Glad I could be of assistance! Out of curiosity, what is the particular model of the cooler you have? This is the first time I've seen an RGB product not use all the pins of a header. If power is indeed supplied elsewhere than from the motherboard header itself, it seems odd to include a ground wire for said header at all.

 

Thermaltake UX100

 

Interesting. Looks like all you do is connect to the D and ground pins and you're good to go, as previously suggested. The only bad thing about the 2-wire design is that it increases the risk of connecting to the wrong pins compared to a normal, less confusing plug.