Okay Wendell, you finally got me to create an account instead of lurking forever. 
You win this one.
I’ve always run air coolers but I’m tired of having to dismantle the whole machine just to change RAM or SSD. So, let’s go with an AIO this time, I thought. New cases are made for it and some of the higher end options have some great system monitoring features, even things like LCDs.
Of course I immediately discounted the LCD models because this workstation runs Linux—hell will freeze, thaw, and freeze again before any of these companies are going to document how to use the “perfect for monitoring your workstation’s health at a glance” feature on a workstation. It’s going to require some bullshit Windows software which will work until the product stops being sold.
So what does work under Linux? I remember 20 years ago I set up some LEDs to get brighter when the CPU load got higher. Novelty, but fun. But now with more LEDs and ARGB, you can communicate a lot about the system. So which LEDs are supported the best?
Corsair, everyone said. What they should’ve said is “nothing commercially available.”
So I get this thing and and it doesn’t work with OpenRGB’s latest version. It worked with the previous OpenRGB version, but not the latest. Turns out, to use it with OpenRGB going forward, I need to somehow stick my CPU cooler in another machine running Windows to install Corsair’s software to upgrade it to the latest Corsair firmware to work with OpenRGB newer than 0.7 … Fine, I figure out how to install Windows onto a USB hard drive long enough to install the software which automatically flashes the firmware without asking me.
Now it works right?
Well, OpenRGB can now control every single ARGB LED. But liquidctl won’t work now so I can’t actually see my cooler’s temperatures or control its fans or do anything else that I actually PAID FOR THE ABILITY TO DO … because the software doesn’t support it.
And I could actually fix it myself if I had the docs, in about 20 minutes since the old firmware version was apparently supported. But of course, what does Corsair “support” have to say? “Sorry, we don’t support Linux”.
The iCUE H150i Elite Capellix is not a low-end cooler. In fact right now on Amazon it sells for around $250. It was about $200 at the time of purchase, with the Lian Li Galahad 360 running for about $250 because stock was limited many places.
I should’ve paid extra for the Lian Li. Instead I bought the Corsair and three more matching fans. And I still to this day have zero control over the cooler’s fans or pump, and I cannot check water temperature. But I guess I could program the LEDs to make a pretty light show. Which is fine I guess, that’s what this product was made to do right?
Except, it could’ve been a FUNCTIONAL light show that would’ve alerted me to a runaway process filling up my root partition with nonsensical logs the other day. It might offer me an early warning if temperatures don’t match the system load or an early warning if something was wrong with the cooler.
I’m ranting about ONE device here because this cooler and the three extra fans I bought to match it were the single largest purchase of a “modern” controller-based cooling product I’ve bought … but it’s not the only one. I can put my hands on six machines without moving my chair and they’ve all got as many products from as many vendors. Some of them we have full control over, some only partial. Some none at all. All of it reverse-engineered because NOT ONE of these corporations will provide documentation.
So, vendors: Whichever one of you publishes developer documentation to control your devices … coolers, fan controllers, temp sensors, etc. Whichever one of you publishes the info I need to make these things work under whatEVER system I’m running it on (which is usually some Linux distribution, but definitely not always), I’m replacing the stuff in all six machines with your products within a week. These hare are my personal machines, so I can just go and do that.
On the job … I can’t promise when/how I’ll be replacing any other hardware with your products after that since I don’t control that. I do provide recommendations for what hardware to put in the machines when it’s time to order it, though. And I’m recommending open spec hardware to the exclusion of any other from now on because makes our job easier and makes sure that machines get maintenance before problems appear, meaning less downtime. That’s true even on Windows.
RGB controllers don’t matter in the workstation and server environment! Except just like everything else built “for gamers”, the “for gamers” part now means for everyone. And if you can’t figure out why indicator lights showing where a problem is, why we’d want to control the noise in a room full of machines based on load, or having software quietly checking for hotspots in various locations inside a machine is somehow useful … have you ever been in that environment?