[HN Gopher] Open source RGB lighting control for keyboards, fans...
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Open source RGB lighting control for keyboards, fans, etc.
Author : apatap
Score : 213 points
Date : 2021-01-04 15:50 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gitlab.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gitlab.com)
| bahorn wrote:
| Been using the project for a year now and submitted a few
| patches. It's a fun project to hack on, so would recommend
| getting involved if this sort of thing interests you.
|
| Regarding the value of RGB, honestly one of the cooler uses which
| the projects been enabling is showing things like system status
| on your devices. And beyond that, getting a cool pattern or mode
| implemented is just a fun weekend project.
| blargmaster42_8 wrote:
| std::vector<RGBController *>
|
| Dude! C++ 11 has been out for 10 years, get rid of your raw
| pointers!
| nom wrote:
| Anyone here who was into case modding back in the 2000s? I ran a
| semi-popular German case-modding website and forum 19 years ago.
|
| We put windows in our boring grey computer cases and bought blue
| LEDs for 2 EUR a piece to light up the internals. As LEDs were so
| expensive we often opted to use CCFL tubes. We put
| electroluminescent wire everywhere, even into keyboards. We built
| our own fan controllers from scratch to fit into a 3.5" slot.
| People payed 200 EUR for PC cases from LIAN LI and Cooler Master
| just to mod the shit out of them. Watercooling just became a
| thing and it was hugely expensive, the PC cases didn't have a
| place for the radiators so you had to get creative with your
| power tools. We went to LAN parties with our awesome machines, we
| organized collective orders in our case modding forums to buy
| cheap LEDs from china. We were amazed by the latest products,
| like LED fans that flashed the light in synchronization with the
| fan RPM like a zoetrope, so it appeared to stand still.
|
| We couldn't even dream of a keyboard with individually RGB keys
| back then and now you get RGB in everything without even wanting
| it. Mass production has taken over and all the magic is gone. You
| just buy it and yeah it looks cool, but whats the fun in that if
| every PC looks the same - thats exactly what we didn't want, we
| wanted to be different.
|
| Fun times though!
| drewzero1 wrote:
| I was too young to really get into case modding at the time,
| but I went to a Linux users group event at our local college
| around 2006. Up until that point I had only used Linux as a
| live CD on my dad's computer, so when I saw the rigs people
| were showing off my jaw dropped. They'd ditched the beige and
| black I was used to for silver, blue, purple etc. with lights
| glowing inside case windows.
|
| The one that left the biggest impression on me had backlit
| tubes on either side of the case front with bubbles flowing up,
| and the owner was demonstrating the Compiz cube and wobbly
| windows. I was smitten!
|
| Incidentally, I also got my first experience with Linux elitism
| when somebody asked me what my favorite editor was and I told
| him Abiword. He told me "Real men use emacs." Still a little
| embarrassed about that, but as a middle school kid I didn't
| have much need to know the difference between a word processor
| and an editor. In hindsight I'm sure they thought it was pretty
| cute/funny for a kid to visit a college event.
| speeder wrote:
| I have a Corsair RGB keyboard.
|
| Not because I wanted RGB... I wanted a good keyboard, this was
| what was available.
|
| I found the RGB useful to see what I am typing at night, problem
| is... I can't get the thing to behave as I want, and it requires
| the 'iCUE' program to be running at all times and that programs
| eats RAM like there is no tomorrow.
|
| If this software lets me ditch iCUE and still have lights... I
| will certainly use it!
|
| My plan is set my keys to have some darker glow (if possible...
| never tried) so I can see them on a pitch black room, and use the
| RGB part for information (like if I am running out of RAM or
| not...)
| simias wrote:
| My keyboard uses the open source QMK firmware, which means that
| it's entirely open source and you can hack it to you heart's
| contents. At this point I'd never consider getting an expensive
| keyboard with a closed source firmware for the reasons you
| point out.
|
| I don't care for backlighting much myself, but I often switch
| between dvorak and itsuken layouts and I use the backlight
| color to let me know what more I'm currently in. This saves a
| lot of time when I don't understand why I can't get past a
| password prompt...
| robotmay wrote:
| I found this last week and was really happy to come across it. I
| ditched Windows for my main desktop/gaming machine in 2020
| partially because there are some fantastic open source projects
| that replace many of the Windows vendor-specific utilities that
| look like they were designed by teenagers in the 90s.
|
| https://github.com/libratbag/piper is another great example that
| handles mouse configuration.
| powersnail wrote:
| I use this software, to disable all RGB lighting. Very handy.
| Thaxll wrote:
| I built a new PC this year and after a break of 10 years I was
| shocked to find out that RGB trend, I just don't understand it.
| csomar wrote:
| The gaming industry drove this. Most gamers build their boxes,
| and they do like RGB (for whatever reason).
| jaywalk wrote:
| When I built a new PC recently, I got RGB everything. I just
| keep it all set to a dark blue. I think it looks nice, that's
| really all there is to it.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Ok... so why not just buy some dark blue LEDs and put them
| anywhere you want without the complexity of interfacing them
| with your computer?
| jaywalk wrote:
| Huh? All of the components of my computer, both internal
| and external, have RGB built-in. It would be practically
| impossible to replicate that by just buying some dark blue
| LEDs, and there's barely any additional complexity involved
| with RGB components. There are literally only two
| additional connections in my machine due to the RGB, and
| those are for the LEDs in the case and the water cooler.
| Every other component uses the data lines it's already
| connected to.
| cptnapalm wrote:
| I'd personally get a kick out of using the RGBs on a keyboard
| to give me htop type information. My wife sometimes thinks I'm
| strange.
| robotmay wrote:
| Honestly I kinda prefer it to the case designs 10 years ago.
| There's still a strange hankering by case makers to try to make
| them "edgy" and a solid percentage are still competing to be
| the xtremiest PC equivalent of go-faster stripes on cars.
| However there is at least a new aesthetic where people are
| taking simpler and tidier case designs and then making them
| garish with LEDs, and I quite enjoy seeing some of their
| creations.
|
| Personally I don't bother, I go after sound-proofing in my
| builds instead, but my partner, who isn't particularly into
| computers, is actually quite a fan of the RGB stuff so her
| computer will be notably more lary.
| draugadrotten wrote:
| > PC equivalent of go-faster stripes on cars.
|
| Yes.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_button
| bregma wrote:
| Yes. Also, why do people insist in wearing any clothing except
| baggy brown overalls, and any hairstyle other than shaved bald?
| Don't get me started on music that has melody, rhythm, and
| harmony to interfere with it. Aesthetics are such a waste of
| time and materials and there needs to be some formal accounting
| for taste.
| josalhor wrote:
| I don't get it either. If I was to buy LEDs, I would buy them
| and use them around the house. I have seen what some hotels do
| and it is _amazing_. I have seen LED strips behind the mirror,
| so when you wake up at night you can get your way around but
| don 't get blinded by the light.
|
| However, here we are, with people buying RGB fans and having
| their desktops on the desk taking up space and making more
| noise (because they are closer)... I don't get it either.
| jhap wrote:
| Do you have any other ideas you recommend? I thought this
| mirror idea was brilliant!
| outworlder wrote:
| At least for keyboards, it can be useful.
|
| Take Factorio as an example(scroll to the very bottom):
| https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-218
| BuildTheRobots wrote:
| It's pretty. Even 10-15 years ago cold cathodes and windowed
| cases were starting to be a thing and with the current
| addressable LED obsession that's been doing the rounds in the
| maker community over the last decade, from a technical POV it's
| actually nice to see that now rolled into desktop PCs.
|
| People also seem to treat their IT equipment far more as
| fashion accessories these days - or at least expect technology
| to fit into their ideas of aesthetics. If you think multi-
| coloured, cleverly fading LEDs look pretty then you're well in.
| If you don't then at least it's all pretty easy to switch off.
| 1996 wrote:
| > I just don't understand it.
|
| Because we don't know how to use the feature yet.
|
| But you can connect something like a CPU trigger to a led, so
| use 3 keys with 3 colors for CPU%, RAM%, SWAP%, then one
| blinking for disk IO, network IO and you get something very
| useful!!
|
| For a full keyboard, you could have predictive input for the
| other as a typing assistant (ex: after pressing t,y put r in a
| strong green, e in a lighter green, p in a strong red, i,n,g in
| a lighter red : so typing and tyre are shown as 2 completions,
| with tyre less likely unless you work in mediterranean history
| and care about ancient cities)
| powersnail wrote:
| I also find CPU/RAM monitoring not very useful to me. I used
| to put conky widgets all over the place, but concluded that
| it did very little. Most of the time I fire up htop, I'm
| looking to kill a process anyway.
|
| I programmed one of my keyboard to be modal, and use the
| lighting as an indicator of which mode I'm in. Sort of like
| vim's status bar. It's pretty handy.
| 1996 wrote:
| > It's pretty handy.
|
| Exactly this! I don't want to waste screen space or CPU
| time to fancy widgets, but having a few leds that blink too
| much when my system does too many things is very handy.
| It's like in the old days of HDD leds: it didn't intrude,
| but I quickly knew what was going on if I looked at it. And
| blinking things have a tendency to catch your attention, so
| it removes the "monitoring" problem too (because, when do
| you know it's time to check htop?)
|
| Linux LED triggers are very handy to do just than.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| None of that stuff is particularly useful, if I wanted that,
| I have my screen that shows me metrics.. My desktop is a
| black box. I dont know why anyone would spend a second of
| their time looking at a tower, when the only moving part is a
| fan
| CivBase wrote:
| The idea behind the trend is quite simple. It was already
| common to find colored lights on PC cases, peripherals, and
| components. With RGB, you can match colors across those parts
| more easily.
|
| At least... that's the idea. In practice, it's actually quite
| cumbersome to configure everything thanks to a lack of
| hardware/software control standards. As a result, I usually
| don't bother with RGB. Hopefully this app helps to resolve that
| issue.
| tyingq wrote:
| The supported devices list[1] looks pretty good. The support for
| individually addressable LEDs (WS2812 and friends) also means you
| could do pretty much any custom setup you wanted. Though I have
| to admit I don't fully get the "bling" thing for PCs. I'd rather,
| for example, drive a little OLED matrix screen to display
| temperatures, etc.
|
| [1]
| https://gitlab.com/CalcProgrammer1/OpenRGB/-/wikis/Supported...
| Freak_NL wrote:
| I just upgraded my computer this holiday season, and was
| surprised that my motherboard, CPU-fan, and graphics card now
| all sport colourful lights with special cables to connect them
| to the motherboard.
|
| If it makes people happy, I'm all for it. I couldn't be
| bothered to figure out how to actually turn the lights in the
| CPU-fan off though (they are on by default), so there is a very
| colourful and pointless light show going on within my
| completely black and opaque computer case.
| devmor wrote:
| Funny enough I just bought parts for a new build and my
| Motherboard was about the only thing without RGB lights. I
| didn't really want any at all, but the components I needed
| were all significantly cheaper than their non-RGB
| counterparts. Even the RAM ended up $20 per kit cheaper than
| the exact same model without RGB.
|
| I might try to embrace it to look nice, but I will probably
| just end up turning them all off, despite having a window on
| the case.
| capableweb wrote:
| > have to admit I don't fully get the "bling" thing for PCs
|
| Me neither. Today it's hard to find TVs that are just TVs and
| not smart TVs and similar thing is happening in the PC builders
| ecosystem. Built a new desktop computer recently, and had to
| spend more time searching for things that don't have RGB things
| in them, seems most components nowadays have some sort of RGB
| lights in them, even when it's completely not needed.
|
| Back in my day, people used to buy strips of RGB lights to add
| to their setup, so us normal, non-RGB people could still buy
| the same components. Today, it's a lot harder to find stock CPU
| fans that don't ship with RGB lights...
| devmor wrote:
| My "smart TV" is a pile of junk. We wanted a large TV for
| home theatre, but couldn't find anything over 65" that wasn't
| "smart".
|
| It takes 3-5 seconds to turn on, then another 10-20 seconds
| to react to input from the remote (at which time it will
| rapidly replay all input provided that it didn't react to in
| this time, sometimes turning itself back off for no reason).
|
| All of the "apps" are barely responsive and crash regularly.
| Hulu, particularly will crash at the end of every episode.
|
| I've tried factory resets, and was hopeful about an open
| source mod until I discovered my firmware version is
| "unpatchable" as of yet.
|
| The Internet of Shit is alive and well.
| airstrike wrote:
| > Today it's hard to find TVs that are just TVs and not smart
| TVs
|
| Why would you prefer non-smart TVs?
| gregmac wrote:
| Useful life of a TV is _at least_ 10 years. Useful life of
| a internet media device is generally significantly less
| than that, but also relatively cheap to replace /upgrade
| every couple years. (Aside: my 5 year old Nvidia Shield
| still gets updates and works perfectly, but that's an
| exception compared to all the other media devices I've
| owned).
|
| The one smart tv I own is crazy annoying. I used Plex,
| Netflix and YouTube on it, and about once a week either the
| core software or one of them would get updated, constantly
| nagging me with "update available, install now?" prompt,
| and then blocking usage for several minutes when I finally
| relented and said yes. That TV now has a Chromecast and all
| built in network connections disabled.
|
| I won't even get into the adware/malware nonsense others
| have already talked about.
| capableweb wrote:
| Their UIs are faster and slimmer than their smart TV
| counter-part. Since I only use my TV to connect to either a
| laptop, my mini-desktop that sits under it or a gaming
| console, I have around 0 use cases that gets solved by
| having "smart" functionalities which ends up bloating the
| rest of the experience.
| Alupis wrote:
| I've had my TV for nearly 10 years... and in that time I've
| "upgraded" my Roku 3 times to get more features, and then
| to get more performance.
|
| Having the "smart" features decoupled from the screen
| itself has allowed me to keep my perfectly fine (to me)
| 1080p screen for all these years while still enjoying the
| latest-and-greatest "smart" features.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Because the "smart" component in TVs is usually a potential
| minefield of spyware, ads and security vulnerabilities.
|
| As a rule of thumb, don't trust any software developed by
| white goods manufacturers and connect it to the internet
| since it has most likely been developed in a rush and on a
| tight budget (HW margins are razor thin and good devs with
| security know-how are expensive) and is most likely a house
| of cards of outdated kernels, libs and services that are
| full of CVEs which might never get updated.
| m463 wrote:
| ...and they are worse products because of it.
| gavin_gee wrote:
| Yes. Id pay significantly more to have a good panel that is
| dumb. no apps, no privacy concerns, fast boot. Pioneer
| years ago used to make the elite panels that were exactly
| this.
| FooHentai wrote:
| Have a look at commercial-grade tv lines from your
| preferred manufacturer. Often lacking the smart features
| but otherwise match or exceed consumer specs. There is a
| price premium, and you may have to go through more niche
| retailers that typically supply businesses.
| briffle wrote:
| yes! I much prefer my Roku, and its super simple remote. I
| also appreciate how I can just block one domain in my home
| DNS for roku, and stop telemetry. Also, My Roku is
| regularly updated, unlike most smart TV's, and I have heard
| horror stories of TV's no longer working with things like
| netflix, because they can't be updated anymore.
| Swizec wrote:
| I have a Roku TV and while it suffers from a bunch of
| smartness issues it's pretty good. A bit slow to boot, a
| bit slow to shut down, the apps are shite, and the "Oh no
| that's our competitor so you can't do this obvious thing
| (like use hbomax)" experience is terrible.
|
| But overall it's okay. The remote is simple, the main
| apps are _fine_ and the overall ecosystem integration is
| _okay_
| tyingq wrote:
| I'm in this camp also. I upgraded my Roku to one that can
| control the volume and mute the TV, so now I don't ever
| need the TV remote. Any "smartness" in my TV is wasted
| effort on me. A dumb monitor with an HDMI connection and
| audio out is all I need.
| adolph wrote:
| Display technology has historically improved/changed at a
| slower rate than signal generation technology. Additionally
| display technology was significantly higher and slower to
| decrease cost than most signal generators such as
| VCRs/DVRs/game consoles/etc. Thus beyond minor commodity
| signal generation such as a TV receiver it makes sense to
| separate the two at a component level.
|
| This user behavior has been guided by two past trends: A.
| in the transition from analog to digital TV signals many
| display makers separated the TV receiver function; B. by
| the time makers integrated VCRs the world had moved on to
| DVD which made the integrated VCR a waste product that
| could not be disposed of without refreshing the display.
|
| Are the signal generation components of "Smart TVs" similar
| to the analog TV tuner, slow to change and nearly always
| needed, or are they like the VCR which was integrated right
| at a signal generator change?
|
| On the other hand, I suspect that displays are adding more
| general computing for the purpose of scaling, color
| representations, decryption, etc even without the
| components that provide "smart" functions. As a result
| scaling them to include smart functions as software
| functions is low hanging fruit. I wonder if display
| computation architecture is common enough to support a
| user/hobbyist controlled OS.
|
| http://linuxgizmos.com/linux-continues-advance-in-smart-
| tv-m...
| fearface wrote:
| My LG CX turns on in less than 2s and shows the picture from
| the HDMI input. The TV can't access the internet.
|
| I use OpenRGB to disable all lights, or sometimes I'm in the
| Cyberpunk 2077 mood and make it yellow.
|
| I'm curious that people want to pay more to get less.
| skazazes wrote:
| I would agree if the lighting settings were stored on
| device across the board. I went the route of not paying
| more for hardware without RGB and am regretting it 6 months
| later. Disabling the RGB on my GPU persists across OS re-
| installs as well as driver updates, but my RAM and
| motherboard's lights require their own program each
| constantly running in the background in order to NOT have a
| light show on at all times. Furthermore, when turning on
| the computer all of the lights are on in full rainbow until
| these programs launch and ultimately turn off the lights.
|
| Because of the additional friction involved I do not agree
| with the just turn off rgb mentality many in the hobby push
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I'm a generation behind on PC hardware, so I haven't had
| to deal with this yet, but surely in most cases there'd
| be a way to physically disable it? I'd expect there to be
| a jumper you could open or maybe even a trace which could
| be carefully cut if you don't mind a destructive option.
|
| Anyway, certainly the whole thing has gotten bit out of
| control. An optional RGB header on a motherboard is one
| thing, but on the _sound card_? Total madness:
| https://youtu.be/0NMlWg-7Crg?t=29
| capableweb wrote:
| > I'm curious that people want to pay more to get less.
|
| Actually a fairly old adage when it comes to lots of
| things, not just TVs. Sometimes it's for creativity
| (limiting yourself to only using specific set of hardware
| for music production) and sometimes for better user
| experience (like in industrial design, Dieter Rams' (Braun)
| simpler radios with less functionality is a famous example,
| ~1960). Dieter Ram also had a large influence on design in
| general, and states one of the principles for "Good design"
| is "Good design is minimal - Less is more. Simple as
| possible but not simpler. Good design elevates the
| essential functions of a product."
| Animats wrote:
| You can get DRAM modules with blinky lights at retail, but not
| with the 9th chip for ECC.
| patrickk wrote:
| rgbsync.com is another alternative. Not affiliated, just have it
| as one to look into in future also.
| haunter wrote:
| How do I know if an actual product supports RGB or just using
| colored diodes? I use a throwaway chinese mechanical keyboard in
| my workshop and each row has different colors, idm that much but
| I wonder if I can change the whole keyboard to one color cuase
| otherwise that's not possible
| https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32812344569.html
| chuckdries wrote:
| 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.
| TheCapn wrote:
| 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.
| goodpoint wrote:
| It's still tacky, tho.
| Shared404 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| pugworthy wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| tylermenezes wrote:
| > 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
| wlesieutre wrote:
| But my case (with mesh intakes) serves the important
| function of keeping cat hair out of the heatsinks
| tylermenezes wrote:
| I actually have a medium-hair cat and it's been fine. But
| it's pretty far off the floor.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Yeah now that you mention it, mine has needed this a lot
| less since I hung it under the desk earlier this year. It
| used to be on the floor.
| gpanders wrote:
| 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)?
| goodpoint wrote:
| > Are yoga mats dissipative?
|
| Not at all, it's plastic!
| tylermenezes wrote:
| No idea, at the very least it didn't seem to build up a
| static charge, and it's worked fine for me for a long
| time. I imagine it probably depends on the specific yoga
| mat.
|
| I used to just have it directly on the wood, which was
| fine too, but then I put it on top of an upside-down,
| powder-coated-metal IKEA drawer thing (so I could put the
| power supply underneath for more shelf space). My fiancee
| was worried it might get scratched and conduct at some
| point, so we added the yoga mat.
| zdragnar wrote:
| 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.
| Animats wrote:
| _desktop literally built into the desk top_
|
| The Sun "pizza box" computer was like that.[1]
|
| You could just bolt a 1U rackmount server to the underside of
| a desktop. Or get a desk that's 1.75 inches thick, cut a hole
| of the appropriate size, and recess the server into it. There
| are lots of under the desk computer mounts, but I haven't
| seen a recessed one.
|
| [1] https://blog.pizzabox.computer/pizzaboxes/sparcstation/
| wlesieutre wrote:
| I imagine something like this:
| https://www.pcworld.com/article/2047642/how-a-legendary-
| pc-m...
|
| Except without the glass top. Or perhaps glass with a very
| dark tint so that it looks black, but with sufficiently
| bright internal lighting you can see through it.
|
| The easier and more likely version would be to make the
| computer fit in a normal desk drawer. Prefer that to a 1U
| on account of fan size as another commenter mentioned, but
| being off to one side instead of the whole desk surface has
| the benefit of not making the whole desk chunkier.
| Animats wrote:
| That site won't even scroll with the 19 ad trackers
| blocked.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Working for me with 20 things blocked by ublock, but try
| this: https://www.l3p.nl/l3p-d3sk/
|
| The other link is showing this desk and another
| commercialized version inspired by it.
| FooHentai wrote:
| Biggest issue I find with using a 1u case for a client is
| fan noise - short of some clever modification to the side
| panels to fit larger fans transverse, it's near impossible
| to get acceptably quiet 1u fans.
| kylegordon wrote:
| > desktop literally built into the desk top
|
| DIY Perks did that.
|
| Invisible PC - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Perqf0dOGLk
|
| Invisible monitor -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E0mNSMBmFQ
| wlesieutre wrote:
| This is perfect!
| swinglock wrote:
| Do you know if newer cases gotten better than P180, for sound
| isolation while keeping cool?
|
| That's still my case, but it's huge and I don't need that
| space anymore.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Check out the bequiet! brand cases.
| semi wrote:
| Be careful aiming for sound isolation, it can be
| counterproductive.
|
| Generally speaking "sound isolation" means reducing where
| sound can escape from the case, and putting some noise
| absorbing foam where you can to dampen the noise.
|
| The counterproductive part is that having a lot of airflow
| would be the opposite of "sound isolating" -- anywhere air
| flows freely sound does as well. So by definition a sound
| isolating case has poor airflow. Poor airflow could require
| you to run your fans at higher RPMs to compensate, which is
| then introducing more noise than you would have had with a
| more open case that could run low RPM fans.
|
| Gamers Nexus did a good piece on this
| https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3391-airflow-vs-silent-
| ca...
|
| (as he points out, there are still reasons to prefer sound
| isolating cases, it's just not as much of a clear win as it
| might sound at first)
| wlesieutre wrote:
| No idea - I remember spending a lot of time browsing Silent
| PC Review on previous builds to make sure I got an
| appropriately quiet power supply and everything else, but
| it stopped doing any meaningful testing years ago, and the
| current incarnation basically looks like affiliate link
| blogspam.
| scrps wrote:
| 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
| sneak wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 :)
| creaturemachine wrote:
| 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.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Or have the color encode a performance counter like total CPU.
| garaetjjte wrote:
| 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/f5669c00cf660c3984becb0
| 31c2ec...)
| ksk wrote:
| 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.
| alliao wrote:
| 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
| simias wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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
| mhh__ wrote:
| The vendor tools are so bad. I don't want to download a 500Meg
| program just to change my mouse DPI or make the keyboard light up
| AHTERIX5000 wrote:
| Indeed. I accidentally installed some kind of an utility suite
| for my motherboard and it instantly started 13 processes. I
| guess they had different teams working on different parts of
| the app and everyone just wrote another process? There were
| even multiple updaters for stuff made by one company.
|
| The worst part was the new drivers being loaded. Searching
| driver names led me to multiple exploit POCs allowing all kinds
| of nastiness. Some of them were patched but overall I got the
| feeling that RGB etc driver quality is awful.
|
| I wish HW manufactures would at least use static colours as a
| default choice.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Logitech is probably the worst offender with their windows app
| being buggy as hell and sometimes pegging one CPU core to 100%.
| Wtf?
| murderfs wrote:
| Corsair is worse, they install a driver that frequently blue
| screens.
| kodachi wrote:
| Finally! I'm eager to try this. I always wanted to control my
| keyboard lights to have 'analog' notifications and stuff[1].
| Never bothered to check the windows apps with wine.
|
| [1] I was thrilled when some dev showed on twitter that he
| reserved some key lights to CI build status.
| cbanek wrote:
| I use this and it's amazing. There's also another visualizer
| program by the same person to do custom visualizers that works on
| the RGB stuff in your case, connecting to RGB over a network
| port.
|
| https://gitlab.com/CalcProgrammer1/KeyboardVisualizer
|
| I had a great time pointing my camera at my computer for a
| meeting, and letting everyone realize their voice was controlling
| the RGB (with a slight delay for zoom of course).
|
| I'm even thinking about making my own visualizer to do things
| like show me my kubernetes cluster health on my RGB :)
|
| One thing to note, the corsair RGB fans and strips can be tricky
| - you have to tell it how many LEDs are on each strip manually,
| and otherwise it will just look all black and won't warn you.
| That was a couple hours of debugging there!
| Andrex wrote:
| This hardware trend is stupid and I hate it.
|
| I accept all downvotes.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I agree wholeheartedly. This trend _might_ have made sense back
| in the 90s when LAN parties were still enough of a thing that
| you could want to show off how fabulous you are with RGB RAM
| and whatnot, but today I feel like it is just needless
| complexity added to things for the sake of having something to
| putz with.
|
| Seriously, what value do people see in this stuff?
| iamdbtoo wrote:
| Like most things sold these days, it's not enough for it to
| work it has to be part of your identity. It has nothing to do
| with the function of the machine, but how it makes you feel
| and what it says about you as a person.
|
| It's really not much different than any other hobby where
| people show off their work. Mechanical keyboard folks
| sometimes have many keyboards with all kinds of differences
| and I can't imagine they use most of them, but the design
| (combo of frame, keycaps, switches, etc.) gives them
| something to show off to others.
| cjaybo wrote:
| > Seriously, what value do people see in this stuff?
|
| Do you really not understand that people have different
| aesthetic preferences and priorities?
| dhagz wrote:
| Looks cool when you're livestreaming? Like if you're just
| showing your face cam and it's in the background.
| TheCapn wrote:
| Its aesthetic.
|
| There's nothing more than that to worry about. If its not
| your jam, then don't get twisted knickers when someone else
| does.
|
| I'm actually a little appalled at people who carry your &
| OP's sentiment. Is it _really_ that hard to see that people
| like visually pleasing things in their lives? Have you ever
| painted or reorganized a room and spent time picking out the
| colours & details? Is your wardrobe 20 copies of the same
| shirt? Did you ever toss up the choice between different
| vehicles/bikes based on the looks?
|
| I get the part how flashy in your face components aren't
| appealing, but you sort of have to be intentionally daft not
| not see why others might like it too.
| kartoshechka wrote:
| Painting walls and getting interior to your liking is
| somewhat different from setting up RGB lights on your
| hardware that sits inside an opaque (maybe with transparent
| sides) case, which itself placed usually out of sight. Same
| with peripherals (do you really stare at your keyboard
| while typing? If so, then I have bad news). Walls and
| interior set the tone of room, and while you may not to
| look at it directly, it is in your vision at all times and
| affects your mood and behaviour.
|
| However RGB lights on hardware is a lame attempt to force
| consumers into redundant expenses. After spending solid
| amount of time choosing parts and building your PC,
| installing and setting up OS, you have to make another
| choice regarding color of lightning. You would be endlessly
| changing it, until you feel satisfied for a couple of
| days/weeks, or even worse, thinking that is not enough and
| now the entire room should glow in a color matching
| currently opened browser tab. I prefer not to have this
| choice in first place.
|
| Somewhat related to this, friend of mine had been bothering
| me for a whole month to help him settle on a tattoo sketch.
| When he finally got it, he was sure happy with it, but
| fast-forward to now and he remembers it only when somebody
| else notice.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| I don't see anyone's knickers getting twisted, just people
| sharing their opinions.
|
| I will say that I find it (very slightly) annoying when I
| can find the exact part I want with LEDs but can't find it
| without. Lighting seems to be default on for the vast
| majority of components, so its existence forces me to deal
| with figuring out how to turn it off whereas a non-LED
| component just does what I want.
| nitrogen wrote:
| In the extreme it's the Las Vegas aesthetic. Some people do
| seem to like it, and to others it screams "cheap fake
| bling". I think the latter group are frustrated that, just
| like dumb TVs, it's potentially getting harder to find
| visually quieter components.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| A lot of posters here say they just set it to a single
| color and leave it. Why the hell do they chose components
| with RGB LEDs integrated and software to control them [0]
| instead of just buying some stand alone LED lights in the
| color they want?
|
| > Have you ever painted or reorganized a room and spent
| time picking out the colours & details?
|
| Not really. I spent all of 5 minutes picking out paint
| colors for my house when I moved in, painted once, and
| haven't thought about it since.
|
| > Is your wardrobe 20 copies of the same shirt?
|
| Sadly no, but clothing to me is pretty much purely a
| functional consideration anyway. I pretty much never buy
| clothing unless I require it for some utilitarian purpose
| and wear clothes until they become too worn or damaged to
| wear anymore. If I had to throw out everything I owned and
| pick a whole new wardrobe, it would have _7_ of the same
| shirt.
|
| > Did you ever toss up the choice between different
| vehicles/bikes based on the looks?
|
| It's never come up because every vehicle I've ever bought,
| bikes included, was bought used. If it fits the price range
| and has what I'm looking for I don't really care what color
| it is.
|
| I get that other people aren't like that and put what to me
| is far too much significance on such things, but what I
| don't get is the added frustration and complexity for such
| paltry benefit that computer controlled RGB components gets
| you. It's like people who buy IoT devices and go through
| all the setup and troubleshooting and just kind of accept
| that sometimes they don't work because of an issue with the
| cloud.
|
| [0] Which works so well that these same people are really
| happy someone made an open source alternative.
| Schlaefer wrote:
| > A lot of posters here say they just set it to a single
| color and leave it. Why the hell do they chose components
| with RGB LEDs integrated and software to control them [0]
| instead of just buying some stand alone LED lights in the
| color they want?
|
| Even if you only set it to one color (a perceived static
| aesthetic) it's nice to have choice for that one color:
| a) find exactly the color you want and b) alter it later
| if your taste changes.
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