Options for Lian Li Fan Control
Options for Lian Li Fan Control
Hello! I have recently begun gaming on Nobara Linux and overall, my experience has been quite good. The biggest issue I’ve experienced so far is not being able to control my Lian Li SL V2 fan controller. The fans connected to the controller are only recognized in my BIOS once I run L-Connect 3 in windows but if my system is shut down, they are no longer seen. I have seen this https://github.com/EightB1ts/uni-sync and a plugin for OpenRGB, but keep running into compilation errors and/or lack of maintaining the project. Any advice is very appreciated!
For the fan speed controll via BIOS, I ran into the same problem where my SL120s didn't show up - this was the solution I finally found https://www.reddit.com/r/lianli/comments/k37m9y/sl120_not_recognized_by_bios_try_this
Get yourself a splitter for the 4 pin fan cables. Disconnect one set of fans from the controller. Connect the unplugged set of fans directly to the splitter. Connect the controller to the splitter. Connect the splitter to the motherboard.
Your bios should now see your fans. You can create custom fans curves and dynamically control the speed of the fans.
It may not solve the problems you're seeing, but it seemed worth sharing.
Thank you so much for the advice but the issue with the Lian Li Uni Fan v2 is that the fan connectors are proprietary and only fit into the controller. The only thing I could split is from the controller and I don’t think that would really change my current situation.
Sorry for the delayed response - I saw what you meant in the v2 manual about the proprietary connector and thought I would just leave it at that, but I had another thought.
It sounds like you do have some access to Windows/L-Connect, have you switched the fan profiles to sync with the MB? This should stick after a shutdown and not need to be re-set, you will lose the ability to create fan curves in L-Connect:
Also, are you connecting the UNI HUB directly to the MB pins, or is it running through a splitter or extender? It looks like the UNI HUB v2 does have a sense pin (the v1 does NOT, that's the reason for the workaround I have to use); some additional extenders and splitters are missing the sense pin, so even though you can control the fan speed from BIOS, you can't see the RPMs in BIOS so it might look like it's not recognized.
Hmmm…. I’ve got those exact fans and the controller that comes with them - 10 fans to be specific, and they really haven’t given me any trouble at all. There are three sets of 3 daisy chained, and one single fan. They connect to a relatively new asus board. I’m running arch and openrgb from the aur.
The fans doing fan things (spinning), that just works. They ramp up and down based on the case fan connector from the mobo. One three pack is on the radiator to an aio cooler and that triplet ramps up and down based on the fan speed header for the cpu.
The LIGHTS are a different story. If I cycle power completely, they do the default rainbow puke when started back up. OpenRGB required a little configuration and playing around to get the number of lights correct, and synching properly-but it worked. (I can get you my settings in openRGB if that helps avoid the trial and error). Because my mobo still supplies power when I power down, the lights hold their last pattern when I reboot.
So in my experience-those fans spin without any software and light up at least rainbow puke without any software. You only need software to get different colors or to just override the fan header and set a manual speed.
I’m wondering what your computer/mobo is doing to stop that. Weird.
Thank you so much for the reply! I have an MSI B550 Tomahawk, so a fairly new board. I can definitely relate to the OpenRGB issues as well. I appreciate the offer for your config but I have the lights as stable as they’ll get I think. I just tested again to be sure and when I shut down the system and go to the BIOS, fan 5 isn’t recognized. Right when I log into windows and enable MB Sync in L-Connect 3, the BIOS sees the fans again. I have 2 fans under my GPU and one as exhaust so I’ve noticed higher temps when in Linux. Thank you again for the input. I’ll need to dig around a bit more I suppose.
“Fan 5 isn’t recognized”. This confuses me. Wouldn’t your motherboard only recognize the controller? For example I’m using two controllers. My motherboard sees a single cpu fan (the controller with 3 daisy chained fans on one port), and it sees a second chassis fan (the second controller with a 3 pack on one port, another three pack on the second port, and a single fan on the third port).
10 fans, 2 controllers, mobo only sees 2 “fans”. Here’s a video showing exactly how I wired mine up, and the type of fans and controllers (maybe we don’t have the same parts).
Shot in the dark, but does running the Windows software in Wine work?
Thank you for the advice! I tried to run the software in Bottles but while I could run the installer, launching the program threw an error 🤷♂️
An update: I fiddled with connecting the L-Connect controller to splitters, and a PWM and RGB hub I have and the results are the same: the Lian Li fans are not recognized by the BIOS unless I unplug the USB connection on the Lian Li controller, which kills RGB. When I used the splitter, it actually made my other fans invisible to the BIOS too. Looking closer, I noticed the PWM connector from the Lian Li controller only has 2 pins so I’m assuming it just won’t work without the L-Connect 3 software. Bummer
If it's controlled by USB you might be able to create a VM and passthrough the controller. Feels like overkill, but could work.