this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2024
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Options for Lian Li Fan Control (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 months ago by gazoinksboe@lemmy.world to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.world
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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!

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[–] Overdraft@lemmy.ml 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] gazoinksboe@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] Overdraft@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] gazoinksboe@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Thank you for the continued effort to help! If I boot into windows and enable the “MB RPM Sync”, the fans are recognized by the BIOS and ramp up and down as needed. This setting does not persist after a shutdown tho. The only way I’ve found to consistently have the fans work as intended after a shutdown is to unplug the USB cable from the Lian Li controller, which kills RGB. I have the PWM connector from the controller going straight into one of the connectors on my mobo. I can tell that after a shutdown, the fans just rotate on their lowest setting, until I open L-Connect 3 again on windows or disconnect the usb port. I’m attempting to implement this: https://github.com/kryzaach/Lian-Li-Unifan-Sync but think I have it placed in the wrong location, as it errors out immediately.

[–] Overdraft@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Geeze, that's extremely frustrating... they really switched up the headaches between v1 and v2. I'm sorry I couldn't be more help! Hopefully you can find a software solution to get it going.

I don't mean to repeat troubleshooting you've already done with the python script, apologies in advance if this is stuff you've already done. If it's erroring immediately, you may want to double check that you have pyUSB in place and UDEV rules to get access to the device if you're not running the script as root.

edit: You may also need to check that your Vendor ID and Product ID match what the script was written for, given that there seem to be some different iterations of Lian Li's hardware just in general.

[–] gazoinksboe@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Thank you so much for continuing to try and help. It’s greatly appreciated. I am very new to Linux so while I can do some basics, this is very helpful. I installed pyUSB but still get an error when running the script. I have the script placed in my home folder. Should it be elsewhere? The error I get is “No module named ‘usb’. I did adjust the script to have my controller’s proper identification so feels like I’m missing a small piece of the puzzle!

[–] Overdraft@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm not familiar with Nobara, but I can at least show how I would install pyUSB for use in Debian:

If you follow the instructions exactly as in the readme, it will error:

$ pip install pyusb
error: externally-managed-environment

× This environment is externally managed
╰─> To install Python packages system-wide, try apt install
    python3-xyz, where xyz is the package you are trying to
    install.
    
    If you wish to install a non-Debian-packaged Python package,
    create a virtual environment using python3 -m venv path/to/venv.
    Then use path/to/venv/bin/python and path/to/venv/bin/pip. Make
    sure you have python3-full installed.
    
    If you wish to install a non-Debian packaged Python application,
    it may be easiest to use pipx install xyz, which will manage a
    virtual environment for you. Make sure you have pipx installed.
    
    See /usr/share/doc/python3.11/README.venv for more information.

note: If you believe this is a mistake, please contact your Python installation or OS distribution provider. You can override this, at the risk of breaking your Python installation or OS, by passing --break-system-packages.
hint: See PEP 668 for the detailed specification.

Instead, I would create a virtual environment (I'm using virtualenv instead of venv)

$ virtualenv unihub_test

Then activate the environment and run the install with pip

$ source ~/unihub_test/bin/activate
(unihub_test) $ pip install pyusb
Collecting pyusb
  Using cached pyusb-1.2.1-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (2.2 kB)
Using cached pyusb-1.2.1-py3-none-any.whl (58 kB)
Installing collected packages: pyusb
Successfully installed pyusb-1.2.1

(unihub_test) $ python3
>>> import usb #this should not error
>>> exit()
(unihub_test) $ deactivate
$

Without the actual hub, that's as far as I can go I think - but maybe this will help give you some options and documentation to explore!

[–] gazoinksboe@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Thank you. This is great info. I will give this a shot when I can.

[–] Kongar@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] gazoinksboe@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Kongar@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

“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).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0wPi_zNzKF4

[–] gazoinksboe@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

If I shut down, it sees no fans on that header. If I run L-Connect 3, it shows a single fan’s speed, which is ultimately the controller driving the three fans

[–] Kongar@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Ah I see, #5 is just the header you’re using. You aren’t using 5 total. That makes more sense.

I don’t even have L-connect installed, but I did once upon a time. Maybe I changed a setting there and forgot about it, but I don’t think so. Either way it’s probably worth checking that your bios is set to “PWM” for that header, and that L-connect is set to “enable MB PWM Sync” under the fan/pump profile page. (Just from googling). Look for settings to turn off any L-connect interaction - forcing it to pay attention to the fan header?

I’m wondering if your controller is somehow set to ignore the header pins and run from just the usb port/L-connect. And maybe on a power cycle, your mobo thinks there’s no fan?

I dunno - I’m shooting in the dark now though. All I know is that my controller always shows up as a single fan, and all the attached fans run at the same speed - whatever the header calls for. No software installed, all wired connections are made, exhibits this same behavior regardless of OS, power cycles, reboots, etc.

Sorry I’m not more help - it’s frustrating when things that should “just work” don’t.

[–] gazoinksboe@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

So you were right about one of my SATA connectors on my Lian Li controller being disconnected. I connected that but BIOS still doesn’t see the fans. Then I disconnected the USB connector from the Lian Li controller and my fans were recognized but no LED. I’m going to look into the other suggestion in this post. Thank you for taking the time to try and help!

[–] Kongar@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Oh! Did you plug in BOTH SATA connectors? I think one is for rgb and the other is for fan speed. Maybe that’s screwing things up?

[–] gazoinksboe@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

I think I did but I will check and get back to you! Thank you thank you!

[–] SteveNashFan@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Shot in the dark, but does running the Windows software in Wine work?

[–] gazoinksboe@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

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 🤷‍♂️

[–] gazoinksboe@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] vividspecter@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago

If it's controlled by USB you might be able to create a VM and passthrough the controller. Feels like overkill, but could work.