Coding with Titans

so breaking things happens constantly, but never on purpose

Fractal-Design Case LED fix

TL;DR

My new case Vector RS Dark Tempered Glass (FD-C-VER1A-02) had broken LED top-panel, which was replaced by my local reseller.

I am 100% positive about customer care, attitude and responsiveness of the Fractal-Design Support, as well as ProLine.pl in Wrocław.

Many thanks for their marvelous work.

Long version

My last desktop PC comes from February 2013. It’s still very usable with Intel i7-3770 and 32GB of RAM onboard. I did upgraded meanwhile (several times?) the graphics card and also moved from HDD to utilize bunch of fastest SSD.

Somehow during the last 7 years I haven’t heard about any new spectacular CPU revolution, nor great processing-power improvements. The newest models are faster obviously, that’s the fact, but mostly likely because more CPU cores are placed onto the chip. Yet, I am not an oracle, not putting too much attention too. At last, sometime on August I made a decision to buy a new desktop PC, to complete the build just before new COVID-19 wave. I was really impressed with AMD 3950X processor and its capabilities and almost finalized the deal. Yet, I stopped by this twitter thread from Konrad Kokosa. Shortly, on 8th October, there will be new Zen 3 architecture premiere. So why not to wait a month?

That’s why I end up with only a PSU, cooler and a new case :) Bravo! and that was literally all… I really liked the minimalistic design of Fractal-Design Vector RS. It also had lots of space for cables and potential air cooling.

Waiting…

Waiting…

2 or 3 weeks later, by pure accident, I restored my old Pentium 4. I’ve described the whole process here. And because I wished to see the LEDs in action I transferred this 16-years-old board into the new case. The experience was unforgettable. Firstly because the Seasonic FOCUS GX-750 was still compatible with such an old motherboard! That just blow my mind (as comparing to lack of compatibility and ’everything soldered’ approach used by Apple those days). Secondly I used one of the Kioxia SSD in its configuration and it brought this grandpa-PC to even better life! Since the motherboard had no ARGB connection (why?) I used the Adjust R1 controller, included inside the Vector RS case.

Then my eyes have seen this visual effect… and my heart stopped for one month…

I found one thread on Reddit with someone having similar issue and also something strange here.

To be honest, the motherboard and Pentium 4 were mainly required to startup the PSU. LEDs were directly connected with power and attached only to R1 controller. That’s why my judgment was it’s the fault of broken controller. I couldn’t verify that due to lack of other PCs with ARGB connection, but I had a doubt, it’s something more serious. I double-checked the connection between top and front panel. All seemed to be fine. However inspired by posts mentioned above I created a ticket on Fractal-Design Support Forum. Then the action speed up really fast. I got contacted by support-team member, who agreed that my case could be in a faulty batch and later sent me new Adjust R1 controller along with new top-front panel connector. This unfortunately didn’t change anything, so I contacted my local reseller. Reseller agreed to replace my case, where I just choose to switch only the top panel. Somehow I didn’t want to unscrew again everything and this operation surprisingly succeeded. At the end, just to confirm it loudly, all was caused by broken LED panel. Most strange thing for me is even up till now, how it’s possible that the whitish interferences of color were transferred even to front panel, when both panels were connected…

I just hope, you won’t have such an issue and you will happily play with new case from the very beginning.

Happy Tuesday!

EDIT 2020-11-16: This case became part of my new PC setup.