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Sunday, March 5, 2017

DeepCool RGB350 Lighting System Review


One great way to improve the looks of any gaming PC is with an LED lighting system. These systems allow for a variety of different colors and brightness settings and are usually controlled by the motherboard or a separate wireless control. Though many LED lighting systems can be expensive, the DeepCool RGB350 is a great entry level option.

If you have a computer with a window, we would highly recommend the DeepCool RGB350 LED lighting system so you can show off your components and improve the look.

Installing the DeepCool RGB350

There are two different mounting systems for the DeepCool RGB350 LED system. The mounting can be adhesive or magnetic. In our case, we mounted the lights upside down on the top of the case. Eventually, the adhesive wore down and the lights fell. They were not able to be put back on after, whereas a magnetic system would be able to be re-mounted. Due to this limitation, we recommend magnetic mounting if possible with your case. However, the adhesive mounting would still work well if mounted to the side or bottom of the case.

Another consideration that needs to be made during installation is the placement of the light sensor. If you’re using a lighting system, we’re assuming your case has a window (what would be the point otherwise?). It’s best to put the sensor in clear view of the window so the controller will work.

Connectivity and Requirements

For the DeepCool RGB350 to work properly, you’ll need a spare molex connector from the power supply. This is standard with most custom built PCs, but can be problematic if your power supply is from a prebuilt PC since they typically only have the required connectors. Additionally, you’ll need space within the case to fit the control box. Ideally, this would be positioned out of view, but it can always be placed in the bottom of the case if there’s no room.

Controller

The controller for this system works well, but it isn’t anything too fancy. There’s controls to turn the lights on and off. There’s also controls for color, brightness, and pattern. The DeepCool RGB350 LEDs can cycle through a few different colors using the pattern buttons on the side. We don’t use this much, since it can be very distracting while on the computer. Also, there’s no way to customize the color patterns, so you’re limited to the build in patterns that come with it.

The battery in the controller has a reasonable lifespan. We’ve been using it for over a year and haven’t had to replace it yet. One problem we’ve found with the controller is the battery compartment can break easily. At one point, the controller was dropped and this caused one of the clips near the battery to snap, but it didn’t stop the controller from working.

Durability

For the first six months, we had absolutely no problems with the system besides the poor adhesive. After that point, some of the LEDs started to fail. This would cause some of them to appear red or purple, even if the lighting system had been set to white. If wish we could say this wasn’t a common problem, but it eventually happened to BOTH light strips that came in the kit.


Overall, the DeepCool RGB350 is a good entry level LED lighting system for PCs. Though the system has some problems with durability and installation, it is still one of the best cheap options to improve the look of any gaming PC. Would we buy it again? Yes, but instead we would choose the magnetic option instead of adhesive.

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