Corsair HX750i: the basis for RMi series

The Link

So far, I have seen and heard many things about the great Link and how superior it is to similar competitive features. My impression of the Link at least from this HX750i unit is, compared to that hype, pretty poor. It is possible other Corsair hardware provides superior features, but this did not, and then there were quite serious problems to even run this thing. Lets start from the beginning.

I found (actually later, but it is good to mention now) that on four different HW and SW configurations, only on a single system the Corsair download page ever worked properly in Opera 12.18. Instead of opening a pop-up window with some registering talk (or who knows what it was), letting you download the damned app after clicking hell no I don’t want any such thing, new download-page tab opened each time. Oh my. I am not sure if I had such problems with any other of tens of thousands websites I visited using Opera 12.17/12.18 in last few years. I admit there may be some problems running Java in Opera on those systems. Though if such a simple website is relying on Java in 2016, what can you say…but anyway, I have been able to download the application using one system at least in the end.

After putting some effort into it, I learned the hard way that Windows XP is not supported. It actually never was, even back in 2012 when it was still under support and run on about half a billion computers. Even today some 200 million computers still use this system. Not enough for Corsair I guess. It is of course Corsair’s decision to not support this OS, I have no problem with that. But I see somewhat imperative to at least say so, in 2016. Yes, Corsair does not state HW or SW requirements, that includes supported operating systems, absolutely anywhere. Not on their download page, not on their Link page, not inside the archive with the setup file, not in the product manual. So one would expect it to run on all systems when they do not say otherwise. Wrong. So you buy a product and later discover, after a few hours of nightmare, that you may not even use all the functions. I must admit I am not sure if I have ever seen such situation (not stating the requirements) for any other software ever in my life. Maybe I did, but in such case the SW was indeed running on all reasonable operating systems at that time. Or I may have just forgotten about them. Anyway, I do not really think this is proper stance towards the customer.

So anyway, the Link installed under XP, but all I got was The current operating system is not supported. When I tried to run the application! Not sooner ever. And that was for all the Link versions on Corsairs website. I found some old 2.6.something version which installed and even run, but that was just about that. Because there has never been XP Link driver. Let’s move on, otherwise I would have to use some foul language.

Another candidate was at hand – I was just testing an older LGA775 motherboard with 945P chipset, that means up to Windows Vista. Long story short, the Link 4.2 does not work. The 3.6 was initially shouting something about .NET framework missing. Seems that .NET 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5 is not enough. I would like to repeat there is nothing anywhere about any .NET, or other SW requirements. So I tried 4.0. CorsairLINK has stopped working. Oh my. Next move – installing SP2. Then the 3.6 started working, finally.

There were times during this craziness I would take about one thousand points off this unit’s evaluation, but OK, I mostly calmed down after few weeks. Let this be to Corsair’s shame. For those who think I am a fool for using Vista, I would like to remind you this OS is still under support until April 2017. And it is not really that much worse over 7, with SP1/SP2 and some tweaking. It is also worth noting that a whole bunch of still quite useful hardware never had and never will have drivers for 7 so for some systems it is just not an option to use anything newer than Vista!! Last but not least, with such attitude, Corsair may just drop Win 7 support in couple months, then 8, 8.1 and so forth. Without telling anybody. Still think that is OK and nobody will care? Good luck then.

The positive thing is, Corsair representatives I talked to agreed this should get some attention, so we can hope the situation will get resolved. Version 4.2.2.27 was launched in the meantime (March 31) with no change in this matter.

The application

The application itself hooks to your other PC sensors for overall monitoring. Or at least it tries. If the motherboard indeed was running at −55 °C, I would have had some serious troubles.

The Power tab is important to us. We can see it shows some voltages, current draws, input power, fan speed, calculates efficiency and lets you toggle Multi Rail and Single Rail modes.  The unit loses the setting if it drops out of power, so remember to check that after electricity blackout. That is about that for HX750i.

We can also see the +12 V measurement is about 0.15 V off (higher). Also the current measurement is sometimes off by as much as 1 A, like in the case of +3.3V crossloading. The calculated efficiency result is almost 10 % higher in this case. My equipment is not really that accurate itself, but 10 % points difference is already too much I think.

But while it may not be that accurate all the time, it at least provides some basic informations within still reasonable margin of error (mostly). It is good to consider this platform is couple years old now and the newer models should provide some more advanced options. (But it is still being sold so that is not really an excuse.) So while the software itself is huge fiasco to me, the Link still provides functionality similar to Enermax ZDPMS we reviewed with Digifanless. So let’s award this thing in similar manner, that means with five points for the five functions it provides, so I am not accused of being unfair

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