Last year I posted two videos about the Be Quiet Pure Loop AIO 240mm Liquid Cooler. The first video I had to mount the AIO with the fans on the inside of the Cougar MX330-G ATX case. The long screws that came with the AIO weren’t long enough for the recessed screw holes in the front panel. The second video I used 20-year-old motherboard spacers to mount the AIO and the fans in the front of the case. Mounting the fans in front frees up space inside the case and RGB fans can shine through the front mesh panel. Since Be Quiet doesn’t make RGB fans, I got the Phanteks Halo Lux RGB Fan Frames to go on top of them. I’ll compare the RGB lighting on the white Shadow Wings 2 fan against the black Pure Wings 2 fan that comes with the AIO.
Phanteks Halos Fan Frames
Phanteks is the only company that makes frames that adds RGB lighting to non-RGB fans. Figuring out which Phanteks fan frames to get can be somewhat confusing with all the various options.
- The Halos Fan Frame is a plastic frame that doesn’t include a motherboard adapter cable.
- The Halos Lux Fan Frame is an aluminum frame that does include a motherboard adapter cable.
- Both are available in 12-volt RGB or 5-volt Digital RGB, and in 120mm or 140mm frame sizes.
Unless you have a Phanteks case and/or hub, you will need a motherboard adapter cable. Each fan frame includes short screws for mounting to a fan and extra-long screws for mounting to a radiator.
I got a pair of Phanteks Halo Lux RGB 120mm Fan Frames for $18 USD each.
White VS Black Be Quiet Fans
Before I mounted the frames, I switched out the top Pure Wings 2 fan with a Shadow Wings 2 fan. The Shadow Wings 2 are the only Be Quiet fans that come in white. When lit by RGB LEDs, white blades are brighter and black blades are dimmer. Depending on the style you want, you can have a thin light ring with a brighter or dimmer interior circle.
Installing The Fan Frames
I used the extra-long screws to attach the frame and the fan to the motherboard spacers in my case. If I didn’t have recessed screw holes in the front panel, the screws would have screwed into the radiator. Note that the extra-long screws have a short thread to prevent it from going too far into the radiator.
The RGB cable from each frame are daisy chainable. I plugged those together and into the motherboard adapter cable. The motherboard adapter cable plugged into the four-pin RGB header near the processor.
The MSI Dragon Center controls the RGB lighting on my MSI Tomahawk X570 motherboard. I like the gradual shifting of rainbow colors on the white fan blades better than the black fan blades. I’ll be getting another Shadow Wings 2 white fan soon.