FAQ: Free RGB, Fan Control & PC Monitoring Software

Nexus is a free PC hardware app that puts RGB lighting, fan control and system monitoring in one lightweight program. It shows live readings (CPU, GPU, RAM, network, disks, fans, temperatures, and on Windows a per-game FPS history), drives fans and pumps with your own curves, and runs RGB lighting through a GPU-rendered effects engine with screen sync and audio sync. It also powers touch screens and cooler LCDs such as the HYTE Y70 Touch Infinite panel and the HYTE THICC Q60, USB macro key decks, desktop widgets, and a phone remote. Everything runs locally on your PC through one native background service.

Nexus is free: no ads, no paid tiers, no subscription. The desktop app is open source under the AGPL-3.0 license, and every release is published on GitHub.

Performance is a core design goal: software that runs all day next to your games should cost you as little as possible. Nexus is built to stay out of your way:

• One native service. The background service is compiled ahead of time into a single native binary. There is no .NET runtime, Java or Electron to install.
• No bundled browser. On Windows, the dashboard uses the WebView2 component built into Windows, and its process exits shortly after you close the window. With the window closed, only the service, a small helper and the RGB controller keep running.
• Lighting prefers your integrated GPU. On PCs with integrated graphics, effects render there by default, so animations do not take time from your CPU or from the graphics card your games use. You can move rendering to the dedicated GPU in the lighting settings.
• Turn off what you do not use. The Features switches in Settings turn Lighting, Cooling, Monitoring or Diagnostics off entirely, and you can slow down or stop hard-drive health (SMART) reads per drive, so parked hard-drive heads are left alone.

What Nexus costs on your machine depends on how many devices and effects it drives: a PC with a dozen RGB controllers running an animated effect does more work than one with a single case and static colors. Nexus includes historical monitoring, so you can check its own CPU and memory use on your system at any time.

Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit), macOS on Apple Silicon, and Linux (x86-64). Windows uses a standard installer, macOS a DMG, and Linux a tarball with an install script that sets up a system service. On Linux, the dashboard opens in your browser. For phone and remote use, the panel runs in any modern browser. There are no builds for Windows on ARM, Intel Macs, or ARM Linux.

• Windows: 64-bit Windows 10 version 2004 or newer, including Windows 11, on an x64 processor. The installer adds Microsoft's WebView2 runtime if it is missing.
• macOS: an Apple Silicon Mac running macOS 12 or newer. Audio capture and the desktop overlay need macOS 13.
• Linux: a mainstream x86-64 glibc distribution with systemd (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Arch, Mint and similar; not Alpine or other musl-based distros).

There is no formal CPU or RAM minimum. Some features, such as FPS tracking, are Windows-only. Full details are in System Requirements.

Yes. Antivirus detections of Nexus are false positives. The desktop app is open source, so anyone can read the code at github.com/hello-nexus. Download Nexus only from hellonexus.com/download. For step-by-step fixes for your antivirus, see Antivirus & False Positives.

Nexus supports hardware two ways: first-party drivers we write and maintain ourselves (HYTE cases, panels and cooling, plus RGB fan and lighting hubs, AIO coolers and their LCD screens, gaming keyboards and mice, and USB macro key decks from other manufacturers), and broad motherboard, memory, GPU and peripheral RGB coverage through a bundled build of OpenRGB. The app's Supported Devices list highlights the devices it detects plugged into your PC right now, so the fastest check is to install Nexus and open it. You can also browse the full catalog on our devices page. If your device is missing, tell us on Discord; hardware support is where most of our work goes.

• Another app is driving it. Flicker, colors snapping back, or a device that ignores your changes usually means another program controls it. Nexus shows an App conflict warning in the sidebar when it sees one; open it to choose whether Nexus or the other app controls the devices it competes for.
• Nexus Control is off. Right-click the device in the sidebar or on the Lighting page and choose Turn on Nexus Control.
• Motherboard lighting stays dark in every app. Check your motherboard's support page for a BIOS or RGB firmware update; some boards only respond after one.
• The model is not supported yet. Check the devices page, then ask for it on Discord with the exact model and a support bundle (type /logs in the app's search).

Nexus (version 3) is a ground-up rewrite of HYTE Nexus 2 and a separate app: download it from hellonexus.com/download. It replaces Nexus 2's browser-based app with a native service, supports far more hardware from other manufacturers, and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux.

During setup, Nexus 3 can import your Nexus 2 panel personalization, and you can run the import again later from Settings. Both apps can stay installed, but run only one at a time, because two apps driving the same hardware conflict; if you choose Resolve all conflicts during setup, Nexus 3 uninstalls Nexus 2 for you. The Nexus 2 background videos are not bundled, but you can add them as media: they are in %appdata%\HYTE Nexus\bgs on a PC that had Nexus 2, or in this download.

Yes, as long as each device has one owner. Two programs driving the same device fight over it, which shows up as flicker, fans changing speed, or settings snapping back.

Nexus recognizes dozens of lighting, fan and peripheral apps. When one is running, Nexus shows which devices it competes for and lets you choose who controls them: Nexus, or the other app. To leave a device to the other app, turn off Nexus Control for it; this works per device, per fan, and for RAM under Devices > SMBus Devices. You can also end the other app and turn off its auto start from the same screen. On new installs, Nexus closes conflicting apps when it starts; turn off Shut down conflicting apps at startup in Settings to keep one running. To keep an app closed even when it starts later, such as a vendor service that launches with Windows, turn on Shut down conflicting apps as they open in the same place. More in Using Nexus with other RGB software.

Yes, two ways. Per device: turn off Nexus Control for any device you want to leave alone, and Nexus drives only the rest, for example just your HYTE devices. Per feature: during setup, How much control do you want? lets you switch off Lighting, Cooling, Monitoring and Diagnostics, and you can change them later in Settings, under Lighting & Cooling and Monitoring & Diagnostics. With Lighting off, Nexus stops writing to your lights; with Cooling off, your fans go back to motherboard control; with Monitoring off, widgets keep showing live readings. Screens are not part of these switches, so even with all four off, Nexus still runs USB screens and devices such as the HYTE Y70 Touch, Q-Series screens, cooler LCDs and macro key decks. To keep another app in charge of what you leave out, also turn off Shut down conflicting apps at startup.

Often, yes. Nexus controls many of the same devices as these apps, with its own drivers or through its built-in OpenRGB engine:

• RGB lighting: Corsair iCUE, ASUS Armoury Crate and Aura Sync, MSI Center and Mystic Light, Gigabyte RGB Fusion, ASRock Polychrome RGB, NZXT CAM, Lian Li L-Connect, Thermaltake TT RGB Plus, Cooler Master MasterPlus+, SignalRGB and OpenRGB.
• Fan control: FanControl, Argus Monitor, SpeedFan, ASUS Fan Xpert and Gigabyte Smart Fan.
• Keyboards, mice and macro keys: Razer Synapse, Logitech G HUB, SteelSeries GG, Glorious Core, ROCCAT Swarm and Elgato Stream Deck.
• Cooler and case screens: NZXT CAM, Tryx Kanali and HYTE Nexus 2.

Support depends on the exact model, so check your hardware in the supported devices list before you uninstall anything; the app's own Supported Devices list highlights what it detects in your PC. Nexus recognizes these apps when they run, so you can move one device at a time and leave the rest where they are.

Yes. Nexus can import your HYTE Nexus 2 panel setup, your fan curves, fixed speeds, fan names and calibration from FanControl, and your profiles from the Elgato Stream Deck app. The import runs during setup and is available again from Settings.

Nexus holds every fan and pump it controls to a curve you draw, driven by any temperature sensor in your system, with Silent, Balanced and Turbo presets to start from. Any fan, pump or graphics card fan you would rather leave alone can stay on its BIOS or firmware settings: turn off Nexus Control for it and Nexus will not touch it. Locked fans keep their settings when you apply a preset to all fans. See Fan control basics.

Yes. Any lighting preset can turn on by itself while a specific app or game is in focus. On the Lighting page, make the preset active, choose Trigger with apps... in the Presets picker, and add the apps. When you switch to an app with no preset of its own, Nexus goes back to the preset you had before. An app can only trigger one preset.

Yes. Smart Lights pairs Philips Hue and Govee lights on your network, and while a lighting effect runs they change color with the rest of your setup. WLED and other E1.31 devices are added in Settings, under Lighting & Cooling > Devices Nexus can't detect. The Home Assistant app connects to your Home Assistant server to turn lights and switches on and off and change their brightness and color, from the dashboard, your panels, or a widget, and can show your own Home Assistant dashboards. Search for either one in the app to open it.

Yes, on Windows. Nexus records the frame rate of every game you play, with no overlay to enable per game, and keeps the history on the Frames page so you can compare sessions over time. The monitoring chart can overlay FPS on your CPU and GPU readings. See Frame Rate History.

Nexus records a game only when it recognizes it: the game must be installed through Steam, Epic Games, Ubisoft Connect or Battle.net, and be the window in focus while you play. Games from other launchers are not recorded. Frame-rate capture runs on Windows only, and stops while FPS tracking is off in Settings > Privacy & Data.

Open the Y70 Touch from the sidebar, go to its Background tab, and set Rendering to Desktop. The live desktop then shows through behind your widgets, animated wallpapers included, so the Wallpaper Engine wallpaper on the Y70's display plays under them. This also works on a monitor you use as a panel. Q-Series cooler screens and other USB screens are not Windows displays, so there is no desktop to show behind them. See Wallpaper Engine.

A Nexus account is free, and it adds three things: downloading apps from the Marketplace, backing up your profiles to the cloud so you can restore them after a reinstall or import them on another PC, and a public profile page at build.hellonexus.com. Your hardware, lighting, fans and screens work without signing in. See Account & Cloud Sync for the details.

No, they are separate accounts. HYTE Nexus 2 signs in with your HYTE account, the one you use on hyte.com. Nexus (version 3) is a separate app with its own Nexus account, so your HYTE email and password do not work here, and nothing carries over from your Nexus 2 login. Create a free Nexus account when Nexus asks you to sign in, or at build.hellonexus.com/register.

Nexus controls your hardware locally; fans, lighting and screens never need the internet. On first run, Nexus asks whether to share anonymous usage statistics (Help improve Nexus). The option starts switched on, and you can change it at any time in Settings. While it is on, Nexus sends anonymous usage events, a hardware profile of your PC's components, and per-game FPS summaries, which power community FPS estimates. Benchmark results are submitted to the public leaderboard when a run completes. Details are in our privacy policy.

Yes. Scan the QR code in the dashboard and your phone becomes a touch panel with monitoring, lighting, cooling and media controls. It runs in your phone's browser, with nothing to install. On your home network, the phone connects straight to your PC. To reach it away from home, turn on remote access: the connection goes through an encrypted relay and switches to a direct connection when it can. Companion apps for iOS and Android are not in the app stores yet. For a walkthrough, see Pair your phone as a remote control.

Yes. Away from home, remote sessions are end-to-end encrypted: the relay that links your phone to your PC forwards only encrypted bytes it cannot read, and Nexus upgrades to a direct device-to-device connection when it can. The desktop dashboard is served only to your own PC, never to other computers on your network. Phones and tablets get in only after a pairing you approve on the PC, and turning off Allow remote control disconnects every remote panel at once; paired devices stay paired but cannot reach your PC until you turn it back on. A browser that pairs over the plain-HTTP fallback on your home network gets a session that expires after 24 hours and is tied to that device. For the full technical walkthrough of the encryption, pairing, the relay and NAT punch-through, read How Nexus Secures Your PC.

On Windows, Nexus updates itself. In Settings > Software updates you choose Always keep updated, Download and notify, or Only notify. On macOS and Linux, Nexus tells you when a new version is out and links the download. Before installing an update, Nexus checks it against the SHA-256 hashes published with the release. There are two channels, Production and Beta; while Nexus is in open beta, every release ships on the Beta channel. See Updating Nexus.

Yes. The desktop app (the background service, the dashboard and the Windows overlay) is open source under the AGPL-3.0 license at github.com/hello-nexus, and our OpenRGB fork is public at github.com/hello-nexus/openrgb-headless. Releases, release notes and issue tracking live at github.com/hello-nexus/nexus. The cloud services behind the optional online features are not open source.

Nexus bundles a headless fork of the open source OpenRGB project as a separate background process and uses it for part of its RGB device coverage. On top of that, Nexus adds its own first-party device drivers, effects engine, cooling control, and everything else in the app. Our fork is public at github.com/hello-nexus/openrgb-headless under OpenRGB's GPL license, and all bundled third-party components are credited with their licenses (see our licenses page).

Yes. Monitoring, cooling, lighting, screens and everything else that touches your hardware runs on your PC and works offline. You need a connection only for the online extras: phone access from outside your home network, updates, the weather, stocks and Twitch widgets, GIF search, game cover art, community FPS estimates, the benchmark leaderboard, and anonymous usage statistics.

Choose Quit from the Nexus icon in the system tray (the menu bar on macOS). Quitting stops the background service cleanly and hands your lighting and fans back to their own hardware defaults. Closing the window only hides the dashboard; the service keeps running so your fan curves and lighting stay applied. On Windows, the service restarts itself if it is killed from Task Manager, so use Quit instead.

• Windows: uninstall it like any app from Settings > Apps, or with the Uninstall shortcut in the Start menu.
• macOS: turn off Start at login in Nexus's settings, quit Nexus, and move it to the Trash. To remove your settings too, delete ~/Library/Application Support/Nexus.
• Linux: run uninstall.sh from the tarball you installed from. Your data stays in /var/lib/nexus until you delete it.

See Uninstall and clean reinstall.

Join our Discord community: it is the fastest place to get help, report bugs and request device support, and where we post every release. You can also find us on r/hellonexus. When you report a problem, attach a support bundle: type /logs in the app's search, or open Settings > Diagnostics & support > Export support bundle. See Log files and reporting a bug.