Remove CPU or casefan coolers from USB eject

[Steven P. Administrators]

One of the dumbest things about my 2023 PC upgrade that I came across is how very badly companies implement their expensive RGB offerings across devices.

If it isn't for the fact that almost every different company requires its own software, because apparently there's no standard when it comes to RGB, even though motherboard manufacturers have been including the headers on boards for years. Companies that make RGB coolers don't even bother to add an option like saving RGB lighting and fan preferences in an onboard memory inside the RGB controller that is required!

Aside from the crap software most of them have, the other extremely frustrating problem is that some of the RGB coolers are detected by Windows as ejectable devices too 🤷‍♂️ and this is down to the companies lazy and crap firmware.

Which sane person would ever want to eject their cooler?!

Yes, really LianLi and NZXT thought it would be helpful if we can eject the coolers, which can result in issues like the fans going on max RPM, the software not being able to access the controllers for configuration, until the next reboot when they are once again detected as ejectable devices.

You could say to yourself, "I'll just be careful then!" but no amount of being careful will avoid an accidental eject, when you meant to eject a USB drive. It is just some of the dumbest thing I've seen accompanying an expensive piece of equipment. For example the NZXT Kraken costs over €200 in Europe, and the case fans were almost €100 for 4.

So what can we do about it?

In a very roundabout way, and thanks to multiple articles that I researched over this past weekend, I was able to implement a fix that works for me and removes the devices from the "Safely Eject" systray.

 

1. First go into Device Manager and look for Universal Serial Bus devices -> Your cooler(s).
   
2. Right click, open Properties, go to Details tab, select Property 'Hardware IDs', find the VID and the PID; For my NZXT Kraken Base it's USB\VID_1E71&PID_300E&MI_00 (shortest of 2 if more than 1 exists).
   
3. Open Registry Editor, navigate to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB, find the directory called the same as your VID&PID found above, open it, then open the subdirectory inside; (My full path is Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB\VID_1E71&PID_300E\FBC5739BECAE7F54BC35F2A255DFDB9C).
   
4. Look for an entry called Capabilities. Mine has a value of 0x00000094 (decimal 148).
5. Using another source I found out that we need to subtract 4 from 94 to signify a non-ejectable device, and I saved Capabilities as 90 (hex).
   
6. It will immediately disappear from Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media.

The next time that you reboot however, they will be back as ejectable devices because the preference is not saved between boots, so we can automate it with Task Scheduler

Right click on the desktop and create a text document

In it paste the following:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB\YOUR-COOLER-HARDWARE-ID1\SUB-KEY]
"Capabilities"=dword:00000090

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB\YOUR-COOLER-HARDWARE-ID2\SUB-KEY]
"Capabilities"=dword:00000090

Ensure you change YOUR-COOLER-HARDWARE-ID1\SUB-KEY for your Hardware ID and sub key.. mine is VID_1E71&PID_300E\FBC5739BECAE7F54BC35F2A255DFDB9C and VID_0CF2&PID_A100\6243168001

As you can see you can add multiple entries for multiple coolers that are shown as ejectable, when they shouldn't be,

Save the file, and change the .txt extension to .reg.

Now we want this registry change to take place every time we boot Windows so that the coolers no longer show up as ejectable devices.

You can apply that solution as such:

1. Open Task Scheduler, hit Create Task, and give it a name
2. Click on Change User or Group and type System, save that - thanks V3n0mx
3. Make sure to select 'Run with highest privileges'
4. Go to the Triggers tab, create a new trigger, hit 'At Startup' and hit OK
5. Go to the Actions tab, create a new action, select C:\Windows\System32\reg.exe as the program, and under 'Add arguments', add: import "C:\Your Path To\remove-coolers-from-usb-eject.reg"
6. Hit OK (right click on Task and select Run to test)

Note: quotes allow you to specify a path with spaces in it for the argument field, but if you save the .reg file in a place without spaces you can also add the argument as like so: import E:\Software\remove-coolers-from-usb-eject.reg

Task Scheduler should now re-set the Capabilities value to one that marks the device as un-ejectable and the Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media icon should not be present anymore in the systray.

Basically the things to remember for your configuration is the correct hardware ID in the registry, and changing the hex value by minus 4 to indicate it is not ejectable (from 94 to 90).

Hope this helps someone!

[+DKAngel Subscriber²]

the one other fun fact is, u dont actually have to safley eject a usb stick so some people may not even realise this is a thing anymore "https://learn.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/client-management/client-tools/change-default-removal-policy-external-storage-media"

 

Also cool article hopefully thanks to yourself the companies actually fix their ######. or when windows enables the rgb ###### of their own

[V3n0mx]

Tried this.

If I go to registry, change the value to 90, it then disappears from the taskbar. Great.

BUT

When I go into task scheduler, do as instructed above, do a reboot, the it then appears again.

If I click on the .reg file that I created ( manually ) it says  " The specified file is not a registry script. You can only import binary registry files from within the registry editor "

 

any ideas ?

[Steven P. Administrators]

Yeah mine started showing up in the USB devices systray again, so the IDs must have changed  

[V3n0mx]

On 20/08/2023 at 23:33, Steven P. said:

Yeah mine started showing up in the USB devices systray again, so the IDs must have changed  

OK I have finally fixed it!

[Steven P. Administrators]

On 21/08/2023 at 06:47, V3n0mx said:

OK I have finally fixed it!

Thanks, I changed mine to SYSTEM and it works again. I've updated the instructions 👍

[Xenon]

Out of curiosity, did you hit eject for the CPU?  

[V3n0mx]

For some reason it keeps showing back up again and I have to keep going into task scheduler and hitting "run"

[Fraud OS 11]

Use "USB Safely Remove" ( https://safelyremove.com/features.htm ) which can hide unwanted crap from this list and hide the stock USB icon. Occasionally they do giveaways/offer it free without updates. The 4.7 version was free.

[Michael Scrip]

On 09/09/2023 at 08:28, MS Bob 11 said:

Use "USB Safely Remove" ( https://safelyremove.com/features.htm ) which can hide unwanted crap from this list and hide the stock USB icon. Occasionally they do giveaways/offer it free without updates. The 4.7 version was free.

I've been using this for years.  Great little utility!

[Steven P. Administrators]

On 09/09/2023 at 09:46, V3n0mx said:

For some reason it keeps showing back up again and I have to keep going into task scheduler and hitting "run"

I had the same problem until I changed the task to run from SYSTEM and it has been great since.

Only difference I can see is that my task is reading a .reg file, and yours is running the argument.

[V3n0mx]

Yeah I have tried doing it the .reg way and still it won't work. I have to do it the argument way. Every now and again it shows back up and I have to click run and do it manually. Seems as though task scheduler isn't running it by itself,

Reg way never works at all. Argument way  works half the time but usually I have to manually hit " run "

 

In regards to the  software linked above, after the 30 days is up, will the icon reappear ?

 

There has been an NZXT cam software update recently. This may have something to do with it.. either that or I did install a much faster CPU and I think task scheduler is trying to  execute the command before NZXT is even loaded

Edited September 14, 2023 by V3n0mx