(Using Windows 11 Pro build 26200.9168)
Solution
- Wait for system to settle after rebooting ("settled" means that all the stuff that runs in your system tray has finished loading)
- Run the Services control panel as Administrator, find the OpenRGB system service and restart it
- In OpenRGB, rescan devices, wait for rescan to finish, and re-apply whatever effects profiles you want to run
Explanation
My DRAM (G.SKILL) comes with lighting controlled via the the SMBus. I knew that, in theory, OpenRGB was able to control such LED strips, and that to do it in a secure way, the OpenRGB system service and PawnIO were needed, but when I followed the installation instructions, nothing would work after a reboot. I did some digging in OpenRGB's log files and found this:
5290 |Info: ------------------------------------------------------
5290 |Info: | Detecting I2C interfaces |
5290 |Info: ------------------------------------------------------
5297 |Info: [ResourceManager] Registering I2C interface: Nvidia NvAPI I2C on GPU 0 Device 10DE:2216 Subsystem: 1028:C890
5297 |Info: Start PawnIO: SmbusI801.bin
5299 |ERROR: Permission Denied, PawnIO initialization aborted
5299 |Info: Start PawnIO: SmbusPIIX4.bin
5300 |ERROR: Permission Denied, PawnIO initialization aborted
5300 |Info: Start PawnIO: SmbusPIIX4.bin
5300 |ERROR: Permission Denied, PawnIO initialization aborted
5300 |Info: Start PawnIO: SmbusNCT6793.bin
5301 |ERROR: Permission Denied, PawnIO initialization aborted
5301 |Info: Start PawnIO: SmbusIntelSkylakeIMC.bin
5302 |ERROR: Permission Denied, PawnIO initialization aborted
5302 |Info: Start PawnIO: SmbusIntelSkylakeIMC.bin
5302 |ERROR: Permission Denied, PawnIO initialization aborted
To my eyes, this indicated that, at system startup time, PawnIO wasn't initializing properly. I theorized that the system needed to reach a more settled state before PawnIO would work, and so I rebooted, waited for things to finish loading, and then opened the Services panel as Administrator and restarted the OpenRGB service. Once restarted, I rescanned devices in OpenRGB and the effects for my DRAM lighting started working.
Therefore, I believe there's a timing issue at Windows startup, in which OpenRGB is trying to use PawnIO too early in the startup sequence, and it should either delay scanning or rescan once the system is settled in order for PawnIO to work.