Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
1 Rookie
•
152 Posts
0
2418
3RD time for thermal controls to stop working
Thermal controls were working fine when I went out of town 7/23. System was left running and on UPS as it also is doing crypto mining. It was off when I returned on 27th.
When I powered it up I noticed the CPU Pump was warning: "FAILING" and all other sensors were "0" which causes the fans to run a low speed and I know from experience this causes a shutdown as the nvidia cards overheat and cause a stop.
Looking in ADD - REMOVE programs I see that Microsoft, while I was gone, installed: photos, movies & TV, and xbox-gaming overlay whatever that is. I assume these were updates. I thought movies & tv were in that old microsoft "essentials" that had windows live mail. In any event I don't use any of these and would not have allowed them to install. I assume these somehow killed my dell thermal control program probably by replacing VC++ runtimes or causing some type of DLL **bleep**.
A repair of AWCC did not work so I uninstalled and reinstalled. Unaccountably, the thermal controls were missing so I went back to the original AWCC 4.8.23 that came with my system, installed that, then installed OC-Control-for-Alienware, then did the latest AWCC (5.1.27) and finally got CPU-PUMP to indicate "working".
Looking in ADD - REMOVE I see that VS 2010 and VS2013 runtimes were installed which must have come with those AWCC programs.
Not sure if I can stop those microsoft updates that cause this problem. I cant seem to stop microsoft from updating a printer drive. It tries 3 times to update then quits until the next update then it tries 3 times again.
Tesla1856
8 Wizard
8 Wizard
•
17K Posts
0
August 1st, 2018 09:00
Since this post if finally online, I think this info goes here too:
I ran Alienware Command Center v4.6.20 through DotPeek (DotNet Analyzer) and it does appear to still be a DotNet program (like it has been for 8 years).
That means that once it's running on a machine (and with its required DotNet Framework) it's very hard to de-rail that. Any new versions of DotNet or programs are simply loaded and run along-side this working set (does not replace them).
I suggest you find the proper working version of AW-CC for your machine and always use it. Don't Upgrade it or Repair it. If it has a problem, just uninstall, reboot, and clean-install it.
As for the Printer-Driver constantly re-installing, see if this still works (on v1709 and/or v1803):
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3183922/how-to-temporarily-prevent-a-windows-update-from-reinstalling-in-windo
Joseph Stateson
1 Rookie
1 Rookie
•
152 Posts
0
August 10th, 2018 14:00
Seems my post got approved after all.
I did not uninstall the dell update program that was discussed in another thread. Today, I notice another request to install an R5 bios in my R4 system. I went to dell support and incredible, as of aug 3, a new bios for R4 is out. That jumps me from 1.1.10 to
Alienware_Area_51_R4_1.1.16.exe
Not sure why the dell update notification program did not say the 16 version was available. Anyway, I will put the new bios in and possibly that might help the sensors detection problem.
Tesla1856
8 Wizard
8 Wizard
•
17K Posts
0
August 10th, 2018 15:00
It seems to me that Area51-R4 (and Area51-R3) where short-lived releases ... compared to all the other Area51 models.
If Area51-R3 and Area51-R6 = AMD
and
Area51-R4 and Area51-R5 = Intel
Maybe they do use the same BIOS? (and yes, it would be an uncommon occurrence)
Eimy seems to vaguely confirm that here:
https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-Desktops/Area-51-R4-and-R5-BIOS-differences/m-p/6113858#M4439
There are also odd pages like this (with various discrepancies):
https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/alienware-area51-r4/manuals
It would be good to know definitely.
As far as Dell-Update / Alienware-Update / Support-Assist ... I still suggest you uninstall them before something bad happens (not sure if you are reading other Forum sections).
https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-Desktops/My-Aurora-R6-The-Adventure-Continues/m-p/6095405/highlight/true#M3971
Tesla1856
8 Wizard
8 Wizard
•
17K Posts
0
August 11th, 2018 22:00
I got this info from Dell-Chris_M for you.
Area51-R3 = AMD X399 chipset, AMD Ryzen Threadripper Summit Ridge CPU
Area51-R4 = Intel X299 PCH chipset, Intel Skylake-X CPU
Area51-R5 = Intel X299 PCH chipset, Intel Skylake-X CPU
Area51-R6 = AMD X399 chipset, AMD Ryzen Threadripper Summit Ridge CPU
Yes, some of these machines share the same motherboard:
XF4NJ (Area51-R3/R6)
HJ5Y7 (Area51-R4/R5)
He was not sure (off hand) why there was 2 models of each. Personally, I think it might be the case itself because I see talk of "2nd-gen Triad chassis" on the newer ones.
Joseph Stateson
1 Rookie
1 Rookie
•
152 Posts
0
August 17th, 2018 14:00
Tuesday (8/13/2018) was another win10 update from Microsoft. Area51, SurfacePro4, Dell XPS435mt and Rampage II all rebooted. Again, my Area51 shows pump failing. This time uninstall and reinstalls of AWCC have not fixed it. There is nothing wrong with the pump and ALL thermal systems show all "0" except for GPU temps. Other temp monitoring programs such as speedfan, tthrottle and hd sentinel report temps just fine so something in the "patch Tuesday" release is again interfering with that dell thermal control program.
I just discovered there are no recovery points as C, D and E were all "off" in that recovery app. I had the idea of picking a restore point prior to the Tuesday update and see exactly what was download that caused the problem.
I have enabled restore for C and will try to get the thermal program working and then create a restore point. I should have made a note of the exact order of uninstalls and reinstalls that corrected the pump failing warning.
For what it is worth, attempting to set manual fan speed pops up the following error message.
[EDIT] Just found out that the thermal controls are missing from AWCC version 5.1.27.0 which is offered as Area 51-R3/R4/R5/R6 (my system is X51-R4). While the list in the stick post on this thread are simply by version # one has to click on each version number to see what it is actually named. 5.1.27.0 is NOT a desktop version while 4.8.23.0 is named as a "desktop" version. I assume the difference is one has the thermal controls the other does not. The 4.8.23 that is assigned to my dell service IDE has _J7XK6_ in the download name (in addition to "desktop") but the one in the sticky post has _0PWM6_ and is offered as Aurora-R5/R6 not Area 51. There is contact information at the bottom of the sticky post and I will asked about the missing thermal controls in the 5.1.27.0. Currently thermal controls are working but if I reboot I suspect they might fail.
Tesla1856
8 Wizard
8 Wizard
•
17K Posts
1
August 20th, 2018 18:00
1. This is all very interesting ... good work. Hopefully, with your help, maybe Dell can get the proper AW-CC files posted and described properly.
2. We have talked about this before. As you are doing, your first objective it to get the proper/latest AW-CC on there (that is validated for your exact machine). Always clean-install them and keep the AW-CC Upgrade-Option turned OFF.
As you are doing, keep good notes. Which version is installed and if it works long-term or not.
Let us know here how it goes.