Area-51 R5, seriously broken AWCC

Question

Hello all. So, I'm on my 4th Alien. Bought the latest a couple of weeks ago. To cut a long story short, it shipped with no SSD so I made an image of C and copied it to the SSD from my old Area-51 R2. AWCC ran fine to begin with and I spent a week or more setting up and installing my programs / games / Steam. A couple of days ago I tried to load the control center to adjust the power save settings back to default, having had them set up to stop shut downs whilst doing heavy downloading and setting this machine up. I was greeted with the control center screen, but it wasn't loading properly, so only a few things populated the window - certainly not lighting controls / fan controls or anything important. At about this point I noticed the mouse pointer was flashing up the busy clue circle every two seconds. On investigation in Task Manager it seemed as though occontrolservice (which I think is Alienware / control center related) was starting and stopping every two seconds, over an over. So, I tried to download the latest control center and over install / repair install. On launching the installer all I got is a completely blank white Explorer window (that I only know is Explorer because of the taskbar icon) which disappears after a few seconds, and a blank second window which I assume is the actual installer window. It stays as a perfect white rectangle with no close button and nothing seems to happen. Following the AW instructions I uninstalled AWCC and any related appdate / programfiles left overs. Oddly the desktop icon remained, which also oddly does actually boot into control center when clicked. It recognizes there are missing items and on downloading them I get the same white blank windows open when it tries to install. I've uninstalled the AW OC program and no longer have the 'busy' circle flash up next to my mouse pointer, but control center seems hopelessly broken. Does anyone have any idea what is going on and how I can fix this ? I'd rather not set up from scratch again from my recovery partition! Thanks!

Tesla1856 · Answer

AW-CC must be a 'clean install'. If you are trying v5.2.24.0 (the latest version you are allowed to use) and it doesn't work, try v5.2.20.0 instead.

RTID75 · Answer

Hi Tesla. Thanks for the reply.

If I've followed the AW uninstall instructions and there's still control centre stuff there, how do I get rid of it?

When I've uninstalled the Windows uninstall list says it's gone, but CCleaner shows it there still.

The fact the desktop icon remains and it'll run says it's not all being removed...

Thanks again!

Tesla1856 · Answer

@RTID75 wrote:

how do I get rid of it?

When I've uninstalled the Windows uninstall list says it's gone, but CCleaner shows it there still.

The fact the desktop icon remains and it'll run says it's not all being removed...

Sounds like maybe you managed to get two versions installed at once?

Not sure how, but yeah ... uninstall all of that before continuing.

RTID75 · Answer

Funny you should say that, I noticed there was AWCC and AWCC suite shown as installed.

The long and short of it - after thorough uninstallation, and having spent several hours trying to work out why there was the icon still on the desktop, and it launching a (very broken) control center when I couldn't even see where it was installed, I gave up.

I've reset to factory from the backup partition and have spent a few hours setting up again. Not very happy to have to start again, but hoping for no more issues.

Thanks for the replies!

Tesla1856 · Answer

@RTID75 wrote:   I've reset to factory from the backup partition and have spent a few hours setting up again. Not very happy to have to start again, but hoping for no more issues.    Yes, that would have been my final suggestion, but I think you have to at least try the less extreme procedures first. :Smile: Glad to hear you found a solution.  :Beer:

RTID75 · Answer

I thought it must be me not remembering how to get into the factory saved lighting themes to be able to choose another and disregarded it.

I subsequently tried a couple more times to find the other themes, to no avail. I started to wonder if it was corrupt again.

Then, tonight the mouse pointer kept going to busy every few seconds again.

Sure enough, OCControlService is stopping and starting over and over again, and when loaded AWCC has some of the small boxes on the front screen that show spinny dot wait animations, and the over clocking tab takes you to an empty screen with a big spinny dot wait animation in the middle.

What do I need to do to get this back to normal and keep it that way?

So far this has to be the most disappointing and flaky piece of Alienware software I've ever used. :-(

https://YouTu.be/-uibpM9PRHA

Tesla1856 · Answer

@RTID75 wrote:

Sure enough, OCControlService is stopping and starting over and over again, and when loaded AWCC has some of the small boxes on the front screen

Disable OC in BIOS and
Uninstall any AW-CC OC addins in Windows

RTID75 · Answer

Thanks for your reply again Tesla.

I couldn't see what I might be turning off in BIOS, but I uninstalled the overclocking portion of the AWCC. That's obviously stopped the mouse busy pointer & the OCControlService start/stop issue, but now AWCC is close to useless.

In the Fusion tab the power management page loads, but the whilst the buttons are there, the settings are blank and you can't change any options, the thermometer page (fan control is it?) doesn't load at all (spinny dots), the FX tab doesn't do anything at all when clicked, and as before from the main screen if you click the edit pencil next to 'Active default theme' there's no other factory lighting themes to choose and if you click edit then the screen remains blank (ie: no lighting controls appear at all).

All I can do would appear to be to add or launch games and change the onboard audio options.

To all intents and purposes it's dead again, and I can't say I'm best impressed with this bit of AW software. I've never had serious issues like this with control center programs in previous machines. :-(

What next, do you suggest?

Tesla1856 · Answer

@RTID75 wrote:

1. In the Fusion tab

2. the power management page loads, but the whilst the buttons are there, the settings are blank and you can't change any options, the thermometer page (fan control is it?) doesn't load at all (spinny dots), the FX tab doesn't do anything at all when clicked, and as before from the main screen if you click the edit pencil next to 'Active default theme' there's no other factory lighting themes to choose and if you click edit then the screen remains blank (ie: no lighting controls appear at all).

3. All I can do would appear to be to add or launch games and change the onboard audio options.

4. To all intents and purposes it's dead again, and I can't say I'm best impressed with this bit of AW software. I've never had serious issues like this with control center programs in previous machines. :-(

What next, do you suggest?

1. Requires (properly running) dedicated Windows Service (Alienware Fusion Service).

2. But I try not to use it. I just use classic Windows Control-Panel. They hardly change anyway.

3. I launch games from it's DRM-client like Steam or uPlay .

4. I set fans to Manual with uphill-Curve.

Tesla1856 · Answer

@RTID75 wrote:

1. SupportAssist has joined in, telling me it needs to update, but never actually doing so. Seems a common one from a glance at these forums.

2. Setting up from factory for a third time as we speak...

1. Correct. I just uninstall Support-ASSist. Or, skip its installation on new build-ups.

2. Are you doing a truly clean-install or ... just using Dell Recovery and existing factory-shipped image?

RTID75 · Answer

SupportAssist has joined in, telling me it needs to update, but never actually doing so. Seems a common one from a glance at these forums.  Setting up from factory for a third time as we speak...

RTID75 · Answer

Restoring from factory image. All seems well at the moment again, and I'm going to try to stop the overclocking half of AWCC updating as that is what seems to start the problems.

I tweeted Alienware support when I decided to start fresh again and they're now aware of my problems. If it corrupts again I'm going to get them properly involved as it's getting tiresome now.

Tesla1856 · Answer

@RTID75 wrote:

1. All seems well at the moment again,

2. and I'm going to try to stop the overclocking half of AWCC updating

3. Restoring from factory image.

If it corrupts again

1. Good

2. Correct

3. You could create the 32gb-USB Windows Recovery Image (of existing Dell Factory version) in case you ever need it again.

Then do a proper Nuke-and-Pave and completely fresh Windows-10 64bit install.

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-Desktops/Aurora-R7-M-2-NVMe-bootable-options/td-p/6073037

OC totally OFF. Try not installing Dell Support-Assist, Intel-RST.

RTID75 · Answer

It's been a while. Just a quick update.

Previously, I decided to stick with not updating the installation by disconnecting from wifi every time I wanted to load AWCC.

This ploy worked until a week or so ago, when, for a reason I can't understand, all of a sudden the lights on the case started turning on and off of their own accord. Eventually, after a few days they turned off and stayed off.

I knew it was an AWCC issue as they lit back up on reboot but every time Windows loaded properly, off they'd go again.

AWCC remained loadable, but trying to edit the lights did nothing.

The long and short of it? Completely reinstalled Windows yesterday. Downloaded the latest AWCC from Dell support and it's installed and runs perfectly.

I've just finished installing programs and setting it up and am currently running an image backup of C and D drives, just in case!

I didn't want to have to set up all over again, but clearly something about the Alienware factory install (and obviously the recovery partition image) was defective as a downloaded update, or uninstall and reinstall of AWCC *always* ended up with it only half functional or completely corrupted.

Some thanks need to go out to Alienware Twitter support, but I have to say, some of their YouTube videos are now out of date.

RTID75 · Answer

Well, that didn't last long.

Launched AWCC a couple of days ago as I wanted to change my case lighting colours. For the first time since my re-installation of Windows from scratch a couple of months ago AWCC wanted to update.

Not being particularly worried about the prospect (given AWCC's perfect behaviour since Windows reinstallation) I let it update. Bad move.

Now it's broken again. On installation the lights went off, then back on again in default blue. Now on launch there's the endless spinny dots again. If I close it and re-open it then it brings up the 'No supported AlienFX devices were detected...' warning.

Got Alienware Twitter support trying to help, but that's basically 'Uninstall as per the YouTube video & reinstall'. I have - about 3 times and the exact same problems remain.

Sick of this software. Nothing but trouble since the day I bought this machine.

Alienware Desktops

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