Aurora R4 Thermal Ambient Sensor Issue

Hello all, I will break this down as simply as I can. I encountered issues with the Thermal Ambient Sensor on my 2 month old R4 after a recent routine windows update. As is he case with many others, I received a convoluted error message on reboot, with the sensors showing numbers 1 and 2 at 0C and sensor three sitting firmly at 65C. Lights and all other MIO board related processes were unaffected. I've dug through all related fixes and info I can find, and as a first course of action preformed a power down/unplug cable/hold button for 30 second routine. The first cycle didn't work, but the second one did, and left the sensors at a normal 28C. However, the problem returned the next day. I preformed the rests, and again things went back to normal. 3 days of this later I was sick of it, and ran a ePSA diagnostic. No MIO board option was shown for testing, which pointed toward my stupidly expensive brand new pc being foobared. But again, on reboot the thermal sensors read normally, and even did so on 3 subsequent boots. So, Im puzzled. Its almost as if the MIO gets stuck in loops on a regular basis. God willing this little episode is over, but I wanted to throw out is post just in case. My question is: has anyone experienced this, is it cause for concern, and if there are any permanent ways of fixing this? As Ive mentioned before, all other aspects of ACC work fine. and its sitting at version 2.8.9.0. Thanks for your time, D

Hi Dust_ITW

My Area 51 did this again yesterday. Sometimes I can go weeks without it happening and sometimes it will do it again a few days later. If I shutdown and my front lights do not turn off then I perform the reset. If I do not and boot the system then my temps will read the 0,0, 65. You can have Dell replace the MIO board but it may not fix it. I've had mine replaced multiple times with no promising results.

If it was my system and it kept doing it even after a reset then I would look at replacing the MIO board. Resets work on mine but it's never a permanent fix of course. 

As morblore says, it happens sometimes. What we recommend is to update the BIOS and the command center to the latest versions available @DELL.com and performing the power drain (as you have already done).

If the issue continues you can always send us an e-mail to AWSocialMedia@dell.com and we'll help you with the I/O board replacement.

This is VERY late  but my 4 year old Aurora R4 came with two CRITICAL maladies From day one. First

The default tray for the 0 drive had a mind of its own . The disk was changed 4 times ! Finally a new PC was sent to me. SAME problem. Talking to Seagate I was told the drives models were Refurbished and did not have SMART which made me pull my attorneys number.  Dell was nice enough to send me a monster of a drive used in their enterprise servers. Case solved. A second drive I bought had the same problem in cage 1 Since this was not my main partition I just covered the contacts with electronic cleaner and SLAMMED the drive in the cage ..(I mean no CLICK deal but WHAM!) Case solved.

Now the god ***  Thermals - And this is a Microsoft/Dell pissing contest. After 2 months I was gett the nive black bootup Thermal controller error . No go as far as Dell support was concerned . After only 2 months they wanted a CLEAN windows install . Well THAT was ***.. Everyone was confounded and the net was packed with this problem. This was a FORCED Microsoft  security patch affecting the .NET framework. we waited for vs 3.5 of command center and things were cool for 3+ years with its occasional "THERMAL ERROR". This was until about two months ago . where all *** broke loose. Again . oh you need a CLEAN install.. well I am NOT going to do THAT! After manually wiping out the 96 references of command center in the register and downloading vs 3.6 things seemed to go ok.  Three days ago I get the dreaded THERMAL ERROR and the AMbient sensor 1 and Ambient sensor 2 showed 32F (0c)  I neat utility Speccy . Did open heart *** in my system and showed all my thermals were withing limit , apparently the software was not reading them.

Today I found a DELL certificate had been compromised and Windows 7.1 started to go psycho. Would not allow ANY Dell utility to run. It took 3 reboots to get MS Security essentials to allow ANY DELL program to run and now I AM forced to authorize if a program can run . Bottom line DELL Security certificate was hacked by some *** . so now I can not get command center to work at all. I am sure my thermals are correct because Speccy can monitor real time (I wish Dell programmers had this skillset - they do not) So I am TIRED of discussing this mess with DELL . EVERYONE with an alienware machine HAS HAD this effing problem . THey know and they can NOT do anything about it . Alenware does not know if there will be a command center 3.7 but .. Ill keep monitoring with Speccy . Even the free version blows away this Alienware ***.