Feel your pain here iv owned a few alienware systems in the past before i knew they got bought out by dell first was an alienware area 51m 7700 notebook it worked ok, but i kept going though ati m28 aka x800 mobile gpus, and my notebook shell started to ripple/warp due to the heat it finally died a year later and i recieved 2nd degree burns from the solder coming out though the bottom.... alienware didnt even offer to compensate me in anyway sent in my notebook got it back new shell, the light on the top of the notebook with the alienware head was didnt work, the display came with scratche's they put put in a quadro, and the dvd drive still was not working correctly the older desktop I purchased from them in 05 had a bad motherboard, ram and a hard drive.... so after that whole ordeal I went back to building my own machines have not had any issues since, and if I buy a notebook I buy it directly from Sager the us branch of clevo that does all the high end gaming notebook designs for alot of companies like dell/alienware/hp and so on without the aftermarket parts. Most I will buy from alienware/dell is a case and thier lcds at this point. If you still have issues I would ask to get a couple of 480 GTX's to replace that ati card. On the plus side if you purchased a 120hz monitor you will be able to play in 3d as well with nvidias 3d vision kit.
But yeah it sounds like a gpu issue gl dealing with thier support.
As an update, recieved the new replaced graphics card and the PC booted up and havent had any graphical issues since then, but all my AlienFX stuff isn't working or being detected still :(
Press F12 at BIOS boot. Cursor down to Diags Partition. Run Diags on the MIO board. If that checks out, go into Windows, uninstall Command Center, reboot reinstall it, reboot, setup all three parts (make a small change in each and save it) and see if that works.
Just run through all of that, and well, the diags didnt show any problems, so reinstalled command center like you advised, and i got a new error messagethat said the "AlienwareFX controller stopped working" this is both good and bad because it didnt detect it before at all, and obviously bad because it stopped working :(
Yes, the F12 Diags (for MIO Board) seem to reset the MIO board somehow. So, you did all the MIO Board tests and they all passed? If so, that means the hardware is working and it's some kind of software problem.
Even though the hardware says it passes, I would still do a physical inspection at this point. Power down the PC and unplug AC power. On the MIO board, check all plugs. Especially, the 26 pin that comes from the motherboard and the 4 pin molex power. Then, check that the 3 connectors that plug it into the motherboard. On the Aurora, it's 2 usb's and 1 other small one (together, these make up the other side of the 26pin cable).
You might try disconnecting all extra external devices from PC. If you have the special Alienware mouse and/or keyboard you might try normal ones instead as a test. That way, if Command Center errors on install, you will know it's complaining about the MIO board and not some other AW part.
What version of Command Center are you trying to install? If the newest one doesn't work, try the next version back.
donta1979
30 Posts
0
June 25th, 2010 12:00
Feel your pain here iv owned a few alienware systems in the past before i knew they got bought out by dell first was an alienware area 51m 7700 notebook it worked ok, but i kept going though ati m28 aka x800 mobile gpus, and my notebook shell started to ripple/warp due to the heat it finally died a year later and i recieved 2nd degree burns from the solder coming out though the bottom.... alienware didnt even offer to compensate me in anyway sent in my notebook got it back new shell, the light on the top of the notebook with the alienware head was didnt work, the display came with scratche's they put put in a quadro, and the dvd drive still was not working correctly the older desktop I purchased from them in 05 had a bad motherboard, ram and a hard drive.... so after that whole ordeal I went back to building my own machines have not had any issues since, and if I buy a notebook I buy it directly from Sager the us branch of clevo that does all the high end gaming notebook designs for alot of companies like dell/alienware/hp and so on without the aftermarket parts. Most I will buy from alienware/dell is a case and thier lcds at this point. If you still have issues I would ask to get a couple of 480 GTX's to replace that ati card. On the plus side if you purchased a 120hz monitor you will be able to play in 3d as well with nvidias 3d vision kit.
But yeah it sounds like a gpu issue gl dealing with thier support.
antronoid
3 Posts
0
June 28th, 2010 14:00
As an update, recieved the new replaced graphics card and the PC booted up and havent had any graphical issues since then, but all my AlienFX stuff isn't working or being detected still :(
Tesla1856
8 Wizard
•
17.4K Posts
0
June 28th, 2010 15:00
Press F12 at BIOS boot. Cursor down to Diags Partition. Run Diags on the MIO board. If that checks out, go into Windows, uninstall Command Center, reboot reinstall it, reboot, setup all three parts (make a small change in each and save it) and see if that works.
antronoid
3 Posts
0
June 29th, 2010 05:00
Just run through all of that, and well, the diags didnt show any problems, so reinstalled command center like you advised, and i got a new error messagethat said the "AlienwareFX controller stopped working" this is both good and bad because it didnt detect it before at all, and obviously bad because it stopped working :(
Tesla1856
8 Wizard
•
17.4K Posts
0
June 29th, 2010 13:00
Yes, the F12 Diags (for MIO Board) seem to reset the MIO board somehow. So, you did all the MIO Board tests and they all passed? If so, that means the hardware is working and it's some kind of software problem.
Even though the hardware says it passes, I would still do a physical inspection at this point. Power down the PC and unplug AC power. On the MIO board, check all plugs. Especially, the 26 pin that comes from the motherboard and the 4 pin molex power. Then, check that the 3 connectors that plug it into the motherboard. On the Aurora, it's 2 usb's and 1 other small one (together, these make up the other side of the 26pin cable).
You might try disconnecting all extra external devices from PC. If you have the special Alienware mouse and/or keyboard you might try normal ones instead as a test. That way, if Command Center errors on install, you will know it's complaining about the MIO board and not some other AW part.
What version of Command Center are you trying to install? If the newest one doesn't work, try the next version back.