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September 7th, 2020 15:00
Aurora R8, "Dell EC" sensor issue
Hi everyone.
I updated windows last night to version 2004 from 1909. Everything went well and was working great.
This morning, I restarted the PC and got this hardware scan diagnostics screen during boot up and my case fans are running at Maximum speed. The diagnostic reported that the CPU fan is not responding and I should contact dell support. Error code 2000-0511. Well, there is no CPU fan connected to the header on the mobo because the thing is liquid cooled by Dell and the case fans are plugged into the right headers for CPU pump, front fan and top fan (which blows on the radiator and cools the CPU).
I just spent 3 hours with Dell support and am waiting for a call back in the next 48 hours. Meanwhile, the system is running great but the fans are on full blast and I feel like the rocket is going to take off.
After tons of trouble shooting, a bios upgrade, and stress testing, it appears the CPU And GPU are functioning properly and their temperature sensors are just fine. What's not fine is the set of sensors called "Dell EC: Alienware Aurora R8". This sensor reports that my CPU is at 191 degrees C and that my fans are at 0 RPM... I see this information in hwinfo64 and on the alienware command center application. screenshots below.
This shows actual temperatures given the sensor information on the CPU and GPU.
This is under the thermal profiles in the command center application. Clearly wrong.
Here is the HWinfo screenshot where I identified the name of the sensor to be "Dell EC: alienware aurora R8"
I am about to roll back the windows update. But it would be a huge surprise if that's what caused the issue since it was fine last night and the fans go crazy way before windows starts...
Has anyone had issues with this before? What was the resolution for you? Suggestion from support so far is to send in the entire PC which I absolutely can't do given I spend at least 8 hours working on it daily...
Any advice would be highly appriciated.
r72019
6 Professor
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5.3K Posts
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September 7th, 2020 15:00
Since the issue is coming up during boot, perhaps it could help to reset bios to default values, and then cleared CMOS. Keep in mind if you previously changed other bios settings you'd need to write them down and change them back after.
RKsandwiches
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September 7th, 2020 18:00
Windows restore didn't help. Clearing CMOS didn't help. Unplugging all fans and plugging them in an hour later didn't help.
Since the fans are 4pin, and the controller is using the 4th pin to inaccurately control the speeds. Is it possible to plug the fans into just 3 of the pins so they spin but aren't going nutz?
I am going to let Dell support solve this issue but that may take several days and I need to figure out how to use the computer until then... Noise canceling headphones aren't enough to drown out the fans so I am looking for some alternative way to keep the machine running and keep my sanity in the meantime.
r72019
6 Professor
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5.3K Posts
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September 7th, 2020 19:00
Resetting bios to optimized values is different from clearing cmos. In bios, f2 on startup, there's a reset button.
You can run a 3 pin fan but that would likely be 100% fan speed, and no option to reduce it. So it wouldn't help.
speedstep
9 Legend
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47K Posts
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September 8th, 2020 15:00
Dell does not support 3rd party software like HWinfo.
Windows updates often break AWCC drivers and utilities requiring them to be removed and re installed.
Bios version matters.
its not 191 C its 191 F which is 88.333333C
Many parts on the surface of the cpu would flow and fall off at 118C aka the solder melts. at 138C everything would melt.
Most CPU's would go up in smoke at 191C.
I do not believe your CPU is 375.8 F aka 191C.
Both companies (AMD/INTEL) have listed maximum CPU temperatures range to be around 95 and 100 degrees Celsius for Ryzen and Core processors respectively.
None of the Aurora or Alienware models are designed to be silent.
They are not active phase change cooling they are passive air cooling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYtG3InRHI0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtIxU_fSTV8
RKsandwiches
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September 29th, 2020 12:00
Dell support ended up diagnosing my issue as corrupted embedded controller (EC). Who knows how it happened...
They sent a technician to replace the motherboard and the refurbished replacement motherboard only had 1 working DIMM slot. So they sent another one. This new one seems to be working but not the way the dell documentation suggests. Customer support was convinced their documentation is correct and wanted to replace the motherboard again but wanted me to ship them the PC this time. At this point, it had already been 2 weeks of no PC for me so I refused to go another 2 weeks without a PC. After some more back and forth, customer support is no convinced that there is no issue even though the PC still doesn't work according to the same documentation they were using previously to tell me there is a problem.
In short, you have to fill up the white DIMM slots on the mobo before putting anything in the brown slots. Machine simply refuses to POST if there is anything in the brown slots before all white slots are occupied. As you can imagine, with only 2 sticks of RAM, it was hard to prove that that brown slots are not dead. Plenty of mobos have the same finicky behavior and it's not a problem. Thankfully, after the first mobo replacement was faulty, I purchased 2 more sticks of RAM and was able to troubleshoot and resolve this myself.