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Partha’s Tutorial to set up Alienware light kit 08-06-2009, 03:11 AM

Alienware Light kit consists of a base bigger backend mother card and a small front-end daughter card that fits inside the bigger card. This card is known as ELC Board FX Light Card. This back end card looks like this.

This back end an ELC Board FX Light mother card comes in two revisions – Revision 4 or Revision 5. In this tutorial I will refer to them as Rev 4 or Rev 5. I am not fully sure about the difference between Rev 4 and Rev 5 back end cards. However as Alien Andy of this forum notes that the major difference between the two is that the Rev 4 card have a black wire soldered to the underside.

Now the front end daughter card are of 2 types. These cards sit inside the mother card when installed
a) An active card and
b) A Passive card

This is an active card ELC Active Card PC051102 (has IC chips, use software to control led)

below is a passive card (no chips, use hardware dip switch to control lights)

Passive card are easier to use because they have less connections to connect and doesn’t need any Alienware software.

In a passive card, there are 3 dip switches in the left hand bottom corner using which you can change the colour of your light.

More on how to use the light DIP switches to change the colours later. Active card have the advantage that you can change the colour of the lights using an Alienware software.

Connections – Part I – The Base connections

This is base connection in after you put the back end mother card into the base of the Alinware case, slot the smaller daughter card inside. Right now don’t worry about what type of daughter card you have. Just do these connections. Right now what you do is

1. Connect the white Alienware proprietary ribbons to the appropriate Right, Left and Front panels. 

2. Connect the molex connector to the PSU. Dont worry about connecting the HDD/Power LEDS and the USB OUT and USB IN pins now.

Connections – Part II a – for both active and passive daughter cards

The basic principle for connecting the HDD/Power LED connectors on the back end mother ELC Board FX Light card to the HDD/Power Header pins in your motherboard is as follows :

1. The HDD LED pin from the backend mother card needs to be connected to the HDD header pin ( more precisely HD Led + ) in Motherboard Front Panel.

2. The Power LED pin from the backend card needs to be connected to the PWR LED header pin + in motherboard.  

Make sure that while you are connecting, that the + and – of the pins are not interchanged.

For those Alienware that supply the necessary connector, this connector make look either one of two types.

Rev 4 connecting wire has 2 wires, one red and one blue in color. Rev 5 connecting wire have 3 wires having green, black and white color.

NOW, if your system is a passive daughter card based system, your tutorial ends here, just check the 2 tutorial end notes. Active daughter card based system owners please continue to read.

Connections – Part II b – Only if you have an active card

For a Rev 4 based system, you first have to complete all connections as said in Connections Part I and Part II a above. Then you have to:
– connect the USB IN of the backend card to the USB connector on the motherboard
– connect the USB OUT to the Alienware Front case panel USB wire

Active card in Rev 4 backend w USB connected

This connection scheme is shown in the following image

For Rev 5 Based systems, besides the above USB IN and USB OUT connections, you have to connect the two pins marked as 24 pin connector in the image to the 24 pin connector on the motherboard. Credit goes to stangtjk of this forums for pointing this out. The connection scheme for Rev 5 based system then becomes as follows

This is what stangtjk says about this 24 pin connection ” I’m assuming this is where most people are having a problem, the white two pin plug has a black and purple wire that go to the 24pin connector on the mother board. The purple wire goes into the 4th pin down from the top on the inside row and the black goes in the 6th. They have a special 24pin extension for those 2 wires but you shouldn’t have a problem just splicing them in to the 24 pin from the psu. ”

Remember, don’t try this 24 pin connection is Rev 4 based systems, or may fry your light kit.

Tutorial Endnotes

1. Make sure you do NOT connect the Molex connector hanging off the left case panel fan to anything. It doesn’t need connection. DONT connect it.

2. This is where I try to explain how to use the 3 DIP switches in a passive daughter card to change the color of lights in your system. There are three micro switches on the ELC board located at the inside base of the case.
Each is numbered 1 to 3. Make sure you

– Switch OFF your PC each time you set the colours.

– Move the switches with a ballpoint pen or a toothpick , NOT a screwdriver. Be gentle. Otherwise you may break the DIP switches.

The colour and switch order is :-

1,2,3 Down = Off
1,2,3 Up = Light Blue
1,2 Up, & 3 Down = Turquoise
1,3 Up, & 2 Down = Purple
1,3 Down, & 2 Up = Green
1 Down,2,3 Up = Yellow
1,2 Down, & 3 Up = Red
2,3 Down, & 1 Up = Blue

For more information check out these threads

Alien Andy Alien FX Set up Guide