Alienware Aurora R4 - Command Center and windows 8.1

Hello,

I have the exact same problem on my Aurora desktop computer.

The fans (PCI and HDD ones) spin up to 100% as soon as the PC is powered on and remain on until the PC is shutdown.

I also installed Windows 8.1 the other day. Up until then it had been working fine.

I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the command center but the problem returned after 1 day.

Seems like we may need to wait for a 8.1 update for command center?

The same happened with my aurora.

I installed Windows 8.1 en bios A09.

Reinstalling CC yesterday worked for 1 day.

After a restart today the fans spin up to 100% again

Klusser

I just got off the phone with tech support.

Dell official: We do NOT support Windows 8.1 and this is a known problem with command center.  If you wish your lights and command center  to continue working uninstall windows and revert to Windows 7 or Windows 8.  Do NOT install the 8.1 update.

2. We are working on an update to be release sometime in the future, no date estimated.

I have Aurora R4, which is supported for Windows 8.1.  Apparently, R3 and others are not supported for Windows 8.1.  I also had fan speed issue, but removing and reinstalling Command Center and then rebooting has worked and Command Center and fan speed work properly now for several days.  I have A09 BIOS, UEFI boot and Secure Boot working.

"We do NOT support Windows 8.1 and this is a known problem with command center."   That statement is both false and true. Let me break it down.   We do support Windows 8 and 8.1 on the following systems. Any Windows 8 or 8.1 Command Center issues raised on those models will be investigated.X51-R2X51-R1Aurora-R4Alienware 18-R1Alienware 17-R1Alienware 14-R1M18x-R2M17x-R4M14x-R2   We do support Windows 8 but not Windows 8.1 on the following system. Any Windows 8.1 and Command Center issues raised on this model will be not investigated.M11x-R3   We do not support Windows 8 or 8.1 on the following systems. Any Windows 8 or 8.1 and Command Center issues raised on those models will not be investigated.   Area-51   Aurora-R3   Aurora-R2   Aurora-R1   Aurora-ALX   M18x-R1   M17x-R3   M17x-R2   M17x-R1   M15x-R1   M14x-R1   M11x-R3   M11x-R2   M11x-R1

DON, maybe you haven't shutdown your R4 completely and start up again yet? Removing and reinstalling are just a temporary fix before your first shutdown. I'm using R4 and having these problems for several days.

I have Aurora R4, which is supported for Windows 8.1.

Which is good news to older Aurora owners, at least as far as any issues with Command Center, MIO-Boards, Alien-FX, etc. That hardware is basically the same across platforms. Brave users wanting to explore, can use the newer versions of the software.

Of course, the motherboards and other hardware is different and the BIOS-UEFI switch happened.

That shows I have a Alienware AlienFX board with firmware version 2.02.00.  There is a firmware upgrade option in that, but I can't recall if there was any update done after I got this computer last year.

DON, maybe you haven't shutdown your R4 completely and start up again yet? Removing and reinstalling are just a temporary fix before your first shutdown. I'm using R4 and having these problems for several days.

Well, in Windows 8 with UEFI fast boot a Restart is more thorough than a shutdown and restart, so I just tried a Restart as well and everything is still fine.  I do a complete Shutdown each night (not hibernate; not Sleep mode).  Everything is working for me and the fan issue does not come back, no matter what.  It cycles up and down just briefly while booting, but that is normal.

Last time I had a Dell tech working on my PC, they showed me a Command Center test file at C:\Program Files\Alienware\Command Center\AlienwareAlienFXTester.exe .  That shows I have a Alienware AlienFX board with firmware version 2.02.00.  There is a firmware upgrade option in that, but I can't recall if there was any update done after I got this computer last year.

Seemed like a good thread to share this ...

Microsoft has released an update that removes the "Windows 8.1 SecureBoot isn't configured correctly" watermark in Windows 8.1

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2902864

Been calling tech support for a week now. Also wrote this letter in. It is just wrong that our new systems cannot handle an 8.1 update:

Dear Dell Management,

I have been a very happy and loyal customer of Dell for over 15 years now. . My PC at college was a Dell. I have always used Dell primarily because of the excellent customer service and reliability. Whenever any of my friends, colleagues or family ask about which PC they should purchase for 15 years I have always been ardently recommending Dell.

My most recent purchase (done only a few months ago) was (for me) an expensive Alienware Aurora A4 with an ALX chassis. I purchased the Alienware instead of a much cheaper build it yourself system because I had total confidence that customer service would be excellent and Dell brand would be able to handle all eventualities.

I spent extra money on the ALX chassis, an SSD solid state hard drive as well as purchasing 3 years of insurance and warranty because I wanted peace of mind that my computer would be working well all the time and there would be minimal load up times.

Unfortunately a recent issue has broken my faith in the efficiency of Dell reliability and customer service. It took me around 4 phone calls and around 3 hours of my time with the Alienware support team in Slovakia to determine that my PC issue is related to an incompatibility between Windows 8.1 and the alien command centre.

What this means is that my PC runs its PCI and Hard drive fans at 100%. As a temporary fix I have to spend 5 minutes each time the PC loads to manually rewire the fans down then I have to constantly check whether the graphics card is over heating.

It has been nearly 2 weeks now since Windows has released 8.1 and I am shocked that Dell had not pre-tested this update with all of its systems and ensured that appropriate updates were not done.

What this means is that I have not been able to use my PC, the noise of the fans repeatedly wakes up children up so I cannot use the PC in the evenings when they sleep which is the only time I get. I have also spent many hours trying to fix this issue and taken time out of my work schedule.

I am still waiting for the update to be released and I am very very disappointed that Dell did not foresee this issue as this is what I would have expected. The system was sold to me with Windows 8 as an operating system so it is expected that it should run with the standard updates from the operating system.

I am not sure whether this issue has been escalated, but I feel that I paid extra for the ALX chassis, and this is something that is causing me problems. I paid extra for insurance and repair services and tit has been more than a week of constantly calling and my issues have not been resolved and I paid extra for an SSD hard drive for quick load up times and now I am spending more time on startup and manual fixes. Most importantly I spent twice as much as I would have with a build it yourself computer because I wanted the peace of mind and reputation of Dell.

This whole experience has made me lose faith in Dell and caused me a lot of stress. I feel like I have spent my money on a product that was not worth it and I am writing to you to escalate this issue to the highest levels and have this issue rectified as soon as possible. It should not take Dell engineers 2 weeks to come up with an update for Alienware Command Centre that is compatible with Windows 8.1

I believe I deserve compensation for the time and stress I have wasted on trying to resolve this issue.

Please respond to my mail as soon as you can. I would like to discuss this issue with you as a loyal customer before I start discussing this issue with consumer groups, technology consumer sites, blogs, and the internet and also start investigating what my legal options are for a full refund of my system.

Kind regards,

Omar 

London, United Kingdom

Your setup sounds similar to mine.  I did get it all working: Windows 8.1; Secure Boot; GTX 690; Command Center; fan speed and temperature sensors show normal.  You can set the fan speed to manual using Command Center, but that does not load until quite a while after Windows loads the Desktop, so it was 100% fan noise until then during each boot.  After uninstalling Command Center, upgrading computer BIOS to A09 and reinstalling the latest Command Center, mine works as intended now.

I was surprised that removing and reinstalling Command Center worked for me for the pre-Windows-boot fan speed issue, but it did work and has not quit working.

I still am waiting for Dell to provide a proper video BIOS for UEFI Secure Boot on the GTX 690 they sold me.

Hi Don,

I did upgrade to A09 as well. I re-installed CC and it doesn't seem to work for me. Another user who replied to another string is still having the same issue. I wonder what is different about your system that it is working.

Just a quick question. When you removed you command centre did you remove things from the registry or did you just do a simple uninstall from add/remove programs.

I also checked and I am definitely using the Windows 8 command centre.

I am sorry to see that they have not released a video bios for UEFI secure boot on the video card. I really hope they sort this out for you soon. Your help on the command centre question is much appreciated.

I was able to use a video BIOS from ASUS that works, but my card was from Dell not ASUS, so I would like to have it properly supported along with all the others they sold.

I already had Windows 8 for the past year on this system, but was running UEFI with Secure Boot disabled, since it did not work with Windows 8 and the GTX 690 from Dell.  I also had the most recent Windows 8 Command Center.  When the fan speed issue started was just after upgrading to A09 BIOS I believe.  I configured Command Center not to use the fans below 35 degrees C which made them quiet after Command Center loads, but that is the last thing that loads, so they were very noisy and bothersome from the moment the system turns on.

I only uninstalled Command Center from Add/Remove Programs area, which left the fans spinning fast and then reinstalled it without rebooting from the C:\Dell\ area where the install files end up if downloaded from Dell.  I did nothing to purge the files and registry.  Only after it was reinstalled did I reboot and everything was fixed. Command Center had reverted to defaults.  I was able to reload my color scheme.  I shut down, rebooted, tried a Restart also (which is more thorough than shut down in Windows 8).  Now the fans always run quiet with it set to Auto in Command Center.  They only spin up for a moment at power-on and cycle slightly during boots, then go to normal quiet speeds and only vary a bit under load as they should.

Perhaps having it set to Manual zero fan speed on a curve as I did, then uninstalling/reinstalling without a reboot, then rebooting was the key, but that sounds unlikely.