Aurora Lighting and Fan Problem after shutdown SOLVED!

Hello Everyone!

I fixed my problems with a simple solution. First let me state some of the problems I was having and maybe this fits your case.

I could get everything to work perfectly on the first boot. Alienfx, fans, etc.

1. When I shut down my computer the Alienware head and bottom vent lights would stay on but the side lights would turn off.

*When I booted my system back up only theAlienware head and bottom vent lights would be on and the side lights would stay off. When I opened command center I could control the alienware head and bottom but not the side lights (they would stay off).

*Also on the same boot, my fans (especially the ones connected to the MIO board (HDD Fans and Fan PCI)) would act irregularly and usually at high speeds.

2. When I took the power cord out and drained the power from the Alienware Aurora tower by holding down the power button (confirmed by the orange light on the MIO board turning off), everything would work normally on boot but again if I shut down the computer and powered it up it would revert back to step 1. I concluded that as long as the orange light was lit when my computer was shut down, I would have my issues.

FIX: The reason why my system was acting up and probably because a lot of other systems are acting up is that I upgraded my motherboard. On the newer mother boards, after you shut down the motherboard still supplys power to their usb connectors (aka the F USB_1 connector I had my Alienware MIO Board connected to). However these MIO boards were designed for older motherboards that didn't have the functionality of the newer mother boards and therefore the MIO board still thinks that the system is either still on or on standby when the system is actually off because power is still being supplied to the MIO board. Communication between the two boards gets skrewed up because of this difference in power states. To fix this, you must go to your bios setting and disable power to your usb connectors on your motherboard when the system turns off. On my board I had to change ErP=Disabled to ErP=Enabled under my power management options. If you did this correctly, when you shut down your system now the orange light on your MIO board will turn off indicating that it is in "sync" with your mother board power state (aka off). This resolved all my issues and hopefully this resolves some of yours. I do have still have some issues with waking from sleep but that's minor for me.

I hope this helps, it took me at least 20+ hours to troubleshoot this myself and I hope I have saved at least someone else that time.

Thanks!