AlienFX issues on battery

Hey guys,

The left speaker grill light (zone 6, just the left half) on my Alienware 18 R1 randomly flashes to blue / white (I'm guessing default colours) and then back to the set colour (red) every now and then when the machine's on battery.

This never happens when it's on AC power, and the occurrences on battery seem to be random (SLI / IGP, under load / idle).

So far I've tried:

- tinkering with every setting in the AlienFX controller
- reinstalling Alienware CC / OSD / .NET Framework
- complete shutdown (with quick startup disabled)
- reflashing the BIOS
- power drain
- CMOS battery removal + power drain
- reseating all the cables

I haven't tried reinstalling the OS, but I'm not sure that it'll help at this point since the flashing happens even when I'm in the BIOS.

This has been going on for a while, and I thought it might be due to the damaged palmrest junction board, but evidently it wasn't since the replacement part didn't fix it (did fix another issue though).

Any ideas as to why this is happening / how to fix this?

(Seems like I'm always asking for help - thanks in advance brothers.)

 

I had the exact same thing on my past M15X and M18X. Both with battery and AC. This can be easily noticed if you change the AlienFX tempo to max.

So to make it not happen as frequently set the FX tempo to lowest.

 

Huh. I didn't think to experiment with the tempo since a) I have everything set to loop anyway, and b) it was only one half of one zone that was doing it. Thanks for the suggestion!

From a brief testing, it actually seems that the slower tempo causes more flashing on my machine. I'll play around with it and come back.

 

Okay, so the length of the time that the light flashes is dependent on the tempo. The slower the tempo, the longer the flashing.

The really interesting part is that a faster tempo actually reduces the flashing (in number too, not just length).

I'm thinking now that this might be because the register in the AlienFX controller chip that holds the colour output for this LED (LEDID 5 in the AlienFX config file) has a leak and the faster tempo causes it to refresh more often, with the issue only happening on battery since the voltages are lower.

 

Thats a cool analysis .

Is that a hardware problem or software?

 

LIkely hardware, which would explain why the flashing happens to blue or purple (the register is reinitialised at the beginning of the cycle to blue, but there might be some bits that didn't leak completely, causing the purple).

It could be low-level software too though....

I've contacted Alienware and am waiting for their response.

 

Let us know how it goes. It does seem like a hardware problem.

 

Their first response was that this is expected under heavy current draw (which is what I first suspected), but it still happens under no load on the lowest multiplier + IGP....

I'll try reinstalling the OS and if that doesn't work, I'll ask them if I can send it in for them to take a look.

 

So the OS reinstallation didn't work, but it did help me figure out that the light flickers only when it's been dimmed.

Since the light doesn't flicker when it hasn't been dimmed, or when under the AlienFX Tester even if it's dimmed, I think I'll wait for the AWCC 3.6 (which they said will be out soon) to see if that fixes it, and maybe send it in later when something else breaks.

 

Alright, I feel like I've been talking to myself, but for benefit of anyone else in the future who may come across this issue:

It was a hardware issue - static. It went away after leaving the computer completely off (no fast boot) for 8+ hours (a minute long power-drain wasn't enough).

 

Having this exact same issue on my 18.

 

Well, pulled the battery and CMOS for a good 8 hours, put it back together and within minutes the issues raised its ugly head again. As per the OP's original post, it is just the left side of the base tron lights that seems to be affected. It flashes from red to purple-ish blue at random. Haven't reseated things yet, but I don't hold out much hope for that resolving anything.....

Ideas?