Solve a problem with COMPAL Embedded System Control

What is this that I am seeing in the Action Center of Windows 8.1........

"Solve a problem with COMPAL Embedded System Control"



The Free Fall Sensor is installed and I have no exclamation mark or missing driver devices in Device Manager

I installed the drivers in this order:

• Intel Lynx Point
• IRST
• IMEI
• Free Fall Sensor
• OSD
• Intel Graphics Driver
• nVIDIA Driver
• Audio Driver
• LAN
• WLAN/Bluetooth
• Card Reader Driver
• Touchpad Driver
• Command Center

Then when I click on the find a solution link I get this:



please help

 

It may be Dell Airplane Mode Switch Driver.

 

But that's installed as well man

What's funny is, I removed the Broadcome WLAN Card that came with the laptop and installed a Killer Wireless-N 1202 card

Now before installing the dell airplane mode switch driver, I notice that there is one unknown device in device manager

so the moment I install the Dell Airplane Switch that's fixed

but if I check in the startup items, I see that a broadcom driver is being loaded on startup

why in the world is the airplane switch still for Broadcom and not for Atheros/Qualcomme/Big Foot ?

 

Well I just did another clean install and noticed this,

I installed all my drivers as usual that compal message didn't compe up

then when the Windows Maintenance in action center ran, the error shows up

I did install the Dell Airplane Mode Switch Driver 1.4.1 (A00) after installing the LAN + WLAN + Bluetooth Driver

I think the issue is, the DELL Airplone Mode Driver is for the Broadcom WLAN Card that originally shipped with my laptop, but even though I upgraded that to a Killer Wireless-N 1202 WLAN card, the DELL Airplane mode is loading some Broadcom driver as you can see from the below image

 

Found the fix:

If you have an Alienware 18 and have Windows 8.1 installed. Even after installing all the drivers in the correct order, if you leave your system idle for an hour or so, or particularly, when the Windows Maintenance task starts (which you can start manually by the way)

You will notice that you may get a message such as the below one:

"Solve a problem with COMPAL Embedded System Control"



If you click on the find a solution link you would get this:



You see, it is always advice to turn off automatic driver updates when you install Windows (especially in Windows 8 since it will not even tell you it's installing them it will silently grab all the drivers it can) which is a bad idea since those drivers that come from Windows Update are generic drivers and it's best to use your computer manufacturer's drivers at all times.

Now what we need to do, since we already have all our drivers installed and didn't get anything automatically installed by Windows Update which is great, we will want to temporarily enable the "Get Drivers from Windows Update feature"

To do this, open Control Panel > Devices and Printers

Then follow the below illustrations:





After doing that, go to Device Manager > System Devices





Now Windows will search and get the correct driver for it.

This is the only instance where you may need to rely on the Windows Update to update a driver as Dell did a crappy job with their drivers.

After doing this, you may set the automatic driver update back to "Nerver install driver software from Windows Update" to avoid it auto downloading other drivers you may not want to update.

 

Thanks for sharing what fixed the issue for you. +1Rep!

 

My pleasure

 

Seeing this on my end on an Alienware 14 (seems like we have several of the same issues). What driver version do you see after updating with Microsoft? I am not getting an update when I try to find drivers online.

I have tried updated drivers from the Alienware 13 line as well.

 

I had same COMPAL EC on windows 8.1 and I just forced to install windows 7 driver and it works lol...

 

What Windows 7 Driver? That driver is the Dell Airplane Switch Mode Driver and is only available for Windows 8/8.1 What do you mean you installed the Windows 7 Driver?

I just archive the message so it goes away, then I install the Windows 8.1 Dell Airplane Mode Driver

 

The COMPAL Embedded Controller is related to the On Screen Display. I have not been able to find a driver version newer than 1.0.0.3.

I have located a slightly newer version of the Freefall Sensor Driver under the Alienware 13 drivers. This seems to prevent the action center message for that device.

Perhaps we can get some input from one of the Alienware Reps here on why these messages show up during a clean install? They appear to only show up once for the Compal EC and the freefall sensor. Do systems that ship with 8.1 have the messages in the Action Center archive as well?

 

Isn't that Compal Freefall sensor as told before? If so just force windows 7 Compal Freefall driver. It should work.

 

ohh right I had a brain fart sorry, I don't know why I had in mind it was the DELL Airplane Mode. my bad dawg

 

What is the software for anyways?, I kept getting BSOD until I uninstalled it on the device manager. (aw15 r1 tho, not 18)

 

I think it is something to do with the Airplane Switch Mode which allows you to deactivate Wifi or Bluetooth individually