Heads up - AlienFx Winamp Plugin

Surfing on different forums on NBR I found this interesting thread about a plug in that makes your Alienware lights turn on and turn off as the music in winamp sounds.

It sounded pretty cool so I gave it a try. It worked fine but after only 10 minutes working, the lights got completely stuck and suddenly I got a driver error on my notification area. Since then I have tried all the possible ways to try to make the lights change the colour with no success. Tried reinstalling the command center, the OSD, the chipset drivers, etc and no luck. There is one Unknown Device on my Device Manager that can't be recognized by any driver and that doesn't work properly (as per windows message). I called Dell and they said that my motherboard is broken and the only way to fix it is to replace it with a new mobo.

Thanks god I still have one month warranty left... But now I have to change all the components I have upgraded by myself before the technician arrives. That means changing, the graphic card, processor and the additional hard drive that I placed on the dvd slot... Plus changing drivers for the graphic card! This simply sucks!

Don't even try that plugin unless you want to risk with your mobo...

Edit: The issue has been fixed doing a power drain as nospheratu writes below. I hope you find this info useful just in case you go through the same

 

All you needed to do was a power drain. That is.. pull battery, unplug coin cell battery, hold down power button for +-20 seconds to reset the AlienFX controller. Plug everything back in.

The "lights getting stuck" is a known issue with that plugin but it does not happen often at all. I only had it happen once on my M15x and it hasn't happened at all on my M17x.

You may have subsequently killed the AlienFX controller by installing an older CC after having a newer version installed when you were attempting to fix the lights.

Either way try the power drain, it may work if your lights are still "stuck" on one color and not completely off.

 

you mean off the resource disk or off the internet?
if off the disk, this is what killed your lights. i know it sounds ridiculous, but installing an older version of CC corrupts the lightfx chip on the mobo.

 

damn! ... thats bad luck =( ....

 

Appreciate the concern but I have used this program and i had never had any issue. Installing CC from the resource disc is widely known to brick peoples mobo's...

Nothing wrong with this fantastic little program as far as i'm concerned.

 

I take my words back, I did the power drain as nospheratu said and that sorted the issue +rep. The lights went back blue and the command center was perfectly working. No unrecognized USB port anymore either. I should have done that before calling Dell or reinstalling anything. Thanks god I reinstalled the latest command center from the website (never used the dvd drivers).

The technician was supposed to come on Monday but no need now

Thank you all buddies

 

That's awesome news man Glad you got your beauty back to normal