A new problem for AlienFX Keyboard on M17x? The light showing RED only

When received my brandnew m17x, I found that the AlienFX keyboard was not working properly: it can only display RED... If set RED as keyboard color in Command Center, the keyboard show RED (but the brightness is so weak), but when choosing other colors, the keyboard turn black and not lighting. I contact AW's customer service, they send me a new keyboard, but the same problem happened to the new keyboard. So looks like it is a hardware problem from the notebook itself. Will contact AW again, maybe I need to send back the notebook this time, the expense of shipping and custom tax will be huge ...

I don't know if anyone else has encountered this problem.

Sorry for my English.

PS: All other AlienFX lights (PowerButton, TouchPad, etc.) on my m17x are working well. I have tried to recover the system using AlienRespawn, but the keyboard problem still exist.

 

Before you send it back, can you confirm the AlienFX Bios version (not the system bios).

Run c:\Program Files\Alienware\Command Center\AlienwareAlienFXTester.exe
It will display you the BIOS version, try this test utility to see if this can change the colors of your keyboard. Also are you on latest version of Command Center or the older one ?

 

Hi findvikas,

Thanks for reminding. Just like the Command Center, the AlienFXTester can only change the keyboard light color to RED, and can not change it to other colors... It shows the bios/firmware version is "1.00.22", I don't know if this is the latest version?

The version of Command Center on my m17x is "1.0.18.0".

 

Thanks for your post, I just downloaded & installed the 1.0.28.0 version of Command Center from your thread:" Running Vista x64 on m17x", this new Command Center also upgrade the firmware of AlienFX to 1.00.35, unfortunately the keyboard problem still there, but something new happened: When using the newer version AlienFXTester, the first step "Set LEDs RED" was passed, but the next step "Set LEDs Green" failed, this is interesting, maybe AlienFXTester detected the problem of the keyboard?

By the way: the 1.0.28.0 Command Center is great! There are two new programs in this version: AlienSense, AlienTouch, both were not found in the 1.0.18.0 version Command Center which come with my m17x. Thank you findvikas!

 

No that is the problem with the latest AlienFX Bios
See my this thread for Problems with New Command Center and solutions to them

Now I would recommend you to downgrade to previous AlienFX BIOS. You can keep the CC installed

 

I see, the previous bios solve the AlienFXTester problem, but both bios can't help me out from the "RED only" problem. Anyway, thanks for your help.