AlienFX Problems/Questions Thread

I can't seem to download the tutorial for Alienfx...internet connection hangs...so I just went ahead and tried to associate an app with a keyboard color and every time I do this, the selected color goes on briefly and then the keyboard goes black.
What am I doing wrong? Just trying to set a plain jane area 2 keyboard color and nothing else.

Thanks for any help.
Nevermind, I discovered I just had to check the little box that says "loop" and the color stays on.
Love having the keyboard change color when I'm in Opera and made my finance app come up with a green keyboard.

 

I remember reading somewhere on this forum about getting AlienFX to work on Ubuntu/Linux. Anybody know where that thread is?

 

forum search -
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ows-alienfx-tool.html?highlight=alienfx+linux

 

Thanks!

 

I'm trying to make some themes but I'm wondering if the minor lag that occurs as the light changes from set color to another is normal. Is anyone else facing the little lighting lag?

 

not totally sure what you mean, lag after you press set, or a general overall lag?????

 

When you first apply the theme it sometimes flickers ? Or if you make a interracial pattern the time from when it stops and when it starts again it will seem like its lagging.

 

It's a little confusing for me to explain but the lag is when the alienware theme is already running. For example, I'm running the rainbow theme right now and when it switches from blue to pink, you can see it pause for about half a second between the different colors that come between blue and pink. It's not as smooth of a change as I would like it to be.

 

Well it's not just the rainbow theme, it's also simple switch in the colors in speakers. I'm guessing not everyone is facing this problem so I'll give alienware a call.
Thanks for checking it out though.

 

go to the edit tab and select theme tempo, slide it to the right for a faster morph. but still its not as smooth as the older version of fx.

 

It's the morphing that's affected, there's no lag in the pulse and solid colors. I guess it's like Inap said, it's the problem with the fx.

 

yeah after the first update of alien fx the morphing themes weren't as smooth as it was with A00. toooo bad going to the older version would prolly brick the alien fx board. i personally have stop using morphing or pulsing theme, since they seem to make alien fx glitchy, like upon boot up the keyboard would only light half the keyboard, and sometimes the touch strap would stop working. been using a standard theme for months now without any issues at all.

 

Hey guys and gals,

After getting my new Alienware m11x a week or so ago, I installed windows on an aftermarket ssd. I used all the drivers and downloads from the Dell support page to get everything working, including the Alienware Command Center. However, all of the different zones seem to struggle with the morph lighting. Instead of gradually fading from one color to the next, the lights stutter and sharply fade in bursts. Is this an issue with the drivers? The lighting system? Hardware?

I'm pretty skilled at navigating the underworld of Windows so any detailed suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Oh and I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling the Alienware Command Center to no avail. Please help me avoid calling Dell customer support at all costs!!!

Thanks,
Robert

 

Some colors transition from one to the other better than others if I recall correctly. Mine stays Yoda green 24x7 and my gf has my R2 at the moment so I can't test. Basically I think it was colors closer together did well, and the further apart they were on the wheel the more likely you'd see visible stepping.

 

Is it normal that the ALIENWARE by the display is always dim and not bright like the rest?

 

Mine is quite bright actually. Definitely brightest thing there.

 

I know that other people have had the same issues as I am but I have tried everything they said to try and I still can't get FX to work at all. I just got my refurbished M17x R2 for a decent price that has windows 7 and SLI enabled graphics which from what I have gathered is the cause of this problem. I have NEVER seen any of the lights on my notebook on at all so I am begining to wonder if something might actually be wrong with the system. Well here are the symptoms I am recieving are, I am getting the "The device you have selected is included in the current theme but alienfx cannot detect this device on your system. Do you want to remoce this device from the current theme?" message when I open up the command center and when I go to my device manager I do see an unknonwn device listed which I am guessing is my I/O board. So anyone have any ideas on how to get my I/O board detectable? Thanks in advance for anyone who attempts to assist me with my issue.

 

i am running Windows 7 and its not letting me change the keyboard color like its not even a option to do it and when went try something new on it and the keyboard went dead now it not lighting back up with what ever i do please someone help me

 

the command to light it up is "Fn" + "F11".Also you need to have Alien FX installed.

 

nooo thats not what mean when you able to select a zone the keyboard is not even there

 

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g96/leon01288/ANC-1.jpg?t=1292722107

 

I get it,thanks to the photo.
Try reinstalling the Alien FX.

 

i have reinstalled it many time i think this is like my 14 time

 

New to the forums as I just purchased a used M9750. Problem I am having is when I touch the hotkeys above the keyboard I get the blue screen of death and a fatal error and the unit restarts. Took hotkey pad off and keyboard and found nothing really wrong. If I touch the unit by the DVD button or put any bend/pressure in that area it does the same thing instantly. Please, anyone who has some insight on this it would be greatly appreciated. Please advise asap and Happy Holidays to all!! Peace Out, Trebor!!

 

I got my Alienware M17x about a year ago and it has been a plethura of problems, but most of them have been fixed. Now after installing some new updates my FX editor no longer works and every light on my keyboard/media/alienhead has gone dark and I can't turn it back on. Also the newer command center and FX editor does not register that I have any media that can be changed. Only the first version does. Please help!

 

i had similar problem when updating the Command Center. the following fixed my problem (might fix yours too)

1. uninstall Command Center
2. Reboot
3. Install the latest Command Center
4. Shutdown
5. take off the battery and unplug the power cable from the laptop
6. Power drain (Keep holding the alien head button, the button that you hit to start up the laptop, .. keep holding it for 120 seconds, 2 minutes, and then release)
7. put the battery back (if you want), plug-in the cable and start your laptop

 

I randomly hear a quik beep from my M17X R2, any ideas? Temps are fine, nothing happens to effect game play or operations. It's like a system beep, just a quik one every once in awhile...

 

Hi, when I reinstalled windows and installed the fx editor the laptop in the window is the nebula red color but when I bought it it was cosmic black like mine. How can I get it back to cosmic black like it was before?

 

SO... the lights were black??

 

No he's talking about the picture of the laptop it shows lol, as in a red black or silver cased m17x lol. Never heard of anybody caring, wish I could help

Edit: Probably something to due with the version of AlienFX if I had to guess.

 

I know what he means... I saw that too. When you re-install the latest version of the Command Center, it shows (visually) a red machine. I somehow doubt you can change that; it's just generic software for all of them.

 

Sorry, heres a picture. Its not the lights but the body of the laptop in the picture.

 

You know, perhaps Dell could be convinced to post all three versions of the Command Center? They may have literally a version for each type, but only post the version that is red.

 

Ok, but it is also red when I install it from my driver disc. I was hoping that maybe it would be a registry edit. thanks.

 

The version they post at the driver download site is red as well. That's the one I have (the software, not the machine).

 

OHHHHHHhhhhh, i see LOL........... i was like "WHAT?????"

 

Good job I got a Nebula Red M17x lol

 

I just noticed recently that my m11x R1 doesn't turn on the front grill lights or the "Alienware" light at the bottom of the screen. But the keyboard light is on.

After I go into AlienFX, make any sort of changes, the press "apply", then those lights turn back on for the remainder of however long I keep the system turned on. But the lights are off again once I reboot.

System is put on High Performance power setting and I just made sure that either the battery mode or plugged in mode both enables AlienFX.

Any ideas?

Thanks

 

Hi there,
I believe I had the same problem a while back, in my case I had experimented with creating a really complex lighting scheme (using the entire spectrum of colors!) and I guess the system wasn't designed to accommodate such variations because every time I booted up, the front grills and the logo wouldn't light up. I solved it by going and creating a new bland color scheme. Just go to the top left of the command center, and you should see options to create a new file, do that, apply whatever color scheme you want (I would advise a simple one) and then, presto!, everything should work great the next time you restart.
Hope I helped!

 

Ethio's suggestion is the correct one and should work. Just open AlienFX, close the current theme from the file menu and create a new theme and apply.

 

Thanks! Will try that.
And FYI, Yes, that is exactly my color scheme... its morphing from one color to the next, for the entire spectrum (every single color available) just going clockwise on the color wheel).

Also, I recently read the m11x optimization thread and noted that the issue with the R1's 8-12% CPU usage at idle can be fixed by going to MSCONFIG/startup tab and disable AlienFX on startup.

I think the issue might have begun after that. I have since reactivated the AlienFX on startup and my 2 lights came back on.

Weird thing is if AlienFX controls the keyboard light as well and my disabling it on startup causes problems, then logic should suggest my keyboard light shouldn't work either? Anyway, I'll try your suggestion to see if its a better fix and report back later with results.

 

question when the lighting is set to plasma purple does your touch display seem pink in comparison to the rest of your light or is it just me???

 

Hi, My question is about V-Hyper and whether or not it runs on the M15x or M17x?

Also whether or not anybody has had any trouble with running it? Which laptop it runs smoother on?

I have chatted to a Dell Support rep in Australia, but have to wait for them to email me back with an answer. Hopefully get the answer tomorrow, but was wanting to see if anybody had any first hand experience?

Thanks

 

Yes, its normal. This is the result of the LEDs mixing colors in order to display the presets. White will never be true white and so on...

Not sure what this has to do with AlienFX.

 

For some reason the Command Center hotkeys jus tdon't want to play nice with my M11x R1, as configured in signature. BIOS is A05. OS is Win7 x64 HP. Fairly sure I have the latest chipset drivers.

I'm using the latest versions of Command Center and OSD, yet the hotkeys to bring up CC or AlienFX refuse to work. I've attempted a complete driver wipe--safe mode, CCCleaner, and so on--and even after reinstalling the hotkeys do nothing. I can only access Command Center by clicking the shortcut.

Command Center does appear on startup in my taskbar area.

 

Anyone know how to change the laptop color to black? because mine is black & not red

 

Hrm. I popped in my stock HDD--it's been sitting in a dock not getting any use--and booted up my M11x R1.

Even with stock settings I was unable to use the hotkeys to call up CC or AFX. Hardware problem?

 

two possibles -

1.
Remove AC power and battery
depress and hold power button for a 20 count
reconnect ac and batt
power up and see if its resolved.

if not,

2. reinstall OSD.

Drivers and Downloads

See if that does the trick.

 

This is in regards to an older thread, but I had been plagued with the "Nvidia Display driver has failed and recovered" error and frequent lockups and freezes. For months i tried to troubleshoot and narrow down the problem. I read many different ideas people had in different forums and it wasnt until i found BatBoy (Alienware Moderator) on this site that i found a fix that worked. It turned out all along that the newer Nvidia drivers were causing problems in my system. The *verde drivers to be specific. I followed steps posted by BatBoy and am now using an older driver from July of 2010 and no problems. lots of money, time and stress saved. So thank you BB.

Alienware m17x R1
Nvidia gtx 280m x2 SLI
Intel duo T9600 2.8Ghz
1920x1200 disp
Win. 7 home 64

 

Any ideas? Anyone having problem with sliver/red/black alienware hardware which doesn't match the (case) color in the Command Center?