Aurora R1 AlienFX doesn't work

[Reveneus]

Hey guys. Need your wisdom here. I have a Aurora R1 Alienware. My buddy threw it in the dumpster because  he was moving to Europe and couldn't take it with him (retard).  He took the graphics card out and the HD. So Friday I got all my parts and was installing them ect. Turn it on and the PC lights are Yellow and Green. Sweet!!! this is my first Alienware/decent gaming computer so its a pretty epic moment. Anyway, install windows (lights still on), install bios driver ect (lights still on). Now I install the command center and lights off after reboot. AlienFX so far doesn't like things. It keep saying this whenever I open it to screw around with the lights. "The device you have selected is included in the current theme but AlienFX cannot detect this device on your system. Do you want to remove", blah blah blah. Already tried reinstalling EVERYTHING agian and tried to re/uninstall the command center a few time with no luck regarding the lights. A big middle finger to Alienware tec support because they don't know anything about this issue and no longer support it with their support due to it being out dated...  So yeah this is where I'm at folks As far as I can tell everything works just dandy. But I'm an asshole and want my damn lights to work. Thanks guys!

[★ Coups ★]

But the computer works just fine? 

 

Try running AlienFX drivers or whatever it is as administrator. 

[Reveneus]

5 minutes ago, ★ Coups ★ said:

But the computer works just fine? 

 

Try running AlienFX drivers or whatever it is as administrator. 

Hey! Just tried that. Seemed to piss it off, said the same thing regarding the themes. Yeah as far as I can tell the rest of everything works. I can use it and all. 

[SImoHayha]

5 minutes ago, Reveneus said:

Hey! Just tried that. Seemed to piss it off, said the same thing regarding the themes. Yeah as far as I can tell the rest of everything works. I can use it and all. 

uninstall the drivers for the lights in safe mode. Or simply use a 3rd party thing. 

[Emberstone]

Boy do I have news for you. My desktop is an Area-51 R1 (a side-model of the Aurora/Aurora ALX back in the day) and I had this exact same problem after I reinstalled Windows a while ago.

 

I reinstalled Command Center off of the Dell drivers disc that came with my system, and my lighting and fans no longer worked. Command Center and the AlienFX testing utility continually told me it couldn't find anything related to AlienFX in my system. They even behaved just as you described: lights on during first boot, and lights off after Command Center was installed.

 

There is a component called the MIO board in these systems, and it is what drives your case lighting (AlienFX) and OEM fans. My MIO board was bricked, and yours might be too. When installing Command Center, it also flashes new firmware onto the MIO board, which is a really sketchy process from what I've read. If the firmware you're installing from Command Center is older than the firmware on the board, boom. Bricked board. It won't even warn you or anything. It'll just kill the board.

 

This may not be what you're facing, but this is what happened to me. I had to go onto Ebay and find an MIO board. After reinstalling it, everything works fine. If you do not know where your MIO board is or where it should be, it is in the bottom of the case just ahead of the power supply, assuming you and I have the same case.

 

For reference, this is what my system looks like:

If this is your system, give me a little bit and I'll dig up my bricked board and get a picture for you, so you can go hunting for a new one if that's what's wrong. I bought mine off of Ebay. I don't have a specific identifier for it; I just searched for an MIO board and bought the one with a picture that looked like mine.