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July 27th, 2012 12:00

What Does A Blue Blinking Light on the MIO board mean?

Simple question, I can control the lights and vents fine. 

I've run Dell PC Diagnostics and everything passed. I checked the MIO board on startup and it passed. 

Nothing in my device manger comes up as not working. 

The Alienware AlienFX test says no board detected, but I can change the lights just fine. (Note: It did detect it the very first time I ran the test, but not the subsequent times.)

So what is up? What does the blue blinking light mean? I know for a fact I'm not the first person to see this behavior from the board so I'm getting an answer. 

Someone at Alienware has to know what the lights on the board signify in the various states. 

Solid blue = 

Blinking Blue = 

Off =

Link to Vid:      http://youtu.be/yNEcuiJuc6I

8 Wizard

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17K Posts

July 27th, 2012 14:00

What exact Alienware desktop model do you have?

What processor is installed?

Other than the light flashing ... what symptom does your system exibit to make you think it's broken?

July 27th, 2012 15:00

I have a Area-51 Bios A11 with an intel core i7-920 @ 2.67GHz 12 gigs ram

Windforce GTX 670(just bought, pretty sick card) 1KW PSU

I've updated all drivers and bios where available this week CC included. Before I updated all the stuff my vents wouldn't close on shutdown and the alien head would pulse orange to red repeatedly when it was off. I manually removed the CC and installed the latest version BTW. I know to stay away from the update button in the program.

The vents and alienhead was new behavior as is the blinking light. I got the light to keep solid by checking the MIO board on start up. But after shutting down it is blinking again.

Now as I said everything seems to be working fine, but that light blinking doesn't sit right with me. I just like knowing what means what. Especially when it is something new that wasn't happening before.

Also thank you Tesla for showing an interest in my insanity.

8 Wizard

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17K Posts

July 27th, 2012 16:00

If it's working, I wouldn't worry about it.

The blue light on the MIO-Board is unique to the version of the MIO-Board in the Area-51. The Aurora's MIO-Board only has the orange "Power-Status" light.

Maybe someone with an Area-51 or maybe Chris_M can shed some "light" on the blue-light.

July 27th, 2012 17:00

I ran more tests on the MIO board from F12 on boot and it says everything is good. That seems to have made it solid blue again...

What is the MIO board called in alien autopsy? I don't specifically see it named MIO like is in the the pre-boot tests.

Is Alien Autopsy not seeing it? AA doesn't do light testing either.

You are probably right I shouldn't worry if it isn't giving problems. Crap like this drives me crazy though. I gotta know what it means!

July 27th, 2012 20:00

Doing some more reading on the these boards I see you got a lot of knowledge Tesla would you mind taking a look at my temps?  The CPU temps seem high but still 30 degrees from trouble.

Anyway to manually bump up the system fan. Looking at some of your other posts you say it should be around 1200 rpm.

8 Wizard

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17K Posts

July 27th, 2012 21:00

No, you can't control System Fan. Run HyperPI or anything that maxes all cores to 100% and watch fan increase to hold temp.

My i7-930 cores run 42c-51c so that looks fine.

Yes, Aurora with 930 idles around 1200. I guess Area51-920 is different. Have you cleaned out machine (and rad-fan) lately? Room temp might be a factor.

July 28th, 2012 10:00

I have not cleaned out the rad fan other than hitting it with some condensed air once in a while and yeah my room temp does get a bit high on occasion.  Do I need to take apart my case do to really clean out the fan?

8 Wizard

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17K Posts

July 28th, 2012 12:00

Do I need to take apart my case do to really clean out the fan?

 
No. But to clean the fans and heatsink fins ON the video card itself, it helps to remove them from machine first (to get all angles). Use Air compressor if available.
 
I still don't think anything is wrong with your machine now.

Community Manager

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55.3K Posts

July 30th, 2012 09:00

Blue blinking = Bluetooth or wireless activity

Orange & White = Power states

July 30th, 2012 09:00

Thank you Chris the mystery is over.

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