For the past 2 weeks I've been getting an error in the System log under the Event Viewer about the ACPIEC Embedded controller hardware not responding. What made me view the Event Viewer was my computer was coming out of hibernation one night, it was a bit slow and then once windows was up it did a regulart shut down (but I had updates trying to restart the pc before). It froze while shutting down. I noticed I was getting the errors before this occured. I've googled the problem many times looking for answers but my PC isn't having the same symptoms as others like randomly shutting off, rebooting, overheating, or any other error messages. I checked my fans and they're fine, my bios are the latest version for my motherboard. The only thing that changed was my video driver which I already tried going back to the old one. I called the maker of my laptop and after spending an hour talking with them they told me that it wasn't a system problem but with the OS and to talk to Microsoft. I have never come across an error like this and I have no clue what to do about it. The system seems fine though, everything working and no problems other than the error. What should I do to fix this or is it even worth worrying about?The error reads:Event Type: ErrorEvent Source: ACPIECEvent Category: NoneEvent ID: 1Date: 12/17/2010Time: 1:46:27 AMUser: N/AComputer: M15XVISIONDescription:\Device\ACPIEC: The embedded controller (EC) hardware didn't respond within the timeout period. This may indicate an error in the EC hardware or firmware, or possibly a poorly designed BIOS which accesses the EC in an unsafe manner. The EC driver will retry the failed transaction if possible.For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.Data:0000: 00 00 68 00 01 00 be 00 ..h...¾.0008: 00 00 00 00 01 00 05 c0 .......À0010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........0028: 99 9e 36 00 14 00 ff ff 6...ÿÿ0030: 74 00 08 00 14 02 18 00 t.......0038: 84 00 9b 01 a4 09 c6 05 ..¤.Æ.0040: 14 02 24 00 44 d0 08 00 ..$.DÐ..0048: 16 08 b7 00 a6 02 53 00 ..·.¦.S.0050: 16 0a 1c 00 a6 01 20 00 ....¦. .0058: 16 1a 26 00 36 81 08 00 ..&.6..0060: 15 18 14 00 10 18 f6 08 ......ö.0068: a0 1c de 5e 10 1a 4b 00 .Þ^..K.0070: 60 00 08 00 90 01 1d 07 `......0078: 70 00 13 00 10 1a 17 00 p.......0080: 80 00 10 00 30 83 0a 00 ...0..0088: 15 10 10 00 21 00 0f 00 ....!...1 person got this answerI do too

I've actually noticed that if I'm playing a game for a couple of hours that the error message doesn't pop up at all. It seems to only pop up when I'm in windows, especially when I'm browsing the internet in IE8. What could this mean?

The information is too vague to use to determine what might be the cause. Did you follow up on this suggestion? My feeling is that you should check to see that all your drivers are up to date but my enquiries stalled here as I did not want to sign on:http://support.alienware.co.uk/Support_Pages/Restricted_Pages/driver_downloads.aspx Select Start, Control Panel, System, and Device Manager. Are there any yellow question marks in Device Manager? If yes what is the Device Error code?Hope this helps, Gerry Cornell

The information is too vague to use to determine what might be the cause. Did you follow up on this suggestion? My feeling is that you should check to see that all your drivers are up to date but my enquiries stalled here as I did not want to sign on:http://support.alienware.co.uk/Support_Pages/Restricted_Pages/driver_downloads.aspx Select Start, Control Panel, System, and Device Manager. Are there any yellow question marks in Device Manager? If yes what is the Device Error code?Hope this helps, Gerry CornellThe thing about alienware is they don't post a lot of updates. All the drivers for my laptop date back to 2008-2009.There are no yellow question marks, everything looks fine in Device Manager.

BIOS Version/Date Quanta vX36 P3, 8/29/2008I do not think this is the latest BIOS!http://www.liquida.com/page/10375564/Hope this helps, Gerry Cornell