Alienware 17 R3 not shutting down (keeps restarting)

Hi!

As the title says, my less than a month old Alienware 17 R3 is not shutting down properly since at least yesterday. When I ask Windows to shut down, it starts up again in less than a minute.

Specs: Core i7 6820HK, 16 GB RAM, GTX 980M, 1 TB SSD + 1 TB HDD, Windows 10 Pro.

I say at least yesterday because there's a small chance it may have happened before without me noticing it, since I might have simply closed the lid before it restarted.

Anyway, I looked it up everywhere and it seems to happen on many Windows machines. I tried the usual solutions to no avail. (disabling fast boot, disabling/uninstalling Intel Management Engine Interface Driver)

Before I noticed this issue I had installed the latest "Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver and Management Console" (11.0.0.1173, A02) and BIOS version 1.2.14 (I was on 1.2.8 before).

I tried rolling back the Intel Driver and it also didn't work. Also tried running the BIOS 1.2.2 exe file but it didn't start flashing, probably because it didn't shut down/reboot properly...

There's one more thing I noticed since then: the Trusted Platform Module 2.0 is showing with a warning in Device Manager indicating it didn't start.

I hope someone from the very experienced userbase here at NotebookReview forums can shed some light on this situation... Thanks in advance.

Update: Managed to downgrade to 1.2.2 through a flash drive but no dice. Reverted back to 1.2.14 anyway. Also disabled Trusted Platform module in the BIOS and all it did was stop its warnings.

My hypothesis is BIOS flashing is leaving remnants of old BIOS that may cause issues.

Can someone tell me if the BIOS reset that solves the not powering up issue would be able to help with this new problem? I mean the solution in the following link:

https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/SLN301252?dgc=SM&cid=266889&lid=5129275

 

Okay, took some courage and went through with the BIOS reset. Guess what? It worked!

It also solved the TPM startup problem! I hope it is a long term solution.

SOLUTION: BIOS reset as shown in https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/SLN301252?dgc=SM&cid=266889&lid=5129275

When powering it up again it went through a false start (keyboard lit up without screen), probably restoring the BIOS memory to default settings.

Then it powered up normally. I went straight to BIOS by pressing F2 so verified the clock was reset. The boot options were lacking the Windows Boot Management at first, which scared me a little but it went through OK after exit.

Now it's back on business: shutdown and sleep working properly.

My take: BIOS 1.2.12 changes include "Disabled Deep Sx Policy" which is related to sleep and shutdown states. BIOS flashing is not smooth, leaving old settings remnants in memory that corrupt the new settings. It's basically what caused the bricking when going from 1.2.3 to 1.2.13, except less serious. Thank the makers for having an easy hardware solution! And to whoever posted this solution online at Dell and elsewhere!

I also think that BIOS flashing through USB flash drive is probably a better option than running the .exe file in Windows (the restarts leave a lot of room for failures).

 

I had the same issue before. Luckily there is now the bios reset solution that works.

Stay with bios 1.2.2 it is for sure the best one out there.

 

Thanks

Hi,

A big thanks from me for posting this. I've been having the same problem for the last couple of weeks with my Alienware 17 R3 which is only a couple of months old. It kept restarting after shutdown and sleep. I tried a clean install of windows 10 several times with both UEFI and legacy boot. Didn't work and I could flash the bios just got a black screen.

It came with bios 1.2.14. I followed your instructions and it reset the clock and still on 1.2.14 but I guess this is what it came with so nothing to roll back ealier to. Anyway it worked. It now does not restart when its not supposed to and I was able to upgrade bios to latest 1.3.6.

Thanks heeps.