Aurora R10, BIOS 1.0.8 update

I had a scare for about 24 hours. 

I did the 1.0.8 update yesterday, and immediately I got no video on reboot.

The only way to get my R10 to boot with video was to forcibly shut down the computer, unplug the power cable, hold in the power button, and then replug and power back on. I had to do this every time I restarted, shut down, or put the computer to sleep.

Just when I was about to give up hope, I called Dell and they asked me to try one more thing - remove and reseat the video card (Nvidia GTX 1660 Super). As soon as I did that, the problem immediately cleared.

It was probably an unusual case.

• That was indeed scary if that could happen right after any BIOS update. Good to know you had it up and running after a graphic card reseat. I also had bad experiences with Alienware BIOS updates thats why I always seek feedbacks from this community and Dell-Care staffs before I proceed. Thanks for sharing your story, that could really help a lot if someone encounter the same issue with BIOS 1.0.8.

Don’t do it! I did the update yesterday and now my computer is dead. Won’t even post a video. One the phone with dell for over 2 hours....nothing. Now a Tech has to come out t fix it. Will be about two or three weeks!! Don’t do it!

I would also pause win 10 updates in case Dell decides to sneak it in there

I did the update to 1.0.8 today. I must say that every time i'm updating a bios I get nervous.

I usually donwload the file, and disable non essential program including the AV.

I don't trust the install update programs, I tried and the update  seemed endless so I pressed cancel.

So I ran the exe file and crossed my fingers. I took a little while and seemed to be a two step operation.

When it finished the screen went black ( the scarry part ) , got blinking light on the keyboard, mouse

this took a bit of time and finally got the alienware logo... then rotating balls.... then the desktop.

The only thing I did after was to shutdown and restart a couple of times because I found windows was kind of slow booting but everything after was fine  and very fast. I went back into the bios setting page to check if the update was to 1.0.8 and it was so I exited to reboot.

Make sure that windows update has nothing pending before you start. You may see the window update screen appearing  while you start the bios update.

The thing to remember do not interfere let it run.

Just did a shutdown and restart  before posting and everything seems fine. This update is recommended.

I don't think the update changed any of my bios settings since they are factory default. If you made changes it's possible, in my opinion, they go back to default.

I got my R10 in April with BIOS 1.0.3 ...

Things ran great (still does run great, except for the ghostly auto-boot at midnite) for 4 months and then Dell sneaked in a BIOS update into Windows update and I am updated to BIOS 1.0.7

Twice now the computer has auto booted a few minutes before midnight....

There is a setting in BIOS to automatically start up and it is disabled

Wake on LAN disabled

Windows Fast Start-up - disabled

Allow scheduled maintenance - un-ticked.

Made sure I shut down and not select 'sleep' option when shutting down.

You said your computer automatically started at 3 am with the new 1.0.8 BIOS ? Have you checked any other BIOS settings?

That's why you can only pause them for so long until Windows will disallow pausing until you update with patches/ security fixes and can then pause them again for a few weeks

P.S. Thanks for the BIOS tip to disable firmware updates in BIOS!

Before BIOS 1.08, I have a lot of things disabled in BIOS. Like. USB Powershare and USB Wake options all disabled.

I may have a theory.... just a theory that perhaps. certain usb connections that are plugged into your computer currently, may randomly "wake" up computer. Especially "active" (with battery) or intelligent USB peripherals... 

There are 2 sets of experiments one could try out:

A. Disable all USB Powershare/USB Wake BIOS options; see if your computer still wakes up randomly.

B. A more in-convenient method is; Try to unplug all USB connections off your PC USB connectors; see if the PC wakes up randomly again.

I am still surprised that in my case with BIOS 1.08, turning off only one option "Wake on LAN" stopped it. Just for kicks... I have just turned it back on again. See what happens... I never had this mysterious issue with BIOS 1.07 

I do have one usb keyboard connected (keyboard has no special features/no battery inside it) and one passive usb wireless dongle for my Logitech MX Air mouse.

Auto startup boot happened a third time and at the same time midnight!

The "Auto Power On" and Wake on LAN are both disabled in BIOS.

I am going to go ahead and disable "USB Wake Support" but I don't think that is it would be more random instead the ghostly auto boot occurs at the same time at around midnight...

Here are my BIOS settings (before disabling "USB Wake Support") :

I just updated the bios last night to 1.08  (less than 24 hours after unboxing) and ran the updates. Windows rebooted a couple times and hung. I power cycled it and it refuses to boot into windows and keeps restarting with the diagnostic window. I ran that, nothing wrong or detected hardware wise. It has booted into windows twice, then after a few minutes just reboots on its own. Its not running hot and I've removed everything attached with the exception of the keyboard and mouse. I even tried to boot from USB in an attempt to reinstall the OS, it started then rebooted. I also tried to boot from network and install that way, it never makes it to the login screen to start the WDS process. Just reboots, but if i'm in the bios it can sit there for over 30 minutes and not reboot once. Super frustrating, thankfully my  older aurora R7 is still running. I have to wait for tech support to open as I'm in Hawaii and were five hours behind CDT. So frustrating!

@sm56 Did the ghost boots stop?

Here's my BIOS screenshot below.BIOS settings on R10. R, I think I mentioned this previously that just for kicks I turned back on "Wake on LAN", and so far I didn't get any ghost booting to date. Bear in mind, I only experienced the ghost booting just once, right after I updated the BIOS.

In your situation, the only other thing I could think of is, try the factory "Restore Defaults" on your computer, save and reboot it, see what happens...  If the issue goes away, then reconfigure back all your settings. Now, of course, if you are gonna do this, you had better take a photo of every BIOS page setting you have currently.

I fixed it...

I went into BIOS and set Auto Power On = enabled and set a time of my own choosing which was 9:30 am and everyday...

Computer Auto booted at 9:30 am as I had set it... Did not auto-boot at midnight anymore and left set to Auto-Power On at 9:30 am for a few days...

Went into BIOS again and set Auto Power On back to disabled... and no more auto-booting so far!

I'll have to go back into BIOS and set Auto wake Lan and USB wake timers back to their default values of enabled and check and see if auto-booting returns.