Hi @RPT943  thank you for sharing update. 

The speculation in Solved: m17 R3, four red lights, one blue - Dell Community that fixed itself, was that the main battery charging system handshake with the ac adapter was giving a false positive fault. 

When your system is working, please run Reliability Monitor to create m17 R4 event time line, which should have captured what caused the diagnostic led code of four red, one blue. Please open the most reoccurring event from today's collection. The root cause should reveal what is causing this problem and may have an obscure Microsoft error code for internet search. 

Please share image of todays Reliability Monitor's events from the timeline, and and an image of what it says in the most reoccurring event. Thank you. 

Hint: Windows three key combination, windows + shift + s will snip capture screenshot image in whole or part. Do not include any private information if image is shared in this public forum, by clicking on camera icon in message toolbar. 

Hi @RPT943  see if a colleague will let you borrow their ac adapter. Try a different mains socket, one that is not close to microwave, fridge, etc. that may be creating electrical noise on the mains circuit. The ac adapters are not expensive, might be tempted to buy a spare. 

@crimsom @I have an ancient 80w dell adapter (the 80w brick is bigger than my 240w brick) thats located about 2 hours away that I'm too scared to try in the machine. The 240w charger appears to work,, the battery is on 100%, and i dont know anyone with a dell charger like this, much less a 240w brick. But I'm running ePSA diagnostic tests on it now, testing everything manually and in thorough test mode and everything is showing all tests passed and normal, yet I still don't trust it. I will benchmark it later and give updates. The charger is recognized correctly as a 240w in the diagnostic program

@crimsom  today and yesterday all it says is windows shutdown unexpected

@crimsom since reliability monitor wouldn't tell me anything, I decided to run hardware info 64s datalogger. Hopefully the next time it shuts down I will be able to see exactly what happened.

@crimsom i have retrieved a data log from the machine during a crash. there are a few irregularities towards the end of the datalog. for example, at the end of the datalog, the GPU rail voltage drops to 8.4 volts, despite maintaining 12 volts for the rest of the datalog, from the start until the end. 

Another thing i notice is that my powerbrick fluctuates in charging wattage, dropping to 0 at 100%, seems normal. At 94% it hit 42 watts and lowered as the charge neared 100 again, 

but i noticed that at 97%, at the end of the datalog, it hit was hovering around 3 watts, before hitting 96.9% and spiking to 53w, then it hits 96.6% and spikes to 86 watts before the datalog ends

Hi @RPT943 thank you for sharing the Reliability Monitor graphical output (blue line) system stability low and the number of critical events reporting that drivers stopped working. 

Please visit Device Manager, open every driver, to disable the option to shut down driver when not required by the system. This is a power saving feature that can shut the system down. 

Please create Battery Report. How to Get Your Windows 11 Battery Report (lifewire.com) or  Windows 10 Battery Report: What It Is And How to Use It (lifewire.com)  

@crimsom i opened device manager, but i dont see any options for that. i have created a battery report, dont know which part you want me to look at. Im using the laptop on battery power right now, and its working fine so far, i suspect the problem is in the power brick. I have a hardware info datalog that shows the charge wattage spiking right before the computer shuts itself off and the datalog ends. would you like to see a couple screenshot portions of the datalog? or the entire datalog (you can view it with a spreadsheets program like google slides)?

@crimsom i can rule out a faulty ac adapter now. one of my friends just so happened to get a new g15 with a 240w ac adapter (looks exactly like my 240w adapter) that they let me borrow, and when i went to test my laptop, it made it through one benchmark fine, then my laptop locked up during the second benchmark (a very uncommon occourance). so i force shutdown, and after booting normal i tried the same benchmark again and the temps were hovering in the mid 50C before it gave the same 4 red one blue code, but only did it once this time.

Hi @RPT943  thank you for sharing your excellent diagnostic information. 

The Battery Report part that says if the current charge is different to the design charge is of interest. This is to confirm that main battery is being consistently charged up to the current value by the charging system. Then the OEM Battery is unlikely to be a problem. 

Thanks for sharing the update that the ac adapter part of the charging system works, by using different ac adapter.

So by a process of elimination, the replacement refurbished main board is seemingly the root cause of the LED diagnostic four red one blue code. Despite many internet searches, the four red one blue code was not found. Speculate that it is saying the main board charging circuit has a fault, and a replacement main board is the only fix.

Please visit your online Dell account to create Service Request saying that this replacement main board has the four red one blue code fault and a different replacement main board is requested. Dell may want to run additional diagnostics, and eventually just give up trying to find the root cause of the four red one blue code. You may get lucky and technical support might provide their best diagnostic technician. It sure would be good for all users in similar situation to know how to respond. 

@crimsom the battery appears to be working normally. it will charge with the ac adapter and discharge without it normally. battery health in the report/diagnostics are all excellent. The problem seems to be within the charging logic in the motherboard that handles the dynamics of using both the battery and ac adapter when it's under a load. I have 2 datalogs of the laptop shutting itself down, and right before it flashed the 4 red one blue it spiked to 182watts on the charge rate this time... AT 96%. throughout every datalog it normally NEVER pulls more than 10 watts for the charge rate, until the huge spike right before it turns off.

I also just got a video of the laptop shutting itself down while it was still logging in. flashing 3 red one blue then 1 red. this happened when the laptop battery was close to 100%, but i had the charge limits in the bios set to 95stop and 90start. it would not finish logging on (did this 3 times) until i set the charge method back to primarily ac use then it booted as normal.

I haven't been able to get back in contact with dell support through DMs since yesterday. and the official 1on1 chat support has been "busy" for the past 2 weeks.

Hi @RPT943  thank you for sharing additional information. 

Your priority must be creation of Service Request within your online account. This ensures that Dell is told about this problem for them to fix. Reference back to this Service Request on a specific date and time is essential for this problem to be resolved at some future date. 

@crimsom here is the second spreadsheet

@crimsom i tried creating a service request. unfortunately the 1on1 chat button has been grayed out for the past 2 weeks, and when i called the number, it let me put in me express service tag, then "transferred me" and then the phone promptly hung up. hopefully they'll be available soon.