E6510 Sudden reboot with latest BIOS

replaced the Mobo last week friday and it crashed again on today.  Upgraded the bios on the replaced mobo.. lets see what happens.

I am having the same problem with my Latitude e5420, and I am too still looking for a solution. Reading this thread doesn't give me a lot of hope for a quick resolution though. :-(

I have had sudden shut downs in windows, linux, and even while in the BIOS menu, so chances are next to impossible that it's OS- or driver related.

I also ran different diagnostics and none show a problem.

Furthermore, I also seriously doubt that the problem is temperature-related, as I've had the problem seconds after I cold-booted the machine. Deliberate burn-in tests also didn't trigger the problem.

The problem has also manifested itself when I removed the hard drive for analysis - this is when the problem occurred while in BIOS menu.

Whenever the problem appears it also seems to last for a while, and then then next day, or maybe the day after, it doesn't occur for a week or so. Then it will reappear, and my laptop will shut down regularly for a day or two again. Repeat.

This machine is about 160 days in my possession. I have had better experiences with DELL machines that this.

For me it seems like it was the SSD (bad Firmware, Sandforce-driven) - with newer firmware or other SSD it´s like almost gone.

I was getting blackouts as well but when docked.  My laptop (M4600) runs on Windows 7, 64 bit.  Anyone has any ideas how to resolve this issue?

Thanks.

DELL support answered my inquiry, suggesting to update the BIOS. I had looked for an update, but somehow I missed it on the website. Anyway, since I upgraded the BIOS firmware from v5 to v7 a good week ago, the issue hasn't manifested itself.

If you don't hear from me again in this topic, the issue has been resolved for me. :-) HTH

(laptop model E5420)

I tried the bios update also, but that doesn't work.  It does seem to reduce the force offs but doesn't solve it..  Dell has replace my motherboard but that didn't fix it either. Seems it is an instability issue that Dell support doesn't know how to resolve this.

  I expect them to replace the motherboard until they resolve it.

We have an E6420 that started having the ASF2 force shutoff issue.

It started happening about once every 30 minutes.

I tried everything I could think of before contacting Dell. (swap RAM, swap Drive, different battery, re-image, update BIOS, update drivers, Check BIOS settings).

Dell decided that it was probably the motherboard and sent one out to me. After replacing the motherboard, it was still doing the ASF2 force shutoff.

After thinking about it a while and about what I had seen online when I was trying to figure this out, I decided to remove the wireless card to see if that would take care of it.

The system has been running for over 2 hours now without shutting itself off.

I am going to watch it the rest of the day, and will update this thread either way.

Nope, that wasn't it. It finally did another ASF2 force shutdown.

Found out what was causing it. It was the RAM.

The RAM passed the Dell RAM diags as well as HCI memtest.

Put this RAM in another E6420 with the same harware configuration and it started doing the same exact thing as the laptop I was having trouble with.

So I would have to say that this is definitely a RAM problem.

Doesn't matter that it passes the diags, it was still causing the issue.

As soon as I put known good RAM in the laptop, it stopped having problems.

I got a suggestion from Dell.

The Intel AMT conflicts with Broadcoms ASF.. and this will log an ASF2 error.

1) Boot the system, press Ctrl-P to enter the intel AMT Bios

2) Choose Intel ME Management Features, then the ME Management Features Seeting, set Intel AMT to OFF

3) reboot.

My problem is on my machine it says "Preparing MEBx menu", and then nothing.  I don't get the menu.

I'm having the same problem on a 6530, and the new one they sent me to replace it.  In my case it happens every time the 'slice' battery drains to zero, even though the other batteries are still full.

Wireless! Me too: I've been running docked on wired ethernet for a couple months with occaisional wireless undocked meetings, but just traveled and needed remote desktop ("WebEx"/"LiveMeeting" etc.) and BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Instant surprise sudden abrupt shutdown, just immediate blackout and hard-drive head retraction, no BSOD no warning. It happened four times in an hour, running on charger, on WiFi. For some reason I decided to plug into wall CAT5 RJ45 wired eithernet, and never again for five more days. Then it happed two more times back at hotel, on WiFi -- and again, quit happening when I turned off wireless slide-switch. M4600, W7; Device Manager shows "Intel(R) Centrino(R) Ultimate-N 6300 AGN".  Perhaps sudden power demand or current surge causes sudden "crowbar" power supply collapse?