Issue: Dell Latitude E6410 laptops will not power off the hardware upon Win10 shut down.

Specifics: After choosing to shut down in Windows 10, the OS seems to fully close out, but the system power remains on.  Since there is not an active OS, there is no active power management, and so the laptop shifts to a high-power state.  The only way to shut the system down (or get the system to do anything) is to force a power off through holding the power button down for app. 6 seconds.  After this, the computer can be turned on and will restart normally.  Windows can even "restart" the computer without issue, since it is not trying to fully power off the hardware.

Context: This issue has now appeared on all the multiple E6410s that I administer, regardless of when the OS has been refreshed (brand new Win10 installs, or up to two years previously that have had recent Windows Updates).  Clearly, this is not a one-system issue; clean Win10 installs using their media creation tool have the problem.  Former two-year old Windows installation that had been working just fine developed this symptom immediately following recent Windows Updates.

Attempted Fixes: I have already tried all these things:

• Updated to latest BIOS (now A17)
• Updating chipset drivers with latest listed Dell software driver
• Disabling the "Fast Boot" option in Win10
• Updating or downgrading the Intel Management Engine ... because it is no longer listed on the system under system devices, and will no install (does not meet system specifications), and I've tried down to 9.5 and up to latest 11.7.xxx ... not even the HECI software from Dell's support site will install anymore
• Tracking down all unrecognized devices in Device Manager and finding drivers (there are two: Broadcom USH and the accelerometer), then installing those drivers from Dell so that there are *no* unrecognized or unhappy devices listed in Device Manager anymore
• Disabling hibernation altogether (powercfg -h off)
• etc. etc.

Apparent Cause: It seems that Microsoft, in their attempt to mitigate the Spectre/Meltdown vulnerabilities, has created this issue because the Dell BIOS is not fully ready for the changes.  However, while Dell has been busy releasing BIOS updates for other systems, the E6410 is not on their list for planned fixes... which leaves us in the lurch.  I believe that a newer BIOS update could address this issue; or, alternatively, a better fix from Microsoft.

So... if any one has further ideas of how to address this issue, I would be most grateful.

-Enten