Sounds like an older (Legacy-BIOS ) Dell machine, so try like this:

https://www.dell.com/community/Vostro-Desktops/Vostro-460-XPS-8300-Upgrade-Adventures/m-p/6071757/highlight/true#M1311

Start with the first missing one and do them in order:

http://downloads.dell.com/published/pages/xps-8500.html

Try not to brick it. :Smile:

Always include version of Windows in your posts. :Idea:

If this were my PC, I'd leave it alone. Otherwise, it might end up with a bricked motherboard. :Crying:

Besides, there's no mention that BIOS A14 fixes any of the problems you mentioned. It only fixes an Intel security issue.

If PC isn't waking up, it could be your power options settings, so give this a try:

Open Device Manager and expand list under USB. Double-click a USB root hub and click its Power Management tab. Uncheck the box "Allow PC to turn off...". Repeat for all root hubs.

Now expand list under Human Interface Devices in Device Manager and uncheck that same box for any HID entry that has a Power Management tab.

And do the same in Device Manager for either your Ethernet or WiFi network adapter, whichever one you actually use. Exit Device Manager when done.

Next, open the Windows Power options screen and identify the active Power plan. Click the link to change its settings and on next screen click link for Additional Options (Win 10) or Advanced Options (Win 7).

On that screen, disable Hibernation, disable Hybrid Sleep, disable USB Selective Suspend, and disable PCI Express Link State Management.  If you use WiFi, make sure the Wireless option is set to Max performance on that screen too. Save the changes to the power plan and reboot.

Does that help?

Tesla - Thanks for the suggestion and for how quickly you made it!

Your suggestion seemed very daunting to me, so I tried making a bootable USB with the BIOS exe file on it and I was able to update the BIOS that way.

I was determined to get into the boot menu via F12 and somehow it worked!

Thanks again, and I didn't brick my XPS...!

thanks for all the suggestions Ron, I should have been more specific about the sleep/wake issues

1) I was finally able to update the BIOS to A14 via bootable USB, so cross that off the list.

2) my power/sleep issues are more like this:

 a) PC won't wake up via keyboard input, only power button 

  b) PC sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night

  c) PC won't wake up via power button, but will restart after holding button down like 10 seconds

And let me guess, updating to BIOS A14 has not improved your sleep/wake issues.

a) If the PC is turning off the USB ports, you won't wake the PC from sleep with the keyboard. So you need to tell Windows not to turn USB root hubs or Human Interface Devices off in Device Manager, and change those other Power plan settings.

b) Waking up in middle of night could be a number of things, listed here in no particular order. And you may have to experiment to find the cause/fix:

• A wake timer is set to run a scheduled task. PC wakes to run it. Check Task Scheduler
• An app is phoning home looking for updates. Windows Update, anti-malware suite..?
• Disk drive being defragmented?
• Windows reliability service checking things out?
• Windows indexing service indexing hard drive?
• Momentary blip in power during the night might cause the PC to wake up?
• Vibration jiggles the mouse so PC wakes up. Turn mouse off at night?
• Wake on LAN enabled in BIOS setup?

Open a CMD prompt Window and type in: powercfg -lastwake {press Enter}  See if it identifies the culprit, but the response to that command may be ambiguous. Of course this requires you to run that command before it goes back to sleep, assuming it does go back to sleep after waking on its own. Have fun sitting in front of the PC tonight!

c) See what action Windows is set to take when power button is pressed. And disable Hibernation in the active Power plan.

EDITED

---

@SterlingSliv wrote:

thanks for all the suggestions Ron, I should have been more specific about the sleep/wake issues

1) I was finally able to update the BIOS to A14 via bootable USB, so cross that off the list.

2) my power/sleep issues are more like this:

 a) PC won't wake up via keyboard input, only power button 

  b) PC sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night

  c) PC won't wake up via power button, but will restart after holding button down like 10 seconds

---

1. Good

a) Look for BIOS options like these (and change/flip them):
- CPU C6 Report
- S3 Mode (or some other S-Mode)

b) Normal. Check your Scheduled tasks or Wake-on-LAN settings

c) Not sure

Finally, on some computers over the years I've been forced to turn-off all Sleeping and they work fine. Just turn them on in the morning, and shut them down at night (or just leave them running if on good UPS, like APC).