Aurora R13, constant Black Screen, Reboots, BSOD

To those wondering about the BIOS update @DELL-Nathalia M posted would come: there is no new BIOS. No idea where they got that information but it's clearly wrong and there is no sign an update is coming anytime soon, but who knows.

Aside from that i just wanted to chime in and say I'm in the same boat. Looked at the thread you referred to and the solution doesn't help. BlueScreenView showed the same culprit as yours.

One thing to add, you say a clean install fixed it for you. Is that still true? Because i did a clean install and thought the same thing, but after a few hours of gaming it rebooted again. So all it seems to have done is make it a bit less frequent.

Anyway hope someone finds a fix. Dell support can't, the dump file points to it being a software issue rather then hardware, but why is it persisting even after i do a clean install of Windows?

I am currently stable for 5 days of very heavy use. My current setup is using the AW factory windows image, everything up to date on the latest drivers from Dell Support, Windows, and Nvidia Experience.

Set power to "High Performance" in AWCC. Do not create any other profiles for games etc. Leave it just as pictured. I am not accepting this as the solution because it should work properly, but I do appear to be stable with these settings.

BIOS update is likely a bit slow due to the holidays. I would check from time to time.

I realize it's a bit annoying, because there's no information on what this new BIOS update actually addresses, and DELL has not said anything official about random R13 crashes.

Looks like there is an issue for some users, so hopefully it will get sorted out soon.

Random crashes like that are very difficult to troubleshoot using a forum, because they can be caused by many different things and will require different monitoring techniques to pinpoint exactly what is happening.

Has anybody monitored the +12 Volt rail on their system using HWInfo Sensors? Voltages that are out of ATX spec for that rail can cause strange system behavior, including random crashes.

I had this happen on one of my systems due to an aging power supply. Worth a check, you never know.

The limits would be +11.40 V to +12.60. Ideally you want it a bit higher rather than lower.

@WJTech 

Thank you for creating a new thread and continuing this topic. Since my last update in the original closed thread.  I have done additional testing around the power profiles and settings and have come to the same conclusion. Setting the (PCI Express >> Link State Power Management >> Setting: Off), in the active power profile in Windows seems to bring stability to the system.

I have had the black screen restart since unboxing on 12/24 and I also got the blue screen twice while on phone with dell support.  Occurs with different activities and times. I have 3080/i7/32gb.  I tried downloading drivers and turning off pci express link state power but it didn’t work for me.

Tonight I was finally able to get a clean Windows 11 install done from a flash drive and also deleted the unnecessary partitions while on phone with support.  After install I was able to browse internet and install orgin with no issues.  I hope to stress test tomorrow and Wednesday.  Really hoping this works only downfall is not having control of fans or lights. 

Try setting "Deep Sleep Control" in bios settings to Disabled from s4 and 5, also disable overclocking settings from oc1 to disabled. in windows power profile set PCIE link to off. that should reduce or stop the random power 41 kernel sleep state issues with windows 11. currently using balanced mode with pcie off and hdd power off to never. so far no random crashing or rebooting on my r13 so far been 2 days with no issues.

Hello @Sfranger,

After Windows 11 clean installation from a flash drive, is everything working fine now?

Kind Regards

Julian

Hello CranberryOne,

Except this changes did you also clean installed Windows 11 from the flash drive?

Kind Regards

Julian 

I started with a clean install from factory USB to start, since day 1 when i got my r13 i had random reboots. had the new computer  for less than 30days.

the display would turn off and the system would lock up then windows would write the crash data to the HDD and then reboot it happened every few days under normal use.

after reading the event logs and trying things one at a time Core 4 thread 8 was a common caused from a bug code 278 or sometimes zero, according to Microsoft that a device from sleep. however i had hibernation off,balanced power mode active with HDD sleep to off  or 0 and pcie set to off.

when i made the change to disable deep sleep control was after several reboots causes by this issue.

after making the change to disable deep sleep control  i did not have any more random reboots or issues so far 3 days since the change also in the event log now shows that the processor state was controlled via firmware states and not Microsoft kernel power management for certain issues with windows 11 was not properly controlling the states from sleep more specifically processor sleep states in s4 and s5. seems like windows 11 kernel power management caused a fault on core 4 thread 8 that when it tried to wake up a core from a s4 or s5 state that it caused a fault with other things running at the time, then caused a fault with the GPU handling mechanism, when the screen turn off, followed by a event write write power kernel 41 43 bug code 278 and 0. then it would reboot and run fine for a while.

after a the a few crashes and reboot i did ran a though extended hardware test 3 times after different times  6 to 8 in 20 days and every time the dell hardware diagnostics had green checks and logs shows no issues with the hardware running fine outside of windows 11.

Try this first. Least effort, and is working for me:

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-Desktops/Aurora-R13-constant-Black-Screen-Reboots-BSOD/m-p/8112257/highlight/true#M54678

Current uptime:

Hello CranberryOne,

thank you for your very detailed answer. I changed also under Bios Deep Sleep to disabled. And HDD power sleep time to 0 (off) and Pci express power saving to off (disabled). I hope this changes can stop my computers reboot issue.

Kind Regards

Julian

Please keep me updated, I received my R13, and having exaxt same issues as everyone else.  Looking for a fix. 12700k, 32gb DDR5, 3080 ti, like you all said prior. I thought it was a power issue. Now I see it's software related. Waiting for a definite fix, before I tinker with mine. It's a kernel power issue as well.

All you have done is set the default profile to High Performance. I'll do that now off a clean boot. Should know within an hour of playing MS Flight Sim 2020

Yes, set the Default profile to High Performance, but also, ensure that you don't have any other profiles that the system could try to auto switch to.

You should also verify that when you set AWCC to the "High Performance" profile that it also appropriately sets the windows power profile:

Thank you for everybody's feedback. This was quite useful in determining how I was going to approach turning on the machine for the first time.

My comments below supports the claim from many people that this feels more like a software issue than a hardware issue.

For reference, I have not experienced the issues, yet, that have been outlined in this thread and others. See below.

Sharing my experience as I am not using the Dell stock image that came with the computer.

My Alienware 15 r3 suffered a motherboard short and the system had to be replaced until I have time to try and fix it. The Dell factory image on the Alienware Aurora R13 was backed up and my old laptop system was imaged onto the new system, currently Windows 10 20H2. No Alienware Control Center is installed, and the system has been running flawlessly for a few days now without issue and also runs from bootable WinPE and Linux distributions without issue.

In time, I will allow the system to upgrade to Windows 11 and then I will review the usefulness of the Alienware Control Center.

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-Desktops/Aurora-R13-auto-restart-when-playing-WOW/td-p/8089892/page/3