Weird issue with an E5550; it won't reboot.

Question

Hey all-

I have an E5550 that simply won't reboot. If the machine is rebooted for any reason (via Windows update, just hitting "Restart" in the Start menu, etc.), it will go through all the steps of properly rebooting until the screen goes black as if it's about to reboot, then it just hangs forever until powered off and restarted.

I've tried different operating systems, swapped the disk, different memory, and the result is always the same. The machine works fine in all the configurations; it's been very reliable and overall a nice machine. It's just that it has this strange quirkinesses that prevents things like bios updates (because the bios utility apparently wants to only run on reboot, not on restart). I've gone through all the bios settings to see if there's something in there that might be the culprit; like I said it happens regardless of operating system on the disk so I figure it's truly a machine issue.

Thanks for any suggestions; it's not a showstopper but is definitely a weird thing that I'd like to fix on an otherwise great machine.

nyc10036 · Answer

No clue about the restart problem.

If the intent is to do a BIOS update, I would suggest creating a bootable USB flash drive that has FreeDOS on it. And copy the BIOS update EXE file to the flash drive. Boot to the flash drive. Run the BIOS EXE file.

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tachoknight · Answer

Right, I tried that but the bios updater only wants to run after it's rebooted the machine, thus my problem

nyc10036 · Answer

Dell has DOS BIOS updater. That's the one you want.

tachoknight · Answer

oh, and it won't require rebooting to run it? that'd be perfect. I'm honestly hoping that a bios update might actually solve the problem, thus my interest in doing this.

tachoknight · Answer

Well, I tried it and unfortunately it also wanted to reboot to do the actual update.

tachoknight · Answer

Yep, from a bootable USB stick.

nyc10036 · Answer

Are you booting into DOS?

nyc10036 · Answer

That's odd. Usually I boot into DOS. Run the executable. Then it is done. It is not the restarting that updates the BIOS. The update happens in DOS. .

tachoknight · Answer

Hm, maybe I've been using the wrong executable; do you have a link to a bios file that runs like you describe?

nyc10036 · Answer

https://dl.dell.com/FOLDER06331241M/1/E5550A24.exe   Copy to USB with FreeDOS image. You can use Rufus to create one.

xiaomei · Answer

It means that the file 'VMM32.VXD' in your 'WINDOWSSYSTEM' folder is missing or damaged, causing the operating system to fail to read normally, resulting in an error during 'restart'. On the premise of not reinstalling the system, the solution is: on a machine that can perform the above operations normally, find the 'WINDOWS' → 'SYSTEM' folder, and then use a floppy disk to copy a complete copy of 'VMM32.VXD' 'File, and copy it to the corresponding location of your laptop system, you can solve this problem.

Ludeawakening89 · Answer

@xiaomei​ I know this is a really late reply to your comment, as I just got a Dell E5550 that has the same exact issue. The issue isn't caused by any missing files. Using even Linux and a new SSD still gives the same result. The OP stated that they have also tried other operating systems other than Windows. I believe a BIOS update has caused the issue with these laptops, and now it's unfortunately stuck with this BIOS because it requires a restart to flash a BIOS no matter which method you try. I've looked for days and nobody seems to have an easy fix for this. I could get the tool and manually flash the new BIOS onto the chip itself, but I'm not sure it's been worth it.

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Weird issue with an E5550; it won't reboot.

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