7730 won't shut down or sleep - fans run on full

Out of the blue, this issue arose.  No new installations of anything.  Precision 7730 behavior now:

• Any time sleep is attempted, power button does not blink, but stays solid.  Screen goes black, and within seconds the fans fire up and run on what sounds like full speed.
• If I attempt to put it to sleep or shut it down using the menu, same thing occurs.
• Only way to shut down is a hard termination - push and hold power button.
• Upon start-up, it looks/sounds normal for a couple seconds, but then all goes black and 1 beep is sounded.  About 3-5 seconds later and on its own, it all powers up correctly.  Is that one beep an error code of sort?
• Strangely, my time (lower right corner) no longer syncs and keeps up.

I have read sooooooo much on this, and other brands have this issue too.  Main things I've read:

• Driver issues hanging up the shutdown
• Issue with power supply or mother board relating to the PS_on signal not telling everything to shut down.

I have:

• Run all of Dell's online diagnostics that all pass
• Restored to 4 days prior... no difference.
• Run Windows Reset... no difference.
• Updated drivers... no difference.
• Updated bios... no difference.
• ... and probably more that escapes me, but no changes.

Can anyone pleeeeease shed some light on this, and help save some sanity.... LOL?