I had the exact same experience a few days ago with the same results.  I have noticed that now when I run SupportAssist the main screen specifically says "Keep your Inspiron 3910-China HDD Protection running at its best". The first time I ran Microsoft Word following all of this it informed me I was running it on a different device and would need to reactivate my license.  I was able to do this successfully.

As far as I can tell the PC is running fine. But I would really appreciate advice about this situation and any implications.

Thank You...

Probably no real implication for average user.  Chat w Dell for tech support to revert to factory installed bios settings.

You can do this one of three ways:
Boot into the BIOS and reset it to the factory settings. If you are able to boot into the BIOS, go ahead and do so.
Remove the CMOS battery from the motherboard. Unplug your computer and open your computer's case to access the motherboard.
Reset the jumper.

Regards,

Rachel Gomez

I have booted into the BIOS.  I see that the Downgrade BIOS slider is in the "ON" position, indicating that it is allowed, but I cannot see anywhere in the BIOS screens to reset it to factory. There is a button at the foot of the BIOS screen saying DEFAULT something (I've forgotten the other word as I type) but I'm reluctant to assume that is the way in case it does something else. If I try to use a previous BIOS downloaded from the DELL support page for my unit the file won't run, showing "unsupported image" error. Other "normal" updates are working fine, just not the BIOS one. I've tried several.

Incredibly , DELL will not assist me. They refer me to CURRYS, where I bought it in July. CURRYS won't assist either saying its not a hardware issue and I'm not covered for anything else! Thanks anyway for the reply.

Just used that "DEFAULT" button in the BIOS screen which I understand is a reset. The PC identity has not changed. I think, if I could only have some reassurance from DELL, or another, that it is not going to cause a problem, I would forget about it. But I'm a bit concerned about getting the "unsupported image" error when trying to use a downloaded BIOS install file from DELL. On their support page for my unit it offers a BIOS update which is marked CRITICAL, but the error means I can't install it.

The PC seems fine and I suppose if I never need to update the BIOS again it won't matter. In hindsight, I should never have allowed the DELL update program to install it, but I just assumed it was necessary.

Dell clearly messed up with the bios release offered a couple weeks ago (v1.5.2).  They have pulled that release and the latest one offered now is back to v1.4.1 (from August 10th).  How something like that gets past QA is beyond me, though my impressions of Dell's quality over the past few years leads me to believe they don't really have any substantive QA procedures anymore.  What's extra odd to me in this case is they haven't issued a new BIOS to handle whatever vulnerabilities were supposed to be addressed in the now pulled release, but instead just leave us with the earlier version.

@dlong500  - You have no way to know why they pulled v1.5.2 of BIOS. It could have zero to do with the issue raised by the OP in this thread. 

There are times when bugs get discovered only after an update gets released and installed on thousands of PCs. Just look at how many times Microsoft and Intel mess things up. They try to fix one thing and end up breaking something else...

@RoHe So you're saying that a BIOS update that asks the user to select between modes including some specialty China market management mode (and won't proceed until a selection is made) isn't really a bug?  And that it wouldn't be grounds for pulling the BIOS (even though the BIOS release was pulled).  To be clear, the exact same thing happened to me, so it isn't just a weird thing that happened to the OP.  There was clearly a mistake made with the v1.5.2 BIOS release.

Oh, and they do now have a v1.6.1 BIOS (released on 10/14).  Curiously, there is no "older versions" section anymore so you can't even see the release history like you typically can (and still can on other hardware models).

The bottom line here is that Dell messed up and then proceeded to act like it wasn't their problem when the OP contacted support. They then pulled the BIOS release.  Make of that what you will.