Hi All,
I'm new to the windowssh blog, this will be my first post. Sorry in advance for this being a long post, but it looks like I have no choice but to ship my PC back to have the motherboard replaced with a refurbished one which I'm hesitant at doing (I paid over $2000 for this computer, I don't want a refurbished part).
I purchased a new Alienware X51 R3 computer with Windows 10 Home Edition that arrived back in June of this year. My systems specs are the following: i7-6700K, GTX 970, 16GB DDR4 2133Mhz RAM, 256GB SSD, 2TB Storage, built-in Wifi. I was originally using the standard mouse and keyboard that shipped with the computer, only recently did I upgrade to a Corsair K70 RGB and SteelSeries Sensei mouse.
Ever since day one I have had 'Sleep' issues with my computer including a frozen mouse cursor issue on the Window 10 login page. To expand further on the 'Sleep' issue:
- computer shipped with 'Balanced' power profile
- with this profile the display would turn off prior to sleep and in this mode I was unable to get the screen back using the keyboard or mouse and my only option was to force shutdown and reboot the system
- there were times when the PC would not be able to go to 'Sleep' when selecting this option from the 'Power' menu
- when in sleep mode (activated as per the balanced profile) there were times were I could not wake the computer with input from the mouse or keyboard
I then decided to call technical support and they performed the following steps (not necessarily in this order):
1. checked power profile settings including hibernate sys settings
2. ran windows system file checker to ensure that there are no corrupt files
3. changed power profile to 'High Performance Mode'
4. updated the Intel integrated graphics drivers
5. re-installed Intel Rapid Storage drivers
6. re-installed ASMedia USB 3.1 extensible host controller driver
7. re-installed Intel Chipset Drivers
8. re-installed Alienware Command Center v4.0
9. upgraded the BIOS to the latest version
10. checked all USB port settings with respect to 'allow this device to wake the computer' etc.
11. Ensured that the keyboard and mouse are plugged into the 'black' USB 2.0 ports on the rear
At the time, the above steps appeared to fix the 'Sleep' problem as I was able to wake the computer using the standard keyboard and mouse, however, this introduced an issue where at time when booting the PC the mouse cursor would be frozen on the login screen. Only option was to either disconnect/re-connect the mouse or restart using the keyboard and hope that the issue goes away.
I then purchased the Corsair K70 RGB and SteelSeries Sensei devices. I had the new keyboard plugged into a single USB 3.0 port (there is an option to use two USB 2.0 ports) and had the mouse plugged into USB 2.0 port. My frozen cursor on the Window 10 login page remained intermittently.
I called support again and they then performed the following:
1. went into BIOS and changed the PCI Express 3.0 setting from enabled to disabled
2. re-installed ASMedia USB 3.1 extensible host controller driver
3. checked USB setting for selective suspend
I was informed that the PCI Express 3.0 enabled was known to cause issues with frozen cursors. Ran some tests, frozen cursor issue appeared to go away but now I had sleep problem again (unable to wake PC from sleep using mouse plugged into USB 2.0 port). I called technical support and recommended the following:
1. was advised that the USB 2.0 ports are not meant to wake the computer from sleep as it does not provide enough power to some devices
2. was asked to disconnect my Corsair keyboard from the single USB 3.0 port and re-connect it using two USB 2.0 ports
3. was asked to connect my SteelSeries mouse to a single USB 3.0 port
After testing all combinations, it appeared to me that this fixed the 'sleep' issue and I believe that the frozen cursor issue had gone away. Fast forward to today, and when booting my PC my mouse cursor was frozen on the login page.
I contacted technical support and they played around with the fast start-up and fast-shutdown settings and they once again reviewed my USB setting. I was told that it appears that my motherboard is defective and will need to be replaced, and that this would be done using a refurbished part.
I'm not convinced that this is a motherboard/hardware issue, and I do no really want a refurbished part after buying a new computer. I'm hoping some of you could please help me out here, I would really appreciate it. Thanks!
With all the software & BIOS troubleshooting that was done to no avail maybe you could consider that a working refurbished part is better than a new defective one?
