Question Alienware M17 R1 Attempts to boot through Headphone Stand???

[Gamefreaknet]

I have a Alienware M17 R1 (about 6/7 years now) and recently it started to be very slow on things like:
- Restarts/Reboots
- Start-up from shutdown/restart/similar
I assumed it might be trying to (for some reason - I honestly dont know... far fetched but can't really think of anything else...) boot off of the connected USB. The only devices connected to the Headphone stand (Asus ROG Throne QI) are: (connected via a USB2.0 port - bad idea I know however trying to connect it to the USB-C port caused it to constantly disconnect/reconnect)
- USB (SanDisk 32GB USB3.0)
- Xbox Controller
- Headphone port (to my speakers)
After I ran a system test through the Alienware BIOS Utility the Laptop reported itself to be fine... I decided to let it re-attempt to reboot and it got stuck on "Preparing System Repair" for around 5 minutes.
I decided to try testing unplugging the stand since before the last reboot I had noticed the USB connected to it was kind of "broken" (it appeared to be constantly running at 90% - 100% usage in Task Manager but failed to display in File Explorer properly and the whole system felt kind of slowed down whenever I tried to access files especially in "This PC"). After unplugging the stand it immediately moved onto "Diagnosing Problems" for about 30 seconds before sending me to the login screen.
I went back to using the PC for about 5 minutes before noticing it still felt as before. I decided to reboot it again with the Stand still plugged in which got it stuck on restarting and decided to try unplugging the stand which got it to restart back to the login screen fine...?
I assume it's not attempting to use the USB as a sort of C: (boot) drive as my actual C: drive is identified by the system properly however I don't think the Headphone stand has its own form of inbuilt storage that would get my Laptop to try use the Stand for functions such as rebooting, restarting or other such functions through it...?

 

[Lutfij]

I had noticed the USB connected to it was kind of "broken"
Broken in what way? A short in the cable could be your issue.

Doe the laptop regain functionality with snappiness after all USB devices are disconnected from the laptop?

it got stuck on "Preparing System Repair" for around 5 minutes.
Looks to me like your bootable drive/partition is the culprit or the OS installation has corrupted. Speaking of OS, you forgot to mention what OS you're working with. If you're seeing abnormally high system resource usage and you're on Windows 8.1/10/11, then you might have what's known as memoryleak.

The only solution to that is;
a| check to see if your BIOS is on the latest version.
b| remove all storage drives except for the OS drive
c| recreate your bootable USB installer for the OS to rule out any corruption
d| reinstall the OS after wiping your entire storage drive for the OS clean

Moved thread from Systems section to Laptop Tech Support section.

 

[Gamefreaknet]

I had noticed the USB connected to it was kind of "broken"
Broken in what way? A short in the cable could be your issue.

Doe the laptop regain functionality with snappiness after all USB devices are disconnected from the laptop?

it got stuck on "Preparing System Repair" for around 5 minutes.
Looks to me like your bootable drive/partition is the culprit or the OS installation has corrupted. Speaking of OS, you forgot to mention what OS you're working with. If you're seeing abnormally high system resource usage and you're on Windows 8.1/10/11, then you might have what's known as memoryleak.

The only solution to that is;
a| check to see if your BIOS is on the latest version.
b| remove all storage drives except for the OS drive
c| recreate your bootable USB installer for the OS to rule out any corruption
d| reinstall the OS after wiping your entire storage drive for the OS clean

Moved thread from Systems section to Laptop Tech Support section.

I am on Windows 11 24H2
It appeared to probably be the USB (it had been failing to display its Used/Available Storage in File Explorer but reported itself to be fine and reported its storage capacity in Device Manager and Task Manager)

I plugged it into one of my spare PCs and it showed the same symptoms. I never setup that USB as a bootable device however (still kind of confuses me why my Laptop attempted to boot off the USB...) and the stand appears to function fine without the USB plugged into it but connected to my Laptop.
(The SSD currently running my PC is my 2nd C: drive since the original C: drive failed and I had replaced around 2/3 Years ago now)