Dell keyboard preventing soft restart

Jack_133

Commendable
Apr 27, 2016
3
0
1,510
Hi,
I have a homebuilt PC, and I've always had issues restarting it from Windows. That includes using the start menu restart or allowing program or update installs to restart the computer. Windows will notify me that it is restarting, then closes. But the PC never completely shuts down and it never comes back up. It just sits there, fans running, power LED illuminated without booting up. I can shut it down at the power switch, and when it comes back up, I get the notice that Windows was not shut down properly. If this was an update, I have to start over.

In any case, I'm a fairly knowledgeable guy when it comes to hardware and software, so I did some troubleshooting, and I narrowed the problem down to of all things the keyboard. When I unplug the keyboard, restarting works as intended. I found this mentioned around here as well, but with no real solutions, but at least I know it's not just me. This is a standard Dell keyboard I swiped from some surplus parts, and I don't know why it's doing this. Is there some special handshake the keyboard expects with Dell hardware or something? Is there anything I can do to stop the keyboard from preventing restarts?
 
1| Can you please pass on your full system's specs inclusive of your OS and connected peripherals?
2| Have you made sure your BIOS and remaining device drivers(namely chipset) are up to date?
3| When you speak of surplus parts, what state was it in? Have you tried replicating the issue with a different keyboard? It may very well be a malfunctioning keyboard that ended up being left alone.
 



  • ■ AMD-FX4100 CPU
    ■ ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0 motherboard
    ■ 2 x CORSAIR XMS 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
    ■ EVGA G2 850W PSU
    ■ Seagate Desktop HDD ST1000DM003 1TB
    ■ Corsair Carbide Series 200R case
    ■ Windows 10/Ubuntu 15, though the issue occurred under Windows 7 as well, and also occurred with a single boot setup. Have not tried with Ubuntu.

I don't know the keyboard model number off the top of my head, but I can grab it at home. It was brand new, though, despite being surplus. The user just preferred to keep their old clicky keyboard.

I do keep my BIOS up to date. I have not had the chance to try a different keyboard. What I do know is that if I unplug the keyboard and use the mouse to restart, it restarts flawlessly every time. This is consistent through all OS wipes, updates, etc. I did find through googling some people with similar issues, e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/31jam9/computer_will_not_restart_it_will_only_boot_if/

I don't know the validity of these solutions.