m17 R4, keyboard stops working, Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed)

Hi @DanGoyette  welcome to this free user to user Alienware laptop discussion forum. This is not Dell Support. 

Thank you for providing an exceptionally good opening post complete with images. 

If system has Premium Support Plus warranty, International support should get Dell assigned contractor to visit and fix this problem. 

Consumer Support Services

Usually the user can fix this problem by visiting Device Manager and deleting driver that has the yellow triangle against it. Restart (not Shut Down) to save this change. Ensure connection to internet when system boots so that Windows operating system automatically installs the correct driver. 

If this driver problem keeps returning, Dell should fix this problem by remote access to the system. Raise Service Request, explain the driver problem, and request fix by Dell remote access. Dell should also deploy their suite of diagnostic software to determine the root cause, which might say replacement motherboard is required. 

The Ubuntu diagnostic seems to suggest that BIOS is not fully installed. Never install BIOS over the internet, always download onto system and follow the installation instructions. If the downloaded file fails integrity check, repeat download. 

[This user does not work for Dell and volunteers their free time. Please remember to say thank you by clicking on Kudos as this user's only reward.] 

Thanks very much for the reply. Following-up on the Premium Support option sounds like a really good first step for me. I wasn't aware of that.

The other specific troubleshooting steps, I've already tried those several times, so unfortunately it really does feel like this is coming down to a hardware replacement. 

Thanks for putting me on the Premium Support track.

I've ended up having a bit more progress on this issue. I'm still not sure whether to believe that it's hardware related, or software related. But it seems that I've found some workaround to the issue, at least so far.

When I was in Device Manager, I found that there was another device that was faulty, a bluetooth radio:

That has a yellow ! next to it. When I uninstalled it, and scanned for hardware changes, I found that the Generic Bluetooth Radio came back with a ! on it still, but that the keyboard was suddenly working. 

However, upon restarting the computer, the keyboard stopped working again. 

But, I found that if I uninstalled the Generic Bluetooth Radio and uninstalled the failed USB device, then scanned for hardware changes, there was probably a 50/50 chance that the keyboard would work. After that, I Disabled the Generic Bluetooth Radio, as you can see in the image. And now when I reboot, the keyboard keeps working.

My current theory is that this could still be hardware related, but more of a race condition of whether the keyboard will try to connect to the system through some faulty channel. It seems like I've locked the Generic Bluetooth Radio to the faulty hardware channel, which allows the keyboard to use a different channel. But I have no idea how hardware works at that low level to know if that makes any sense at all.

I'll have to see whether the keyboard keeps working from now on or not. So far, doing what I did above, the keyboard has kept working through several reboots, which it wasn't doing before, so maybe that's a good sign.

Well, just for posterity, the "solution" in my previous post isn't reliable. Although the keyboard remained working after rebooting several times, after another reboot it stopped working again, with the keyboard listed as "Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed)" again.

As best as I can tell, it really just seems that any time I uninstall this "Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed)", there's a small chance it will correctly install the keyboard. But most of the time it immediately comes back again as "Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed)"

Again, I don't have enough hardware experience to judge whether this erratic behavior is consistent with some kind of hardware failure.

Hi @DanGoyette thank you for sharing your troubleshooting. 

Most of the hardware is controlled by internal to motherboard USB connections, and when this fails replace motherboard is the only fix. However, this problem seems to be intermittent driver conflict which is not easy to troubleshoot, as you have already discovered. 

The generic software fix is to run Check Disk on the OS(C:) boot drive. This is a very powerful tool that will search for and automatically fix any file conflicts. Disk Error Checking: How to run CHKDSK in Windows 11/10 (thewindowsclub.com) 

The generic find hardware fault is POST during boot, but no POST diagnostics LED diagnostic lights were reported. POST does not check everything. The Dell ePSA Diagnostics can be run by holding down the F12 key when the Alienware splash screen appears. ePSA Pre Boot System Assessment Dell Overview (Official Dell Tech Support) - YouTube 

Speculate the Bluetooth driver problem could be Wi-Fi adapter card is not fully seated. Reseat Wi-Fi adapter card in its slot, might be a fix. Its hard to know if reseat will stop more driver problems being created. 

To try and find root cause of these problems, run Reliability Monitor to create a timeline of events. Wait for timeline to be created. Look at the event entries for today, as problems occur today. Hopefully whatever the system is unhappy about will reveal itself by reoccurring event. Open this event to see if root cause has been identified together with Microsoft error code. A search on the internet should reveal similar problem and its fix might be your solution. 

Sorry for not being specific, this troubleshooting should work. If not, create Dell Service Request and let them troubleshoot this problem. 

Once again, thank you for the detailed response, and the leads to follow. ChkDisk resulted in no errors, as did the preBoot tests. For the other steps, I'll probably hold off until I can confirm whether I can get international support via the premium support. (I'll hopefully hear back from Dell on that in the next day or so.) Popping these laptops open and reseating things is something I'm only marginally comfortable doing myself.

Hi @DanGoyette, Congratulations on the issue getting fixed!

It seemed like a software issue was the major culprit in this but physically replacing the motherboard did the job.

I recently started having the similar problem with my M15 R4 laptop which I got in late Jan 2022. I contacted the premium support, and they initiated the replacement of the keyboard. Meanwhile, I started experimenting in the device manager with the "unknown usb device device descriptor request failed". What seemed to work temporarily for me is uninstalling this and immediately putting the system to sleep. But, once the system gets rebooted or put to sleep again, the problem reappears.

This described my latest issue exactly. I literally just had my motherboard replaced by a Dell tech for a fried Nvidia card (which happens to be integrated in the motherboard along with the RAM). I was looking forward to a nice change of pace from my MacBook Pro by having upgradable components, but no such luck with the m17r4. Thanks for the highly detailed thread. You saved me days of reinstalls. I’ll get Dell support on it. 

Hi @TobyDz ,

I feel bad that you have to deal with these issues, but I've heard there are some laptops now from Clevo or some other manufacturer that allows full upgradeability.

The company I do Tech Support for has 5 Alienware M17 R4's

We've had them for almost a year with no big issues

About a week ago one of our managers had the exactly described issue that Dan detailed in his first post

Two days ago another staff member had their keyboard stop working also

I spoke to Dell Support twice today and their support agent suggested that I do a clean Windows 11 install which I did and basically had the same result as others in that the keyboard still wouldn't work in Windows but fine in the BIOS and Diags utility

They're now suggesting replacing the keyboard but from what I've been reading in this post, that doesn't sound like it will resolve the issue either

This definitely sounds like a common issue with these Alienware laptops and I 'm hoping Dell comes up with an acknowledgement that there is a problem and a solid solution considering how much we all have paid for these units

That's a great suggestion!

At this point I'm ready to try anything

Cheers!

Hi @Compu-Doc ,

You guys tried Windows 10 yet? I heard everything is supported better.