When I shutdown my Dell XPS 15 (9510) laptop, it hangs on the shutdown screen. This is the black screen with the Dell logo in the middle and the Ubuntu logo along the bottom. For a few seconds it shows the "spinning circle" as if it is doing something. But it just never shuts down.
This box is dual-boot Ubuntu/Windows 11 and was working fine for almost two years. However, recently I had felt like the box was getting hotter than I was comfortable with. So I sought out a way to control the fans, hoping I could turn them up. So I followed the instructions from this post: https://askubuntu.com/a/1094617. That said, not all the way through. When I got to the third block where the third line overwrites /etc/modules I took a pause. I had the suspicion I might have been too trusting.
Knowing there was really nothing I could do - I didn't know the previous contents of that file - I rebooted and hoped for the best. It rebooted and although there were log messages that flashed by, things looked ok. I probably should have stopped there.
But in my searches, I had found a second post (https://askubuntu.com/a/46135) that seemed promising. I started to follow those instructions. This post had a fair amount of caution baked into the instructions, so I actually only did step 1. And even there, I only said "yes" to the first two options. I did not receive any output that implied I would be able to control the fans. Weary, I decided to cut my losses.
I know it could be coincidental, but this is when the issue began. When Ubuntu suggests software and/or driver updates, I tend to take them. So it is totally possible I installed an update that is causing my issue, and the above is unrelated. But I thought I would mention the above, since it could be relevant.
Since it had been almost 2 years, I figured a re-install of the OS wouldn't go amiss. As a dev environment, it gets a little "dirty." I reinstalled Ubuntu 22.04.3 last night. As part of that installation, I reset the BIOS to all of the defaults. For this laptop, I did need to do the "Windows-safe-boot" switch between RAID and AHCI, but that seemed to go successfully (Windows is still accessible). Unfortunately, the issue persists.
Having searched forums on the issue, it was suggested that I use the NVIDIA drivers instead of the generic in ones. The drivers were already installed, so I did a sudo prime-select nvidia, which ran successfully. Then I attempted a reboot and could not. All of the solutions I have come across seem to blame display drivers. But I seem to be at a dead end on that front.
Is there a chance I have gotten a piece of hardware into a configuration state that would cause the issue to persist between OS installations? Maybe there are Dell diagnostics I can do, either in Windows or Ubuntu, to check that the hardware is healthy? Perhaps my problem really started when I noticed the laptop getting so hot, and the timing is coincidental? I'm happy to take any fresh ideas folks have.
Thanks in advance.
