J4125B-ITX Power off keeps reseting

ok

to make sure that my above report is legit, I went through a couple more tests, without any luck.

I changed the PC box/case (a different power switch)

I used a different (80 plus) PSU

I re-flashed (again) the only available initial bios release (shame on you asrock although I still buy your products when Gigabyte *hint* lacks similar ones) from the official product page

now, my time is obviously more valuable than going through the process of getting a refund or even a brand new board, as this PC is sitting on a desk of a small family operated Travel Agency in the middle of high season, but I need to share my experience for any souls with a similar bad luck (which I strongly hope is a rare phenomenon because I still like asrock as a company)

here is my workaround for this quite annoying issue:

when you shutdown your OS either Linux or Windows or whatever, the system recycles instead of shutting down. on that very moment that the black screen is coming up, you hear the beep & you see the first activity of the disk

you simply press again (briefly) the power switch

& that's it !

the system (finally) is powering down. I am not sure if this is the result of the bios options experimentation, because I recall that this behavior was not there when the this issue first appeared

I still think that this is an unacceptable way to enjoy a fresh bough new motherboard, but at least it's a way to workaround it

P.S. Please asrock: DO release MORE bios updates. it's one of the MAIN reason customers should choose their motherboards !

best regards & cheers

Alex

SoC boards don't often get many BIOS updates, not because they are neglected but
rather because there isn't much to update. The board is designed around a single
CPU (SOC) with limited functionality. The BIOS tends to be very simple on these
devices with the only real necessity for updates coming from security related issues.
Occasionally features are added/updated but that is also pretty rare.

I do love these little SOC boards though, I have several myself serving as anything
from a simple media center to a small home NAS. It always fascinates me how much
they can do with so little power.

One of the key issues with more modern BIOS setups (UEFI) is that there is a lot
more interplay between the OS and the UEFI. A Windows update can often cause issues
that appear to be hardware related for example, including systems not shutting down
or resetting rather than shutting down. It is very seldom a BIOS issue if the
system was functioning correctly before the issue arose. If you are running
Windows it's quite likely another update resolved the issue, an issue likely caused
by the previous update.

FWIW, ASRock tend to support their desktop boards with updates far longer than
most manufacturers and often even provide specialized "beta" versions per user
request to enable/tweak features where available. SOCs receive very little in the
way of support from intel (or AMD), once they are released and the bugs are worked
out there typically aren't any more BIOS updates made for them.

searching further about this issue, it looks like it's not specific to this board, but it's a more general one

it's probably related to USB, either bios driver sensitivity issue or a bug

a way to troubleshoot may be to unplug all USB devices and locate the one that may be causing the problem