Black shut down screen

J

JimL

XP Pro, SP3 & every update in the book, IBM ThinkPad T42 (near 2 GHz).

When I shut down my machine, after the shutdown I get an almost black screen
with a mouse cursor on it for several seconds, then I get a dead black
screen, no more mouse cursor and it's time to hit the sack or something.

The last few days that several seconds has turned into a full 5 minutes.

Any known cures? I've done several Deep Scans for malware since it
started - always showing a clean slate.

In the past I've had some shutdown problems associated with my extension
hard drive (USB) but this happens whether I bring the ext up or not.
 
S

Singapore Computer Service

J

JimL

I'd never done one of those before. Used the guided one on auto. Neat.
Still got the 5 minute wait. Thanks.
 
J

JimL

Another thing I never used before. Found a long list of errors saying I
have a bad hard drive block. chkdsk thinks not.

I couldn't find anything useful. The event logger is switched off just
before the delay begins so it's like looking for a black cat in a dark room.

There were some interesting things happening that didn't make a lot of sense
to me. Like a CD burner that gets turned on by the system (why?) and
immediately it says it is off again. And I get quite a few Info's saying
ACW couldn't get on the internet. ... OK. ... ACW can stick it up its nose
as far as I'm concerned...

Thanks
 
J

JimL

Singapore Computer Service said:
Hello,

Look at the Event Viewer for some clues. Here's how

Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer

Look under Application and System for 'Error' and 'Warnings'. More
information on Event Viewers here - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427


Ah, here's something:

Information - successfully sent start control to Gremlin Operations.
Information - Gremlin operations made successful start.
Information - Gremlin Operations now running.
Information - Gremlin Operations successfully sent start control to Evil
Demons.

etc.
 
S

Singapore Computer Service

Hello,

Bad hard drive block... Does your system seem to 'hang' at times with the
hard disk LED constantly flashing? If so, time to replace the hard disk.

To verify, first make a backup of your data first. Do it ASAP in the case
your hard disk
becomes forever undetectable.

Download and run your hard disk manufacturer's diagnostic utility. Common
brand diagnostics links are given below
Seagate - http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/
WD - http://support.wdc.com/download/

Alternatively, you can download and run HDtune -
http://www.hdtune.com/download.html - and scan your hard disk using it. But
using the manufacturer's utility is better as it performs additional tests.

The bad sectors could also be coming from an external drive, so you need to
verify this.

Regards,
Singapore Computer Home Repair Service
http://www.bootstrike.com/ComputerService/
Video Conversion VHS Video8 Hi8 Digital8 MiniDv MicroMv
http://www.bootstrike.com/VHSVideoConvert/
 
J

JS

Two utilities to look at, although the "Bad Block" error
in your other post is not good news.

1) If you want to dig deeper:
Try Autoruns from the MS Windows SysInternals site:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

AutoRuns will show/list all apps/etc. that load/run when you first boot ...
(the 'Boot Execute' tab),
when you logon (the 'Logon' tab) and other programs that load
(grouped by labeled tabs) for easy viewing.

It also provides the ability to selectively allows you to stop
(use with care) any program that you don't want to load.
You can undo any changes you have made.

Note: To get additional details on an item in the list you can't
readily identify you may need to highlight the item (right click) and use
the 'Search Online' option to get the details,
especially useful for the more obscure items in the list.

2) Find and display a Process that could be the cause try Process Explorer:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

Once you have Process Explorer installed and running:
In the taskbar select View and check:
'Show Process Tree' and the 'Show Lower Pane' options.
Move your mouse cursor over any column in the right hand pane and
right click and check the following boxes:
'Command Line' and 'Version'.
Then expand the process named 'Explorer' (click on the + sign)
In the column on the left named 'CPU', look for any high CPU usage.
Next click on the CPU column to sort the processes by %CPU usage
(Highest to Lowest).

Move the mouse cursor over any process,
you should see a popup with some detailed info.
Then mouse over the process that's using most or all the CPU %.
Then click on that process to highlight it,
Now that it's highlighted, right click and from the options listed select:
'Search Online'.
This should display what out there on the web about that process.
You can also double click on any process to open up a more detailed
'Properties' window.
Note: some entries like Explorer, System/Services, and Svchost
may need to be expanded to show the detail (sub processes),
in this case click on the + located to the left of the entry.

An alternate method when using Process Explorer
is to double click on the Graph just below the Menu bar.
This will open the 'System Information' window, which has a larger display
of all three graphs. Move your mouse over any spike in the
CPU Usage graph to see what process/application or service is the cause
of the spike.
 
J

JimL

JS said:
the "Bad Block" error in your other post is not good news.

And it's back again.

Am I reading this right?

The device, \Device\Harddisk0\D, has a bad block.


This means that the bad block is on partition D, right? That's a FAT32 and
holds some old DOS programs. CHKDSK now says it has 22 mb of bad sectors,
but CHKDSK /F doesn't change that.
 
J

JimL

No obvious issues. The problem seems to be on a non-system partition (D:).
Of course that still speaks badly of the drive itself. @#$%^&*. Changing a
system drive is precisely my idea of hell. It being a laptop doesn't help
at all.

This whole idea of windows requiring such exact file placement, etc., seems
non-sensical to me after learning on Motorola systems (OS9) with everything
indexed, relocatable and re-entrant in a flat memory map.

JimL
 
J

JS

Some tools to check your drive are as follows:
SpeedFan has an online analysis feature for hard drives.
http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php
(Check the S.M.A.R.T. values using Speed Fan's online option).

HD Tune: http://www.hdtune.com/

Then go to the drive manufacture's web site and
download their drive test software.

But is sounds more and more like your drive
is failing. Backup anything of value ASAP!!!
 
S

Singapore Computer Service

Hello,

If it is on the same hard disk as the one XP is running from, then it is
time to replace the hard drive.

Your original problem may not be caused by this, but we can't rule this out
either.

Backup your data as *soon* as possible and replace the hard disk. We can't
stress more on the word 'soon'

Regards,
Singapore Computer Home Repair Service
http://www.bootstrike.com/ComputerService/
Video Conversion VHS Video8 Hi8 Digital8 MiniDv MicroMv
http://www.bootstrike.com/VHSVideoConvert/
 
J

JimL

Backup your data as *soon* as possible and replace the hard disk. We can't
stress more on the word 'soon'


Oh, I don't doubt that's good advice. I'll do it if I can figure out how.
I'd like to have a higher capacity HD, but I don't even know if the system
would run on a bigger one. Probably not. But it doesn't matter if I can't
figure out how to backup/restore the whole mess.
 
J

JS

Download page:
http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

Install, run and then click on the 'SMART' tab.
From the Hard disk pulldown list pick your hard drive.
Just below the Model # are the words:
"Perform an in dept online analysis ....." click on this button
and you should see your drive results.
 
J

JimL

I think you lost me. Apparently you're talking about downloading something
and running it. What is "online" about that?

Does "online" no longer mean "connected to the web?"

JimL
 
J

JS

Yes, SpeedFan will read your hard drives SMART values
and then allow you to connect (the online part) to their web
site to compare your drive SMART values against data
they have collected for the same make and model as your drive.
 
J

JimL

JS said:


Someone "a long way from here" suggested I might be low on disk space. I
have 9 gb on my system partition. Could anything about shutdown need more
than that to do a qhick shutdown? Of course there's the 1 gb HiPileIt.sys
file (or something like that) for starters. Let's see if I can find the
right name. ... Oops, hiberfil.sys. I was noticing that my hard drive is
going full tilt for that whole 5 minutes. Does that sound like a bunch of
file swapping going on?

I could move some stuff around and expand C: if it would do any good.
 

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