2 minutes of disk access between <Start> <Shut Down> and Selection Window

[William P.N. Smith]

My laptop frequently gets into a state where it takes a couple of
minutes between the time I tell it <Start> <Shut Down> and the time
the "Shut Down Windows" prompt comes up. I've turned off write
caching on the disk to no avail.

I've got a 4G partition with a fixed 4G swap file, but the swap file
shouldn't be dirty if the disk isn't write-cached, should it?

This seems to happen more often if I copy lots of files to/from the
laptop.

If I cancel the shutdown, and then immediately <Start> <Shut Down>
again, it again takes a couple of minutes of disk activity.

Any ideas what might be going on? Any easy way to short-circuit the
process and just turn the machine off?

Thanks!

 

[Bob I]

4 gig swap file is HUGE! One and a half times ram is normal. Now the
question is are you using some paranoia setting that clears the swapfile
at shutdown? Write caching is where RAM holds the disk write till a more
opportune time before it actually puts it on the platter.

 

[William P.N. Smith]

4 gig swap file is HUGE!

OK, but I do a lot of image processing, and I've got a 4G partition
set aside, so why not use it all?

question is are you using some paranoia setting that clears the swapfile
at shutdown?

I dunno, how do I tell? Doesn't sound like anything I did on
purpose....

 

[Bob I]

The typical way the "swapfile gets erased" setting is triggered is using
something like TweakUI. On the other hand 2 minutes seemed like a long
time but mine takes about a minute to quit to poweroff. I just go
shutdown and walk away nowadays. Win98 on otherhand is almost
instantanous by comparison. Another possibility is a registry problem

A User May Experience a Slow Logoff Process Because of an Open Registry
Handle in the Classes Hive
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;319909&Product=win2000

 

[William P.N. Smith]

A User May Experience a Slow Logoff Process Because of an Open Registry
Handle in the Classes Hive
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;319909&Product=win2000

I looked that over, and don't seem to be getting that error, and it's
"fixed in SP3", and I'm at SP4 plus all the latest WinUps.