Shut Down Problem

[POP]

Hi all,
Cross posted; xp basics and xp general. F'ups to .general.

SP SP2+, 512 RAM, lots of drive space free, updated av,
sypware/malware progs, healthy system near as I can tell.

Shut Down:
Goes through all the phases: Saving Settings, etc, to Shutting
Down message, which lasts for about a minute, and then there is
the familiar soft bump sound from the speakers, and the screen
goes blank, leaving the active cursor in the middle of the
screen. Cursor remains permanently active.
It appears as though windows has actually Shut Down (or
stopped after the shut down part of the Restart; happens with
either one), and then stops. And will sit there forever. No
disk activity, cpu cools and fan eventually turns off, processor
fan stays on. No error messages of any kind, nothing in Event
Viewer I can find other than a couple warnings that are
eventually satisfied.

Powering off the system takes the requisite 5 seconds of
pusing the power button, meaning it thinks it's doing something
or it would power off almost instantly.
It's like the final "tick" to turn off is missing.

Booting back up is normal in every respect; nothing unusual and
boot time is reasonable at about two and a half minutes. No
operational speed problems while the machine is running. Runing
tasks and processes look normal, nothing unexpected that I can
tell.

I cannot tell when this started as I don't Restart or Shut Down
often. Updates and WGA are about all that's been downloaded and
no other installs recently, though; thse are where I discoverd
the issue of not shuttind down properly during Restart. It's
probably been about two weeks since I Shut Down or Restarted
prior to noticing the problem. No luck using Restore Points
also. Have GoBack, but hesitate to use it for this kind of
problem.

Any comments or thoughts on what I might look for to get the shut
down operating correctly again?
Or, maybe a better place to ask the question?
I did a full backup of data yesterday just for grins, BTW.

TIA,

Pop

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE]

Hi all,
Cross posted; xp basics and xp general. F'ups to .general.

SP SP2+, 512 RAM, lots of drive space free, updated av, sypware/malware
progs, healthy system near as I can tell.

Shut Down:
Goes through all the phases: Saving Settings, etc, to Shutting Down
message, which lasts for about a minute, and then there is the familiar
soft bump sound from the speakers, and the screen goes blank, leaving the
active cursor in the middle of the screen. Cursor remains permanently
active.
It appears as though windows has actually Shut Down (or stopped after
the shut down part of the Restart; happens with either one), and then
stops. And will sit there forever. No disk activity, cpu cools and fan
eventually turns off, processor fan stays on. No error messages of any
kind, nothing in Event Viewer I can find other than a couple warnings that
are eventually satisfied.

Powering off the system takes the requisite 5 seconds of pusing the
power button, meaning it thinks it's doing something or it would power off
almost instantly.
It's like the final "tick" to turn off is missing.

Booting back up is normal in every respect; nothing unusual and boot time
is reasonable at about two and a half minutes. No operational speed
problems while the machine is running. Runing tasks and processes look
normal, nothing unexpected that I can tell.

I cannot tell when this started as I don't Restart or Shut Down often.
Updates and WGA are about all that's been downloaded and no other installs
recently, though; thse are where I discoverd the issue of not shuttind
down properly during Restart. It's probably been about two weeks since I
Shut Down or Restarted prior to noticing the problem. No luck using
Restore Points also. Have GoBack, but hesitate to use it for this kind of
problem.

Any comments or thoughts on what I might look for to get the shut down
operating correctly again?
Or, maybe a better place to ask the question?
I did a full backup of data yesterday just for grins, BTW.

See http://aumha.org/win5/a/shtdwnxp.htm

 

[Guest]

Try going to my computer,R.click on C: Open,open documents and settings,
chk if users folders aren't duplicated,hover the pointer over to chk amont of
data,if any extra folders exist delete.

 

[Phil Weldon]

'Andrew E.' wrote:
| Try going to my computer,R.click on C: Open,open documents and settings,
| chk if users folders aren't duplicated,hover the pointer over to chk amont
of
| data,if any extra folders exist delete.
_____

Where did you pull THAT answer from?

Phil Weldon

| Try going to my computer,R.click on C: Open,open documents and settings,
| chk if users folders aren't duplicated,hover the pointer over to chk amont
of
| data,if any extra folders exist delete.
|

 

[Phil Weldon]

'Pop' wrote, in part:
| Cross posted; xp basics and xp general. F'ups to .general.
|
| SP SP2+, 512 RAM, lots of drive space free, updated av,
| sypware/malware progs, healthy system near as I can tell.
|
| Shut Down:
| Goes through all the phases: Saving Settings, etc, to Shutting
| Down message, which lasts for about a minute, and then there is
| the familiar soft bump sound from the speakers, and the screen
| goes blank, leaving the active cursor in the middle of the
| screen. Cursor remains permanently active.
_____

Just guessing, but it seems your system is going into a 'Standby' mode
rather than shutting down and turning off. How do you have 'Power Options'
set up in 'Control Panel' and how do you have power management set up in the
system BIOS?

Some other additional information would be helpful in diagnosis;
is your system a laptop or desktop?
what company manufactures your system?
what does customer support at the manufacturer say?
what does your computer manual have to say about power management?

If you cross-post, don't set follow ups to just one of the newsgroups; it
prevents sharing information. I certainly don't intend to read another
newsgroup just to see comments that might help reach a better diagnosis.

Phil Weldon

| Hi all,
| Cross posted; xp basics and xp general. F'ups to .general.
|
| SP SP2+, 512 RAM, lots of drive space free, updated av,
| sypware/malware progs, healthy system near as I can tell.
|
| Shut Down:
| Goes through all the phases: Saving Settings, etc, to Shutting
| Down message, which lasts for about a minute, and then there is
| the familiar soft bump sound from the speakers, and the screen
| goes blank, leaving the active cursor in the middle of the
| screen. Cursor remains permanently active.
| It appears as though windows has actually Shut Down (or
| stopped after the shut down part of the Restart; happens with
| either one), and then stops. And will sit there forever. No
| disk activity, cpu cools and fan eventually turns off, processor
| fan stays on. No error messages of any kind, nothing in Event
| Viewer I can find other than a couple warnings that are
| eventually satisfied.
|
| Powering off the system takes the requisite 5 seconds of
| pusing the power button, meaning it thinks it's doing something
| or it would power off almost instantly.
| It's like the final "tick" to turn off is missing.
|
| Booting back up is normal in every respect; nothing unusual and
| boot time is reasonable at about two and a half minutes. No
| operational speed problems while the machine is running. Runing
| tasks and processes look normal, nothing unexpected that I can
| tell.
|
| I cannot tell when this started as I don't Restart or Shut Down
| often. Updates and WGA are about all that's been downloaded and
| no other installs recently, though; thse are where I discoverd
| the issue of not shuttind down properly during Restart. It's
| probably been about two weeks since I Shut Down or Restarted
| prior to noticing the problem. No luck using Restore Points
| also. Have GoBack, but hesitate to use it for this kind of
| problem.
|
| Any comments or thoughts on what I might look for to get the shut
| down operating correctly again?
| Or, maybe a better place to ask the question?
| I did a full backup of data yesterday just for grins, BTW.
|
| TIA,
|
| Pop
| --
| Rule #1: The boss is always right
| Rule #2: If the boss is wrong, see Rule #1.
| Rule #3: Thimk for yourself
|
|

 

[POP]

No duplicates; only expected folders.
I've also applied (yesterday) the "fix" from MS to force the
stuck account disconnects at shut down, if that's what you were
thinking of. No change in anything.

f'ups set to .basics.

Thanks,
Pop

 

[POP]

_____

Where did you pull THAT answer from?

Phil Weldon

I think he might be thinking of Microsoft's Shut Down "fix" for
when some accounts don't get disconnected properly at Shut Down.
I applied that yesterday with no help.

Pop

 

[POP]

Thanks, Phil. See inline:

'Pop' wrote, in part:
_____

Just guessing, but it seems your system is going into a
'Standby' mode rather than shutting down and turning off.
How do you have 'Power Options' set up in 'Control Panel'
and how do you have power management set up in the system
BIOS?

Hadn't thought about power settings; thanks. No help, though.
The ONLY power settings I have are to turn off the monitor after
30 minutes, and the UPC was set to Hibernate after 5 minutes.
System BIOS is also set to turn the monitor off after 30 minutes.
Hard drives are not spun down, nothing else is set.
All other settings in the Power window are "never" and I
turned Hibernate off for the time being.
Which reminds me: Hibernate WAS taking up to 7 minutes to
accomplish; I'd forgotten that little bit of info. As a result
of course, I wasn't using Hibernate, but now it's turned OFF.
I did one Shut Down and one Restart after the above: No
change.

I don't -think- it's a power settings issue, but then I don't
have any better alternatives at the moment!

Some other additional information would be helpful in
diagnosis; is your system a laptop or desktop?
what company manufactures your system?
what does customer support at the manufacturer say?
what does your computer manual have to say about power
management?

Good points: Gateway Desktop, XP Pro, Pentium 4, 2.6 GHz, 512
RAM, two 80 Gig internals, 7200rpm, one external 160 Gig USB,
laser, scanner, TIVO, etc.. Some processor intensive apps, but
not in use during this investigation. In fact, are completely
uninstalled at the moment.
Customer support only says "file corruption", get the latest
drivers, and get ready to reinstall (paraphasing). I don't
necessarily disagree with them, but I fail to see reinstall as
the panacea many people do, especially with a seemingly otherwise
perfectly performing system. Famous last words, I suppose.

If you cross-post, don't set follow ups to just one of the
newsgroups; it prevents sharing information. I certainly
don't intend to read another newsgroup just to see comments
that might help reach a better diagnosis.

You're right there. I shouldn't have f'up'd without a reason;
guess the gray matter got a glitch of its own. Point made,
damage already done unfortunately.

Thanks again; you've givem me a few more things to look into.

Regards,

Pop

--- eof ---

 

[POP]

Hello all,

It would appear that I havef solved the Shut Down problem. At
least I've managed three successive Restarts now, a record for
many weeks<g>!

The "culprit" seems to have been Roxio's CD Creator 5 Basic
version. I went to their site and download the most current
updates and that seems to have taken care of it. Here's a page
that helped me on this:

http://aumha.org/win5/a/shtdwnxp.htm

Lots of good stuff on that site; I've used it many times but
forgot about it for a bit. I can recommend them personally.
Often referenced here, too.

Regards,

Pop

 

[Sharon F]

I don't -think- it's a power settings issue, but then I don't
have any better alternatives at the moment!

You may have hibernate disabled in Windows but there may be additional
settings in BIOS. My BIOS and motherboard support several different
behavior options in this category. Worth a look anyhow.

May also want to try disabling the WIA service. It's a long shot but has
been known to cause odd hangs at shutdown. This is the Windows Image
Acquisition service. Most scanners continue to work with it disabled.
Setting can always be reversed if it doesn't help or if the side effects
are worse than the problem you're trying to fix.

I guess msconfig> services could be used to temporarily disable the service
but I use services.msc instead. Double click a service or right click and
choose Properties. Make a note of what the service is currently set at.
Stop the service. Change the startup type to Never. OK your way back to the
desktop.

PS: I don't think you're seeing the results of file corruption. Sounds more
like hardware (physical device or device driver) or a setting problem.

 

[POP]

Hi Sharon,

I wanted to respond and say thanks, because that looks like some
good advice. FWIW, I also use services.msc if msconfig wont'
help right away. I like msconfig sometimes though because I can
use the General tab to at least eliminate whole groups of
activity in the startup choices. The startup tab though, well, I
like services instead.

I forgot to make it obvious, but I did finally get it fixed, FYI.
It turned out to be Roxio Easy Creator Basic, though I don't know
the mechanisms of what the problem was/is. I downloaded the most
recent update and drivers, installed the update, and the problem
went away. So far anyway, knock on wood.

Regards,

Pop

 

[Todd]

You used to be able to buy key lock switches for computer power on/power
off.

I didn't know where to get them even when I was around systems that had
them, but maybe you could look for them on google.

Todd

 

[Sharon F]

It turned out to be Roxio Easy Creator Basic, though I don't know
the mechanisms of what the problem was/is.

Ahhh, that's interesting. Maybe there is an update for Roxio that fixes
this problem?