Shutdown Timing Problem

[Daniel Rudy]

Hello,

When WinXP Pro restarts, sometimes it runs chkdsk like the system wasn't
shutdown properly even though it was. I think this has to do with the
harddrive not having enough time to write the data out in it's cache before
the machine is powered off. Is there a way to hold the system power on for
a few more seconds before the power is turned off? A registry tweak maybe?

Thanks.

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

Why do you believe the delay write cache is the problem? Do you get a
message to that effect? Have you tried disabling it to see if it stops?

Try running chkntfs /d from a cmd prompt to clear the dirty bit that causes
chkdsk to run.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[S.Sengupta]

If the dirty bit is set when the computer restarts, chkdsk runs to
verify the consistency of the volume.Run chkdsk to fix the problem.
see below:-
http://tinyurl.com/2obcd
http://tinyurl.com/3zbaa

regards,
ssg MS-MVP

 

[Daniel Rudy]

Well all that is nice and interesting, but how can one clear the dirty bit
when the machine is shutting down? If I disable disk write caching, then
the system will take a major performance hit, so that's not an option. I
remember that Win98 had this exact same problem and the fix was a new driver
that looks at a registry option to pause the shutdown to give the drive time
to write the data to the disk. As to how I know this is the problem, it's
quite simple: Fast, new HD, shutdown normally with no errors, and the next
time the system restarts it runs chkdsk. It does the exact same thing that
Win98 did before Microsoft fixed the problem. Oh, and this is not a
removable drive, it's mounted inside the case and connected to an IDE port.

--
Daniel Rudy

Hi,

Why do you believe the delay write cache is the problem? Do you get a
message to that effect? Have you tried disabling it to see if it stops?

Try running chkntfs /d from a cmd prompt to clear the dirty bit that
causes chkdsk to run.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

Hello,

When WinXP Pro restarts, sometimes it runs chkdsk like the system wasn't
shutdown properly even though it was. I think this has to do with the
harddrive not having enough time to write the data out in it's cache
before the machine is powered off. Is there a way to hold the system
power on for a few more seconds before the power is turned off? A
registry tweak maybe?

Thanks.

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

Disable the delay write cache to verify it is indeed the problem.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

Well all that is nice and interesting, but how can one clear the dirty bit
when the machine is shutting down? If I disable disk write caching, then
the system will take a major performance hit, so that's not an option. I
remember that Win98 had this exact same problem and the fix was a new
driver that looks at a registry option to pause the shutdown to give the
drive time to write the data to the disk. As to how I know this is the
problem, it's quite simple: Fast, new HD, shutdown normally with no
errors, and the next time the system restarts it runs chkdsk. It does the
exact same thing that Win98 did before Microsoft fixed the problem. Oh,
and this is not a removable drive, it's mounted inside the case and
connected to an IDE port.

 

[Robert Gething]

Hello,

When WinXP Pro restarts, sometimes it runs chkdsk like the system wasn't
shutdown properly even though it was. I think this has to do with the
harddrive not having enough time to write the data out in it's cache before
the machine is powered off. Is there a way to hold the system power on for
a few more seconds before the power is turned off? A registry tweak maybe?

Thanks.

Yes, theres a registry key you can edit to extend the shutdn timeout.
cant find what it is @ the mo but if you start, run, regedit and search
for WaitToKillApp. You can miximise the time to 4000 using this registry
entry.

 

[frodo]

this might be an ACPI issue, is your bios up to date? The system may be
powering down too quickly.

 

[Daniel Rudy]

This is a 2002 laptop that is having this problem. I have the latest BIOS
in the machine dated 2003. There are no further updates.

 

[Daniel Rudy]

Ok, I went looking for the setting and I couldn't find it. Where is it at?
I'm running WinXP Pro SP2.

 

[Daniel Rudy]

Yes, theres a registry key you can edit to extend the shutdn timeout. cant
find what it is @ the mo but if you start, run, regedit and search for
WaitToKillApp. You can miximise the time to 4000 using this registry
entry.

It's not that one. There's another one that was at
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion. Something about IDE
shutdown timeout or something...

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

Properties of the drive in Device Manager (Control Panel/System/Hardware
tab). It will be on the policies tab.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

Ok, I went looking for the setting and I couldn't find it. Where is it
at? I'm running WinXP Pro SP2.

 

[Daniel Rudy]

There is no option for Write Caching on the computer that is having the
problem. I checked another machine that has WinXP, and it is there on that
one, but not on the one that has a problem. The two options that are there
1) Optimize for Quick Removal 2) Optimize for Performance are the only ones
there. #2 is selected, and the entire tab is greyed out. I cannot change
it.

So what do I do now?

--
Daniel Rudy

Hi,

Properties of the drive in Device Manager (Control Panel/System/Hardware
tab). It will be on the policies tab.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi Daniel,

Expand the IDE controllers branch, double click the one that the drives are
connected with. Check the advanced tab to see what the current transfer mode
is. I suspect you may not be using DMA.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Daniel Rudy]

There is no advanced tab on the computer that is having the problem. The
one that is ok does have an advanced tab. The controller is a VIA chipset
using the VIA Hyperion driver. I cannot uninstall or rollback the driver
either as there is no backup.

 

[Daniel Rudy]

Something else. The registry key that I was looking for is in
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion. The attribute is
CacheWriteDelay which is a DWORD value that tells the system how long to
wait in msec. I found it on my brother's machine which is aWin98 computer.

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi Daniel,

Are you running an admin account?
Is it the same in Safe mode?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Daniel Rudy]

This work was done using the Administrator account. Yes, it is the same in
Safe Mode. I noticed something else too: The system thinks that the drive
is a SCSI device for whatever reason. I know for a fact that it is an IDE
device. So I'm wondering if that is part of the problem that I am having.

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

Is it an IDE drive on a controller card? If so, then you may not have the
option to disable it. If this is the case, you may need to update the
controller card software.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Daniel Rudy]

No, it's not a controller card. AFAIK, the IDE controller is on the system
board of the lptop. I'm going to try and uninstall the VIA IDE driver using
add/remove programs and see what that does, if I can...

Also, what is system.log? periodically, I get a ballon in the system tray
that states that the file is corrupted and I need to run chkdsk. Then
chkdsk finds a bunch of corrupted indexes and orphaned files and fixes them.

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

System.log is part of the registry file set - why?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org