Will not 'Shut Down', hangs

[Fiona]

Dell Inspiron 1501, running Vista Ultimate, will not 'Shut Down'... It will
hang for hours (logging off) and you have to force it down with the Power
Button, which can cause problems. Additionally, you can not use the
'Restart'.

If you use the 'System Restore' for anything, it has been 'eventually'
restarting, but taking longer than normal. Even with that process, today it
couldn't "Restart" during a System Restore, but came up with a Safety Screen
saying Windows was unable to Start. Eventually got out of that loop, but can
anyone help?

Searched in a lot of forums and seems that this is a wide-spread problem on
many computers, especially using Vista. Many people said that they are just
continuing to force the Power Down, even with new computers...

Contacted Dell and diagnosis didn't come up with anything... but they are
suggesting changing the Motherboard, that will correct this problem?

BTW: The Power Button settings are correct - Set to 'Shut Down'...

Does anyone have a solution to this? To me, seems that it might be Software
related? Or should I go ahead with the Motherboard replacement?

 

[Mick Murphy]

When you are ready to shut, right-click on your TaskBar, and bring up Task
Manager to see what is running that shouldn't be running!

By the way, this is NOT a wide spread problem with Vista(which you stated it
was!)

Also, it is under Warranty; make sure DELL fixes it, if you can't!

 

[Fiona]

"Wide spread", maybe not your view...
but every forum or support group that I could find for Vista Shut Down
problems had people posting this problem, without a solution? And it was
spread across many brands of computers.

Have checked & there isn't anything running in the Task Manager that
shouldn't be.

I am becoming more convinced that the problem with this particular computer
is "probably" something in the hardware, so am going ahead with the repair
service.
Could be the answer for others as well... some incompatibility.

 

[Alan Biddle]

Fiona,

I have an Inspiron 1420, and a couple of days ago, I started having
exactly that problem. I usually either use the power button, or a bit
of software which I can access from the desktop. Both have been fine
until now. As you mentioned, forcing a power off with the switch has
many undesirable consequences.

As an experiment, I used the Start | Turn of Computer route, and
walked off for a few minutes. When I returned, the computer was off.
Since then, I have been using the same method, and it is behaving
normally. Some other anomalous behavior has also stopped. Apparently,
getting a clean shut down cleared something up. Of course, it might
just be a coincidence that it worked this time, but easy enough to
try. If it continues to work, I will try something wild and crazy
like the power button again.

 

[Serve Lau]

Dell Inspiron 1501, running Vista Ultimate, will not 'Shut Down'... It
will
hang for hours (logging off) and you have to force it down with the Power
Button, which can cause problems. Additionally, you can not use the
'Restart'.

If you use the 'System Restore' for anything, it has been 'eventually'
restarting, but taking longer than normal. Even with that process, today
it
couldn't "Restart" during a System Restore, but came up with a Safety
Screen
saying Windows was unable to Start. Eventually got out of that loop, but
can
anyone help?

Searched in a lot of forums and seems that this is a wide-spread problem
on
many computers, especially using Vista. Many people said that they are
just
continuing to force the Power Down, even with new computers...

Contacted Dell and diagnosis didn't come up with anything... but they are
suggesting changing the Motherboard, that will correct this problem?

Maybe some service is causing the problem
I would also try to shutdown services manually and see if at some point the
machine shuts down.