Windows Vista Shut Down & Log Off SLOW!

[jct_molasses]

Since the last discussion on this turned into employee management advice
(totally unrelated to the Vista question!), I'll pose the question/problem
again:

When I try to shut down or just log off one user (HP Pavilion, bought with
Vista loaded on it), it takes HOURS. (I waited once just to see how long.) I
end-up holding the power button to power off, get the "Safe Mode" screen, but
choose Normal, and everything works fine. . .until it's time to shut down or
log off again.

Any fix for this?

 

[xiowan]

Hello "jct_molasses":
I can't say exactly what the problem is without knowing more about your
hardware configuration but one thing that often causes problems shutting down
and/or booting is some type of hardware conflict. In some cases the use of 4
gigabytes of memory using all 4 slots has caused this and reducing the memory
to 2 or 3 GB may help. This would seem unlikely in your case since HP
wouldn't send out a pc with this sort of hardware problem. If you are still
under warranty I would check with them first. If the pc didn't act this way
when your first got it, it's possible that either hardware or software you
have added since you purchased it is causing the problem. There is
supposedly a helpful MS patch to correct problems with 4 or more GB memory
with Vista but it didn't help for me and many others and you shouldn't need
it if your pc came with the currently installed memory. Did you check in
"Device Manager" for any device warnings for a hardware problem? Some times
updating the audio/video drivers for graphic cards can cause this sort of
problem. You could try rolling back to the previous video driver if the
problem happened after you updated the video drivers. Or, if there are more
recent video drivers available from HP for your pc's video hardware, try
them. Basically, just backtracking thru any changes you have made to the pc
since you received it can sometimes help pinpoint what is causing the
problem. Other possibilities are viruses that may have corrupted your system
or even the installation of an anti-virus/spyware program that isn't
compatible in the particular version you have. If you don't find the
problem you would need to post a lot of info about your hardware and software
to help anyone zero in on possible causes. Just one thing....Vista will work
just fine unless incompatible hardware or software are used and if not it can
cause problems that are hard to diagnose.

xiowan......in tucson

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

Which version of Vista do you have installed?

 

[MadEducator]

Finally someone posted this problem. I was beginning to think it was just me
and my laptop.

I have an ACER 5100 Aspire and I have the same problem. Slower than
molasses log off and shut down. I did some troubleshooting on my own and
restored the computer to factory settings. It logged of quickly and easily
until Vista did all its updates. Now I'm back to slow, slow, slow change of
users, log off and shut down.

I'm curious to see if there is a fix for this problem.

I'm running Vista Home Premium, have an AMD Turion 64 Mobile Technology
MK-38 2.20 GHz processor, 1 Gb Ram (though it says it only has 766 MB) and a
32-bit operating system.

LK

 

[Robert Bowden]

You are grabbing 256MB of total memory for video, try using 32 or 64MB for
video RAM, this should help a bit on speed.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

You are grabbing 256MB of total memory for video, try using 32 or 64MB for
video RAM, this should help a bit on speed.

At the expense of cutting back on video capability, including Aero.

Moreover the small increase in available RAM will not solve his
performance problem. It depends on what apps you run, but for almost
everyone, Vista will not run well with only 1GB of RAM. The only real
solution to his problem is to upgrade to at least 2GB, and perhaps
more, since he has onboard video.

 

[MadEducator]

The video memory might be being grabbed, but why is it that when I restored
my computer to factory settings the logoff and shutdown suddenly sped up? It
was after successive Vista updates that things slowed back down to where they
were before I restored the computer. That leads me to believe that it's
something about the updates that is causing the slowage ... though I don't
know what. And I can't just not update Vista. Any other ideas?