Computer Shutdown Problems

[Dolan]

I have to keep shutting this thing down with Alt. Ctrl. Delete. Anyone have any ideas what might be causing this malfunction? I've checked for viruses and spyware and I'm clean.............. [img]/images/graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img]

[Newc]

Re: Computer Shutdown Problems

Does it lock up during normal use like reading the board or are you also doing memory-intensive stuff like online gaming and/or 3D graphics or otherwise working with large files?

Mine used to do that when I was surfing around but strangely would snap out of it if I unplugged my wireless modem.

[Dolan]

Re: Computer Shutdown Problems

[ QUOTE ]
Does it lock up during normal use like reading the board or are you also doing memory-intensive stuff like online gaming and/or 3D graphics or otherwise working with large files?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, doesnt do that at all. It will shut down from the start up menu but it takes forever. I've done everything I can think of but I'm not technical with computers.

[Flametop]

Re: Computer Shutdown Problems

A lot depends on your system and what you are using..(98,XP..etc..). I was having that problem and solved it by flashing my bios.

[Crusher]

Re: Computer Shutdown Problems

What happens if you shut it down completely, then power back up?

[Dolan]

Re: Computer Shutdown Problems

Ok, I guess I'm not making myself clear (my fault). The computer runs fine. The problem is when I turn it off for the night. It takes forever from the start up menu when I click start, Turn Off Computer. I use the ctrl, alt, del and it shuts down quickly.

Oh yeah, I have XP on the problem computer which is a Dell. I also had someone talk me into installing XP on my 1997 Compaq and XP slowed it down big time. I'm afraid to uninstall it as I have Quick Books Pro which has all my buisness stuff on it.

[hippietim]

Re: Computer Shutdown Problems

When you select "Turn Off Computer" from the Start menu it is doing an orderly shutdown that ensures all programs/services are closed cleanly (basically giving them an opportunity to save YOUR data). This takes time. My guess is that you have an ill-behaved program that is not shutting down in a timely manner.

I would suggest bringing up the Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc is the keyboard shortcut) and taking a look at what software is really running on your computer.

As for your 1997 Compaq, XP will run on it just fine *if* you have enough RAM. I ran XP on a test machine before it was shipped and it had 96MB of RAM on a P166 - that was the bare minimum but it was enough for me to test and run MSN Explorer during development. If you have 128MB of RAM or more, and are just running a couple of small programs at a time then XP runs fine - 256MB would be even better. I don't know how much RAM Quick Books Pro consumes. You can find this out from the Task Manager as well. There is a Mem Usage column on the Processes page. You can turn on additional columns that are useful - View menu, Select Columns - Virtual Memory Size is a useful number.

[metallicarocks]

Re: Computer Shutdown Problems

To find out how much RAM you have (as well as other system status issues), you can find it in the control panel. Look around for an icon that says sytem. By just clicking that, a window will come up displaying how much RAM you have, what operation system you're using, your processor type, registration, and probably a few other things.

As for it taking a long time to shut down, have you installed any new programs? If you have, did it seem like your computer was running better before you installed them? If so, back up your files, uninstall that program and try reinstalling it.

It may be helpful to do an entire system reformat (AKA nuking, resetting the hard drive). Before you do this, you must back up your files or they will most certainly be lost. My favorite way to back things up is a USB disk or flash drive. (I highly recommend the Jumpdrives). They're kind of expensive disks (about $40). They hold anywhere from I believe 64MB up to 254MB of data. The more space they have, the more expensive they will be. Mine was $40, and it could hold 128MB of data. I could fit a few entire music videos on there. That's a lot of space. These drives can be found at any department store or computer store. Wal-Mart even has them. When I've dealt with XP, I've never had any formatting problems with these drives. They have worked on every single XP equipped computer I've tried them on. Other operating systems have given me trouble, but I eventually got it to work on most. I ran out of patience trying to make it work on a 98 computer. With XP, you have no need to set anything up. You put it in the USB slot, it reads it, and away you go.

Back to reformatting your hard drive. Many XP equipped computers come with a totally different drive that holds all of the information to reformat. To access it, all that you need to do is restart your computer and wait for the screen to come up mentioning the sysem restore partition, or drive. Do what it says to get to that option. If you run an older system or had the XP edition installed (isn't that what you said had happened?), you'll have to get the installation CD's again.

Hope this helps. Feel free to shoot if we missed the answer you want or if you need more help with it.

[hippietim]

Re: Computer Shutdown Problems

Dolan, don't reformat your drive. This is almost never necessary. You are much better off understanding the root cause of your problem, otherwise you'll be in the same boat soon enough.

[nor]

Re: Computer Shutdown Problems

Could be a spyware prog trying to communicate with the mothership before writing to your Resistry - and bumping into your firewall/virus software from the inside.