I am running Win 98 SE and for the past couple of weeks I have been completely unable to shut down. Even using the power button (emergency shut down) the hard disc keeps spinning. On the rare occasion that it doesn't simply restart, it will keep spinning and the speakers will start popping. When I hit the power button again, it will usually restart without too much fanfare, but the past two days it seems to want to restart with radically altered video settings!

seems it's changing vidio settings sounds like it might be 3d graphic driver try this Right click on "My Computer"
Select "Properties" from the pop-up menu
Select the "Device Manager" tab of System Properties
Tick on "View Devices by type" and open "System Devices"
Highlight "PCI bus" and click on the "Properties" button
Select the "IRQ Steering" tab of PCI Bus Properties
Un-check "Use IRQ Steering"
Click the OK button of the dialog. The system will prompt you to restart your computer. Press the Yes button to restart it. System would halt again this time but not next time.Don't know if this is the problem but it won't hurt to find out you can always change back.
If that is not it you might need the 98se shutdown supplement which you can get here http://www.microsoft.com/windows98/downloads/contents/WURecommended/S_WUFeatured/Win98SE/Default.asp


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YODA74@windows-sucks.com
CCMR (http://www.dreamwater.net/tech/yoda74/index.html)