Shut down probs

[leichaolan]

I've got a strange problem. When my pc is on for a while, and I try to shut it down, windows exits properly, but for some reason, my pc remains on with a black screen. However, if it is recently turned on, then it shuts itself off, no problem.

Oh, and I've got some bad sectors on my hd, and I've tried defrag, and even a thorough scan disk, but I can't seem to get rid of it. How can I fix it? Would this be related to the above problem?
Thanks.

[iisbob]

This sounds like a memory issue, how much RAM do you have? If you have <64mb, after you've run a few apps then your system will take a few seconds to shutdown all the apps running in the background. How many programs do you have running when your system starts? Is your system tray full of icons? ( the area next to your clock ). The more applications you have running, the more of a strain it is on windows to shut them all down before properly closeing. Extra RAM, or better yet, shutting down or stopping from loading any unnecessary programs will do wonders for your systems performance.

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iisbob
"Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run."

[leichaolan]

Yeah I thought about that but I doubt it's a hardware issue. My pc just got a ton of new parts. I've got about 160 megs of ram, so I doubt that it's a memory issue. I usually do push my pc by running multiple aps, but it usually executes them pretty speedily with no problems at all. That is until I try to shut it down.

[mjc]

Usually that happens when a single program isn't properly responding to the shut down command...it could be the video drivers (does it seem to happen more often after using a 3d app), or it could be a damaged exit sound (try turning of the event sounds) do you have current drivers for the video card?

I stumbled accross an undocumented "workaround" when it hangs at the blank screen, hit the Windows key (the key with the Win logo on it) and then it should continue and shut down properly....

Try booting to a DOS prompt (hit <f8> while booting to get the start up menu select DOS prompt) and running scandisk from DOS...this assumes that you aren't using ME. Enter it as SCANDISK_C:_/AUTOFIX_/NOSAVE (with a blank space in place of the underscore) and see what it comes up with...if the number of bad sectors is growing you may want to consider backing up you data and looking a new hard drives.....

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mjc
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