System is reluctant to shutdown.

[Nomad25055]

Greetings,

I am sad to say that I have no idea what is going on here. Sometimes when i go to shut down/restart, my computer will just sit there as if it was not told to do anything. It usually responds after I tell it to shut down/restart again. It has only started doing this very recently. Can anybody help?

Nomad25055 :unsure:

[Quark]

Hardware List?

Any idea what's running in the background? What programs are loaded upon startup?

[kandrathe]

I think you might be the victim of hidden process clutter, either by your own doing or by spyware. Use a good virus scanner and something like ad-aware first to insure their isn't a bunch of hidden junk.

Use "task manager" and the "services" administrative option to figure out what is running. When the system is running clean, I like to take a screen shot of these pages for times like these. Even in prior versions of windows, if one process refuses to terminate, then the whole shutdown will take long or even refuse to shutdown.

Use task manager to terminate extraneous processes -- some are system processes which you will not be allowed to stop, others are required and will cause instability if you stop them.

Use services to stop any non-essential services that are running. How do you know what is non-essential? You need to know a bit about the OS. The worst you'll do is force a hard shutdown.

The other thought I had is that XP allows you to "suspend" your session, which writes the contents of memory to the hard disk. Depending on the hardware, that might take some time. Are you shutting down, or suspending?

[Nomad25055]

My current hardware as is follows:

MSI KM4M mobo
AMD Athlon 1600 @ 1.3ghz
ATI Radeon 7000 PRO 64mb
256mb PC2700 DDR
Realtek AC97 Audio
60gb Hard Drive (forgot what kind)
Windows XP PRO
300 watt PSU

Note that I use spybot and lannetscan on a regular basis and I run disk clean up about every week or so and that I run defrag about twice a month. I am about to do some upgrading (CPU, RAM, Video card, etc) and will not do so until I find the source of this problem first. As for what programs I am running on startup, there is nothing that is not required to run windows, and there is nothing running in the background. If I knew how to take screenshots of task manager and the like then I would. Would anybody care to help me with this? (kind of never had/wanted to do it before.) It only rarely does this but when it does it is quite frustrating. For example yesterday there were some very bad storms in the area (even had a few tornados reported to touch down very close by) and my computer absolutly refused to shut down. (kind of a bad time to be motivated to fix a currently trivial problem :unsure: ) Any and all help in this matter will be greatly appreciated.

Nomad25055 :(

EDIT: I have all the current patchs/drivers for my system and check for any new updates on a weekly basis.

[Artega]

Solution: Push the power button.

[Nomad25055]

:( I frown upon doing that as it can eventually mess a few things up.

Nomad25055 <_<

[Malakar]

To take a screenshot, press Print Screen, which will put a bitmap screenshot in the system clipboard. Then go into MS Paint or some other graphics program and paste it.

[Nomad25055]

I see. Thank you very much. Hmm, it won't let me upload the image so I am going to link to it.

Task Manager

I hope this helps.

Nomad25055 :unsure:

[yangman]

Looking at your screenshot, it doesn't seem like there is anything running that shouldn't be running except for LNSATT and ALG which I do no recognize. It's probably just a unresponsiveness issue that occasionally creeps up.

Would help so much if Windows were as transparent as Linux. <_<

[Archon_Wing]

Any power saving settings? Try disabling them for a while.

Try disabling uneeded services. Start---->> Run----->> type in services.msc

I would completely disable these: (I personally have them disabled)
Indexing Service
Terminal Service (If have more than one user on your system or use stuff like Remote Desktop Server or Remote Assistance, keep it)

Messenger <<< not related to msn messenger, just an archaic network messenger exploited by spammers

More info here: http://www.blackviper.com/

[DeeBye]

Task Manager[/URL

(in the future, post windows screenshots as .png instead of .bmp, like [url=http://s88432259.onlinehome.us/images/nomad25055desktop.png]this)

I think your problem is that your computer hates you for the godawful font you are using. That is, without a doubt, the UGLIEST default font I have ever seen.

In all seriousness though, are you shutting down your computer using Start > Turn Off Computer? Or do you have a keyboard with a "Power" key? I have a Power key, and it's often quite flakey. It doesn't work for me all of the time.

[kandrathe]

I also do not recognize ALG and LNSATT.

Try killing ALG and LNSATT tasks before shutting down and see if it is faster. Also, you are a little slight on RAM, the processes running in the background there are taking about 1/3. Another 256 would help out quite a bit for all of $50+s/h. Your homage to HL2 (probably a bitmap) wallpaper is also eating up your precious RAM.

[Walkiry]

ALG is the Application Layer Gateway, lets other computers connect to the internet through yours. If you're not sharing your internet connection with another computer you can shut that down (go to the Serveices page and set it to "Disabled").

No idea what LNSSATT is though.

EDIT: Uh... bad wording.

[yangman]

Did a quick google search and it looks like the mystery program in question is associated with something called "LANguard Network Security Scanner".

[Nomad25055]

Yes thats exactly what is is. I find it to be a somewhat useful tool. As for my font, it is inspired by one of my favorite TV shows, Invader Zim. Its called invader. Although I have found a new font that looks exactly like that used in Diablo and am going to switch to that. BTW I occasionaly hook up my friends computer at my house becuase he doesn't have internet access. And I do not know how to change files to .png

Nomad25055 :huh:

[FunkyfooKarate]

yes i happen to have that same problem, although i know about comptuers and im stupmed, i run all the programs your supposed to and ones your not (such as kazaa regular (ewww)) i use adware 6 and spybot search and destroy, yet it takes a good 15 seconds to shut down from when i tell it to. i think it maybe old age. here is my computer spes though.

Amd athlon XP 2.7
512 ddr
260 gb (raid0)
9800 rad. 256 mb
xp pro
msi mobo up to 2.7 amd internal gfx, but disabled look 2 up :P (thats my current one)
thermaltake xaser 3 super tower black window

its an ok system im going to up grade the memory to 2gb yay!

i currently format my computer every year just to start fresh after backing up esscental files (excuse spelling)

any suggests? alll above before this post has been tried

thanks, fellow computer enthuasts and diablo 2 lod fans ;P

Edit: or it could just be crappy microsoft and bill gates stealing habits :P