False Shut Down

Paul Graupp · Post by **Paul Graupp** » 19 Jan 2002 9:29 am

Jack; Sometimes after I've gone off line and click Shut Down on my start menu. The screen goes blank but the frame doesn't turn off. Leaves me no options so I was wondering if there was a keyboard path I could use to make it turn off. That, short of holding the power button in for 5 seconds and causing a false shut down. Thank You !!

Regards, Paul

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 19 Jan 2002 10:21 am

Paul, usually the system is waiting for some program to shutdown. When that happens, Hold down the CTRL and ALT and then hit the DELETE key. That will usually bring up a task menu and show which program is not responding. Click End Task for that program and many times (not always) the system will do the "orderly" shutdown.

Take notice I never made one absolute statement. I always use, "usually", "in most cases", etc, when talking about Computers.

At one time computers were called "logical computers" but there's nothing logical about them.

Paul Graupp · Post by **Paul Graupp** » 19 Jan 2002 11:57 am

Thank You, Jack. Appreciate the help !!

Regards, Paul

[This message was edited by Paul Graupp on 19 January 2002 at 11:58 AM.]

Gene Jones · Post by **Gene Jones** » 19 Jan 2002 4:41 pm

Paul, for the life of my computer I have gotten the "fatal error" message about one out of three shut downs and nothing will restore it, so I just shut-off the power and start over tomorrow! I've done everything to solve the problem and failed....I don't worry with it anymore, I just live with it.
Gene

Paul Graupp · Post by **Paul Graupp** » 19 Jan 2002 11:17 pm

I was getting into that groove too, Gene. It works but maybe I'm getting lazy or old and I thought there might be an easier way !
I learned last night it's easier for me to play until 1 AM than sit up and hope something Steelworthy will happen on Letterman. I guess I shouldn't complain...I've seen Hal and Gary on there and there were FAR OUT !!!

Regards, Paul[This message was edited by Paul Graupp on 19 January 2002 at 11:18 PM.]

Ernie Renn · Post by **Ernie Renn** » 20 Jan 2002 3:32 am

Paul & Gene;

Try these things:

First clear your temporary internet files and history. Turn off your screen saver and do a thourough ScanDisk, (with the fix errors box clicked.) It can feasibly take several hours, depending on the size of your drive, I do it when I'm going to bed, turning off the monitor. When that's done, then do a Disk Defragment. (If nothing else, it will get all your drive decluttered.)

Another thing you could try is to blow out your computer with one of those compressed air cans. I used to get blue screens and a tech told me that most of the time they happen when the chip is getting hot. It may have a pile of dust in there, like mine did.

Another thing: Make sure the power is off and unplugged and then make sure all the connections are good. You can even unplug them and replug them to make sure they are seated correctly.

Doing these things won't hurt your computer and might just make it run faster and maybe even get rid of the annoying problems you're having.

The graphic at the top of the page says it all!

Good luck!

------------------
My best,
Ernie

The Official Buddy Emmons Website
www.buddyemmons.com[This message was edited by Ernie Renn on 20 January 2002 at 03:33 AM.]

Jim Smith · Post by **Jim Smith** » 20 Jan 2002 8:54 am

Make sure the power is off and unplugged

It's actually better to turn the power off but leave it plugged into the wall. This will keep the chassis grounded. Pick up a cheap grounding strap at Radio Shack or your favorite electronics store, clip it to the case and wear it on your wrist while working on the internals of your PC.

Ernie Renn · Post by **Ernie Renn** » 20 Jan 2002 6:39 pm

Jim;
Technically, you are right, but since I dropped the screwdriver into the computer and it sparked, (from what I don't know, but it did,) I unplug it. Everything was okay, but it made me realize that there was still power in there. The grounding strap would still be a good idea.

------------------
My best,
Ernie

The Official Buddy Emmons Website
www.buddyemmons.com

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 21 Jan 2002 4:12 am

Although the PC "innards" need to be cleaned periodically (depending on how dusty or how many pets shedding hair is around) that is not a cause of hangups at shutdown, or the proverbial "blue screen of death". Those are almost always associated with software and the software could care less how clean your PC is.

One thing I found, on shutdown, was to not click on shutdown immediately after logging off the internet. Once you log off and close the modem, wait a minute or two, for all the internal applications to close and settle down, then do the shutdown. That seemed to help eliminate some of the shutdown hangups for me. After a month of running Windows XP (home) I haven't had a hangup at shutdown but that's a different story.

I agree with Jim on the grounding wrist strap. Many IC's and memory are static sensitive and it doesn't take much to zap something. Many PC's have a "master" on/off switch on the rear panel or on the rear of the power supply. Make sure that is turned off before working on a PC and you can leave the power cord plugged in without worrying about accidentally hitting the front panel power on switch. One alternative is to take a power cord and cut off the two AC power pins on the male plug end, leaving the ground pin only, that way you can keep the PC grounded but there is no AC power. The commercial grounded static mats use a plug with just the ground lug to ground the static mat.

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 21 Jan 2002 5:54 am

Hey Paul, you didn't say which operating system you are using, not that it will matter akk that much. Probably the most stable operating system in use today is WIN98 second edition. This error happens many times on many PC's and is basically related to the PC operating system giving commands that the PC can't perform. memory cache, files in temporary storage, programs that think they are still running, all this good MS stuff. Although you should go to Internet options and clean out the stuff, also do go to the Windows folder and open the Temporary folder and Temp Internet folder to be sure the stuff actually went away. Even after you ahe done all the right stuff, the error will come back, someday...

It's what it is....It's what we got...

I feel I keep all three of my PC's clean and up to snuff, 2 are WIN98 second edition and one is WIN 2000 PRo, it happens to all of them on occasion.

TP

Paul Graupp · Post by **Paul Graupp** » 21 Jan 2002 10:33 am

I'm using an ME edition of MS Windows on a 1 yr old Compaq. I recognize all the help given in this thread and I've printed it out for future reference. I'd like to thank everyone for their consideration and time; please know that it is appreciated !!

Regards, Paul[This message was edited by Paul Graupp on 21 January 2002 at 10:36 AM.]

Jim Phelps · Post by **Jim Phelps** » 31 Jan 2002 3:01 pm

Again Jack nails it. Another thing they taught us when I was with Dell was to always set the so-called Energy-saving power management to Always On or actually Never/never/never. I'm still not entirely certain how many bugs and shutdown-hangups are caused by this but they were very insistant about it. Maybe Jack might know more about this. The settings are in Display Properties (right-click on your desktop), screen-saver tab, at the bottom it says Energy-saving features. Click on the settings button. If you're using a desktop computer, set the top pulldown menu to Home/Office Desk and the System Standby to Never, same for the Turn off Monitor and Turn off Hard disks.[This message was edited by Jim Phelps on 31 January 2002 at 07:06 PM.]

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 31 Jan 2002 3:51 pm

I never use the "energy saver" settings. As Jim noted they cause more flakey problems than it's worth. In some of the older equipment that had hard drives that didn't spin down it might "save energy" but nothing else. Monitors don't need the screen saver, etc anymore. When we had black and white, images would get burned into the screen but with the color and constant rewriting it's not an issue.

I still subscribe to the power it on and leave it on school. Having worked/managed a help desk for 23 years and monitors that were left on during the day, controllers/printers left on all the time had a significantly lower failure rate than equipment that is frequently powered off/on. The prime failure items were power supplies on equipment that was "frequently" powered off/on.

Jim Phelps · Post by **Jim Phelps** » 31 Jan 2002 7:06 pm

Amen, take it to the bank folks.