xp failure to shut down

P4, 1.6ghz, Win XP(the same cpu I've struggled with to run more than 2 monitors) has, in the last few days, done nothing when I try to turn it off. I've been told this often happens when something is running in the background. I did a couple of system restores, to restore points a couple of weeks old, but the problem persists. Any ideas? How can I find out if something is still running in the background? Thanks.

Alan

 

Open the windows task manager and switch to the Processes tab to see if there are any processes running.

Could be a hardware/driver related problem too. The OS can't do an orderly shutdown until all the drivers have acknowledged the "shutting down". Might also explain why you're having troubles with multiple monitors if you've got some faulty hardware or video driver.

 

it get the same probl, I force the shutdown by hold down the power button for more than 5 second

 

In general, XP (pro, anyways) should prompt you to kill any process that does not respond to the shutdown request issued by XP when you order a shutdown or restart.

Drivers on the other hand, are a different story. Also, some mainboards have had shutdown problems with earlier versions of windows - the os would shutdown, but the computer would still be powered up and displaying a screen saying something like "You can safely shut down your computer."

 

Try the following web site:

http://aumha.org/a/shtdwnxp.htm

You may like to do a search on the Internet using Google to find more info.

You can also post the problem to Microsoft Product Support Services.

http://support.microsoft.com/newsgroups/

Good Luck.

 

FYI - you're not "forcing a shutdown", you're turning off the power - same result as pulling the plug.

If XP won't do an orderly shutdown, there could be something wrong with your computer environment - bad driver, unresponsive task, hardware glitch, etc.

 

Took me the whole afternoon to figure this out but i finally did it.

for XP shutdown problems, go to ctrl+alt+del then end all tasks. If that doesnt solve it go to processess and look for those that are using cpu's usage. I think it is okay to have system idle process and taskmgr.exe using cpu. Check for other suspicious looking program using ur cpu usually ending in .exe
Next, locate the file and delete it.

I found a little bity program (900kb) in my system" games.exe " that would be running all the time preventing xp to shut down. Virus scan couldnt find anything. I deleted the program and now xp is working good as new.

ps. careful what u download from kazaa