Computer fails to shutdown or restart

I am running Windows 2000 Professional on a PIII 650 with 256K RAM. When attempting to shutdown or restart the computer, Windows starts the shutdown process and displays a message that files are being saved. Beyond that, the computer fails to shutdown or restart. The mouse pointer remains active but I am unable to load the task manager to see if any programs have failed to stop. To shutdown or restart, I must push the start button or reset button. Upon reboot, I do not get any messages that Windows was shut down improperly.

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First off, are you running Backup Exec or any anti-virus applications? If so, disable them and see if that solves the problem.

If the problem still exists, start looking for any other third-party drivers that might be running that could interfere with shutdown. Look down the process list in Task Manager and kill anything that does not match a pristine system.

If that does not solve the problem, start looking at firmware. Flash the BIOS on your motherboard and any peripherals. Remove all unnecessary hardware.

Try a parallel installation of Windows 2000 in a separate partition and see if you get the same behavior. If so, you know you have a hardware issue. Check to see if there are KnowledgeBase articles on your motherboard and chipset. It might not be fully ACPI compliant.

This was first published in May 2001

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