Vista - Intended shutdown takes forever

I'm running Vista Ultimate 32 bit fully updated. I have two problems, one is
the now familiar unexpected shutdown problem where for no known reason the
computer reboots itself. The second problem, and I have to believe it is
related to the first is that about half the time I try to shut down or
restart the computer it can take upwards of 5 minutes to finish the
operation. I ran the memory diagnostic to see if my almost new 2 Gigs of
Crucial memory was bad and I got a positive result. I built the computer
myself and I know it has only the highest quality components and I also know
that they are installed correctly.

Up until a few weeks ago the system ran like a charm. I have read and
re-read the systems performance/error logs and all I can determine is that
the unexpected shutdown problem began on 6/30/07 and has happened about 15
times since then. So far I can't find anything that happened in the 6/30/07
time frame that I can say for sure caused the problem. Logs that I have
found in Vista don't give me any clue as to the agonizingly long
shutdowns/restarts. The machine does go into Sleep mode immediately and
comes out of it equally fast.

I know that the first inclination of techies is to blame these problems on
defective hardware but I find it hard to believe that there is enough
defective hardware around to cause all the problems of this nature that are
being reported here and elsewhere on the Net. Vista itself calls the
unexpected shutdowns OS failures in the Performance Monitor applet.

Does anyone know of any software that could be useful in diagnosing the
events that are going on during an intentional system restart?

"C. Britton" <CBritton@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:2608B05E-2451-48BC-B1AC-D49024B55B52@microsoft.com...
> Up until a few weeks ago the system ran like a charm. I have read and
> re-read the systems performance/error logs and all I can determine is that
> the unexpected shutdown problem began on 6/30/07 and has happened about 15
> times since then. So far I can't find anything that happened in the
> 6/30/07
> time frame that I can say for sure caused the problem. Logs that I have
> found in Vista don't give me any clue as to the agonizingly long
> shutdowns/restarts. The machine does go into Sleep mode immediately and
> comes out of it equally fast.

Normally, long protracted shutdowns are caused by applications
that are writing to disk, or are supposed to and are not responding.

Have you scanned the computer for spyware? Maybe you got hit
by a site you visited on the 30th.

According to what you say, it reboots on the average about once a day.
Any particular time, or anything you are doing? Sometimes a virus
will need a reboot to replicate itself. Maybe a .pdf file? Seem to
remember a worm about the time frame indicated?

I use pc-cillen. They have a free online scanning tool. at
http://www.trendmicro.com/ Why not scan the computer
and see if anything comes back on it.

Last thing may be some scheduled task that is rebooting the machine.
Check the logs for anything scheduled and see if it may be
initiating the restart.

Curtis.


> I know that the first inclination of techies is to blame these problems on
> defective hardware but I find it hard to believe that there is enough
> defective hardware around to cause all the problems of this nature that
> are
> being reported here and elsewhere on the Net. Vista itself calls the
> unexpected shutdowns OS failures in the Performance Monitor applet.
>
> Does anyone know of any software that could be useful in diagnosing the
> events that are going on during an intentional system restart?
>
>

Hi C. Britton,

You might give this a try to speed up the shutdown process. Just make sure that you save and exit your programs before doing the shutdown.

Shutdown

I noticed that some Video drivers, like ATI's CCC, will cause a slow shutdown problem. I solved the problem by only installing the ATI video driver without the Catalyst Control Center. Perhaps something similar is happening to you. ??

Shawn

Just before you shut it down, bring up the Task Manager to see what is still
running.

"C. Britton" wrote:

> I'm running Vista Ultimate 32 bit fully updated. I have two problems, one is
> the now familiar unexpected shutdown problem where for no known reason the
> computer reboots itself. The second problem, and I have to believe it is
> related to the first is that about half the time I try to shut down or
> restart the computer it can take upwards of 5 minutes to finish the
> operation. I ran the memory diagnostic to see if my almost new 2 Gigs of
> Crucial memory was bad and I got a positive result. I built the computer
> myself and I know it has only the highest quality components and I also know
> that they are installed correctly.
>
> Up until a few weeks ago the system ran like a charm. I have read and
> re-read the systems performance/error logs and all I can determine is that
> the unexpected shutdown problem began on 6/30/07 and has happened about 15
> times since then. So far I can't find anything that happened in the 6/30/07
> time frame that I can say for sure caused the problem. Logs that I have
> found in Vista don't give me any clue as to the agonizingly long
> shutdowns/restarts. The machine does go into Sleep mode immediately and
> comes out of it equally fast.
>
> I know that the first inclination of techies is to blame these problems on
> defective hardware but I find it hard to believe that there is enough
> defective hardware around to cause all the problems of this nature that are
> being reported here and elsewhere on the Net. Vista itself calls the
> unexpected shutdowns OS failures in the Performance Monitor applet.
>
> Does anyone know of any software that could be useful in diagnosing the
> events that are going on during an intentional system restart?
>
>

Thanks for all the replies. I still can't solve the slow shutdown but after
installing a new Realtek audio driver that just came out I haven't had an
unexplained shutdown for 3 days now. Hopefully that was the fix of the
problem.

All my other drivers are up to date so I don't think the shutdown problem is
driver related. As for applications still trying to run there are none that
would be shown in Task Manager. The computer would not attempt to shut down
at all if there was an application still open in Task Manager.

Cec Britton

"Mick Murphy" wrote:

> Just before you shut it down, bring up the Task Manager to see what is still
> running.
>
> "C. Britton" wrote:
>
> > I'm running Vista Ultimate 32 bit fully updated. I have two problems, one is
> > the now familiar unexpected shutdown problem where for no known reason the
> > computer reboots itself. The second problem, and I have to believe it is
> > related to the first is that about half the time I try to shut down or
> > restart the computer it can take upwards of 5 minutes to finish the
> > operation. I ran the memory diagnostic to see if my almost new 2 Gigs of
> > Crucial memory was bad and I got a positive result. I built the computer
> > myself and I know it has only the highest quality components and I also know
> > that they are installed correctly.
> >
> > Up until a few weeks ago the system ran like a charm. I have read and
> > re-read the systems performance/error logs and all I can determine is that
> > the unexpected shutdown problem began on 6/30/07 and has happened about 15
> > times since then. So far I can't find anything that happened in the 6/30/07
> > time frame that I can say for sure caused the problem. Logs that I have
> > found in Vista don't give me any clue as to the agonizingly long
> > shutdowns/restarts. The machine does go into Sleep mode immediately and
> > comes out of it equally fast.
> >
> > I know that the first inclination of techies is to blame these problems on
> > defective hardware but I find it hard to believe that there is enough
> > defective hardware around to cause all the problems of this nature that are
> > being reported here and elsewhere on the Net. Vista itself calls the
> > unexpected shutdowns OS failures in the Performance Monitor applet.
> >
> > Does anyone know of any software that could be useful in diagnosing the
> > events that are going on during an intentional system restart?
> >
> >