Windows XP won't shut down (hangs at "Saving your settings") EVEN AFTER SP 1 (service pack 1)

ETan

Golden Member
Jan 23, 2001
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I searched google and here and microsoft, but none of the solutions have fixed my XP shudown problem yet.

I have been using windows XP fine until about a month ago. It started hanging during shut down. everything freezes. No response. Worse than BSOD I think. No error, nothing, zip. Same thing when I try to go to Stand By.

The research I've done all said that installing SP1 (service pack 1) will fix the problem, which Microsoft admitted to. I've done that, and still the same.

I got so frustrated with this that I formatted the partition and reinstalled XP a couple of days ago. Then I installed SP1. Then I installed all the other programs. I'm not sure if other software might have caused this, but I basically only have Office XP, Nero 5 (no InCD), and other common multimedia apps installed. Yup, you guessed it: Still hangs during shut down. Same symptoms, everything. And XP doesn't even report that as an error the next time I boot up. (I have to hold down power button to turn it off).

The main reasons I am frustrated with this, besides I want it to work the way it should, is that I feel that i'm "hurting" my hardware by all the non-gracious shutdowns. I had a scare when my almost full 45gb WD couldn't be accessed and just hangs when I try to Explore it (but it miraculously recovered after multiple reboots!). Another reason is I hate wasting the power. (I use it 5 hours at the most a day and I'm leaving it on for 19 idle hours.)

I'm trying to be as detailed as possible because i really need help, and i've been sucking at finding the right resources by myself so far. So please...... help me!

Here's the hardware I have:
EPOX 8kha
Thunderbird 1.4ghz 266fsb
384 samsung pc2100
radeon 64mb ddr vivo
80gb maxtor 7200 ata100 (C:)
45gb WD 5400
LiteOn 40x cdrw
56k intel hardware modem (forgot details)
i think that's all...

*An irrelevant note, just because... Out of frustration, and curiousity, I've even installed Red Hat Linux 8.0 on a separate partition. Total linux newbie... so i'm not making much use of it now.
 

mikecel79

Platinum Member
Jan 15, 2002
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You have any anti-virus programs running? A friend of mine had a similiar problem with Win2k. Turns out it was the AV service hanging at shutdown. You might want to try disabling services you don't need and see if one of thsoe are causing the problem. Also when you loaded WinXP and SP1 did you have the problem? Or was it only after you added other programs?

 

bsobel

Moderator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
Dec 9, 2001
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Originally posted by: mikecel79
You have any anti-virus programs running? A friend of mine had a similiar problem with Win2k. Turns out it was the AV service hanging at shutdown. You might want to try disabling services you don't need and see if one of thsoe are causing the problem. Also when you loaded WinXP and SP1 did you have the problem? Or was it only after you added other programs?

Perfect advice. Yes MS did fix a shutdown problem in SP1, but it doesn't mean it is the one you have. Try disabling programs/services and see if the problem resolves itself. The ideal case would be if you had a clean xp/sp1 image to try this way you could rule the OS out completely.

Bill
 

ETan

Golden Member
Jan 23, 2001
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Originally posted by: bsobel
Originally posted by: mikecel79
You have any anti-virus programs running? A friend of mine had a similiar problem with Win2k. Turns out it was the AV service hanging at shutdown. You might want to try disabling services you don't need and see if one of thsoe are causing the problem. Also when you loaded WinXP and SP1 did you have the problem? Or was it only after you added other programs?

Perfect advice. Yes MS did fix a shutdown problem in SP1, but it doesn't mean it is the one you have. Try disabling programs/services and see if the problem resolves itself. The ideal case would be if you had a clean xp/sp1 image to try this way you could rule the OS out completely.

Bill

First of all, thanks for the advice guys.

However, I don't even have Antivirus installed yet.

In any case, I will check and see if I can stop whatever non-crucial services before shutting down, and see if that helps.

The ideal case would be if you had a clean xp/sp1 image to try this way you could rule the OS out completely.

Actually I managed to shut down fine (took almost 30 seconds but it eventually did) right after I installed XP and SP1. I was too eager to fix it, that I forgot to list down what I had installed before and after that....

Might have to spend another minimum 2 hours reinstalling XP, SP1, and other programs...

I wonder if NERO is the culprit. I don't have much installed yet, so my hunch is it's nero, since many solutions point towards these cd burning utilities. Could be dead wrong. Maybe it's just Microsoft...
 

GonzoDaGr8

Platinum Member
Apr 29, 2001
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I wonder if NERO is the culprit. I don't have much installed yet, so my hunch is it's nero, since many solutions point towards these cd burning utilities. Could be dead wrong.

XP Home, SP1, NERO 5.5.8.0, EZCD 5.0 Patinum..No shutdown probs here.

Maybe it's just Microsoft...

Maybe its your hardware..Do you have a NIC card? If so, try it without it or try a different one.
 

japetto

Member
Apr 15, 2002
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It sounds to me like that it's a driver issue. The most common cause of a hang up during shutdown is just that... You should try to diagnose failures with the event viewer in administrative tools. In fact you can try and boot into safe mode, shut down and see if it hangs from there. And if thats not it, it could be a strange hardware issue, or a currupt system file loading from the install cd.;)
 

Mem

Lifer
Apr 23, 2000
21,476
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Do you`ve the latest BIOS update? I would also install the latest VIA 4 in 1 drivers and installing the latest monitor drivers won`t do any harm.I don`t think it`s Nero since I use that and so do my friends that have XP/Nero and 8KHA/+ boards with no problems,if the problem persists I would lean towards the ATI drivers.
 

ETan

Golden Member
Jan 23, 2001
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first off, thanks again.

couple of observations. event viewer showed NO signs at all of the improper shutdowns.

I even tried disabling / killing all the processes i could. Leaving only just the critical system processes before shut down. Still hung.

It's hanging at "Windows is Shutting Down" instead of the Saving your settings. I think I might have made a mistake when i first posted in my observation of when it hung. Does it matter?

Still the same symptoms. Everything hangs - mouse, caps lock, etc.

I'm using ONLY windows XP native drivers, PLUS SP1. Nothing more.

I don't use ATI drivers because it has ALWAYS, 100% of all previous trials, crashed my machine. I never was able to get any "latest and greatest" ATI driver to work. Native XP drivers worked well enough for me.

As far as bios updates, I never had to use the latest ones either. Will that really help this? I am not worried about performance as it's trivial to me, just stability right now.

I will remove the NIC card as Gonzo presribed... not sure if that would help. I doubt it is a hardware failure because it was working fine days before, and also I can shut down fine in Linux (except I 'm a newbie and don't know how to do anything).

Another thing i will try is to use a different XP cd... will that help? I mean, it's just strange that XP install won't tell me if one of the files were corrupted.

Can't think of much else. Might have to use Win2k pro instead. Does Win2k have native drivers that would work with most of my hardware?
 

japetto

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Apr 15, 2002
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Switching to win2k is not such a bad idea... I did the same thing because I was having issues with XP and got sick of it. I'm not sure about complete native driver support for your hardware. If you're worried about using any manufacturer supplied drivers, just download only the microsoft "signed" drivers. The easiest way to do so is with windows update, either through the website, or device manager, update driver.
 

ETan

Golden Member
Jan 23, 2001
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Originally posted by: japetto
Switching to win2k is not such a bad idea... I did the same thing because I was having issues with XP and got sick of it. I'm not sure about complete native driver support for your hardware. If you're worried about using any manufacturer supplied drivers, just download only the microsoft "signed" drivers. The easiest way to do so is with windows update, either through the website, or device manager, update driver.


yeah looks like this is the best approach so far. nothing else has worked yet.

i am just a bit spoiled by XP's ease of use, and some nice features.... :( probably will go thru XP withdrawal... As much as I despise all the bugs, it's actually a very decent OS as far as user interface, ease of use, etc... of course' that's just MHO.