help!! my pc cant shut down?

Question

whenever i try to shut down my pc it will get stuck on the "windows is shutting down" bit, can anyone tell me how to fix it pc has: 256mb ram ,2.26ghz intel CPU,40gb HDD. win xp pro sp2

Answer 1

hold the power button in for 5 seconds

Answer 2

First of all, have you recently installed any new software or hardware? Shut down problems were a big problem when XP first hit the market due to software, or hardware drivers that weren't compatible with XP. Of course that isn't the case so much now, but something to look into. If you recently added software or hardware, do a system restore to the date the addition was made and see if that fixes the problem.

I notice you are also running the bare minimum RAM recommended for XP. If new hardware or software isn't the problem, try upgrading RAM to at least 512MB. www.crucial.com has a good utility that will scan your system over the net and let you know what RAM configurations you can get for your computer and you can buy it from them at good prices. If you have a process that is hanging up at shut down, more RAM may help that along.

The other thing would be to run anti-spyware and anti-virus software, if you don't already. this could be an indication of an infected machine. You should do this anyway, whether you are having problems or not. So I left this as my last suggestion.

Answer 3

Unplugging the PC or holding the power button to turn it off is all well and good AS LONG AS you haven't changed any system files, added or removed software etc etc, as the whole reason for shutting down windows is to ensure that the relative files from these procedures are written to the hard drive safely so that everything works when you reboot (part of why some programs ask you to reboot when you install them).

You should consider backing up all your important files and reinstalling windows, as obviously some file or other has gone crazy and started crashing the shutdown sequence.

Answer 4

First of ONLY shutdown the computer as above if you can not get it to shutdown properly, During the shutdown process important information for your next startup is saved the the hdd. This data can be corupted if you shut off the computer at the incorrect time, also the hdd is still being written to during this process, shutting it down while the computer is trying to access the drive can cause hdd failure. As mentioned before run a complete malware clean up, defrag the drive, run check disk. And worst case goto the hdd manufacturers web site and look for diagnostic software to check if the hdd is going bad. Also failing memory can cause this issues to.

Answer 5

try the mentioned suggestions or go alt, cntrl, delte and bring up task manager and see what processes are still running and won't shut down, so your pc can shut down. Also, try using the task manger to shut down (now-button). Should check to see if any viruses have gotten on your pc. Since your using xp, you can always try a restore to an earlier time and see if that will clean up anything and help.. good luck.

Answer 6

just hold down the on/off button and the computer should just shut itself down, some data might get lost but it your computer will be able to retrieve the lost data.

Answer 7

dont look at porn and run some anti spyware and antivirus programs check that first

Answer 8

Have you tried to unplug it?? Quick and easy fix, get a Mac!!

Answer 9

unplug it...it won't hurt as bad as some say...don't do it like every day though

Answer 10

umplug it