[RESOLVED] Laptop not shutting down completely

[Krokonoster]

Hi,
For the past few days, after I shut down my laptop, the bluetooth light stay on (and another one..some light bulb icon).
I drop it in my bag, and by the time i get home later, the laptop is warm, and the battery is dead.
Was running fine before (use Win7 Ultimate if that matters).

Seems if I just leave it before closing the lid after shutting down, that stop after some time, as in the morning I do not have this problem after shutting down the previous night / wee hours of the morning.

Any suggestions? (heaven forbid me reinstalling this machine!)

[Siddharth Rout]

Ensure Hibernate is enabled.

See this

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...e-disable.html

[chris128]

So you are shutting it down but closing the lid before it has completely shut down?

[Krokonoster]

So you are shutting it down but closing the lid before it has completely shut down?

That's how the machine behave yes. Though it seems to be completely shut down when I close the lid.

Hmm...wonder if this bitlocker is not at fault. problems started after placing bitlocker on my system drive as well.

[techgnome]

I wonder if there was something in the recent update.... I've been having the same issue. When I tell the machine to power down... it doesn't.... I get the "Logging Off" message.... endlessly... to the point, eventually one night, it went to hibernation with that still "running" so when I tried to boot up the next morning, it "resumed" it's "shutdown" ... been doing this to me for about a week now.

-tg

[Lord Orwell]

mine does this if i shut the lid while its shutting down.

[chris128]

Thats normal behaviour as far as I can see... if you shut the lid then it will sleep/hibernate, doesnt matter if its shutting down at the time you shut the lid. You just have to wait for it to finish shutting down completely before you shut the lid... or am I missing something?

[techgnome]

In those cases, yes.... but in the case I'm experiencing, I tell it to shut down.... and I get to the "Logging Off..." screen.... and it just sits there....doing nothing. If I leave it long enough, it will hibernate... which isn't supposed to happen... I want it to shut down. I've given up shutting it down... I just close it now... skip the middle man process.

-tg

[JuggaloBrotha]

Here's how I have my laptop set up:
Press power button: Shut Down
Close Lid : Hibernate

Low battery: Warn user
Critical battery: Hibernate

I don't deal with Sleep since the invention of Hibernate, Sleep has no purpose when it comes to laptops.

Actually with my Win7 desktop comp, I'm wondering how can I enable hibernate, Shut Down and Sleep are my only two options and with my UPS I'd like my comp to Hibernate when it's battery gets low, not Sleep (Sleep requires the computer to have power, which in the case of UPS's and Laptops power is probably not available so Sleep is useless)

[Nightwalker83]

Here's how I have my laptop set up:
Press power button: Shut Down
Close Lid : Hibernate

Low battery: Warn user
Critical battery: Hibernate

Same here!

Actually with my Win7 desktop comp, I'm wondering how can I enable hibernate, Shut Down and Sleep are my only two options and with my UPS I'd like my comp to Hibernate when it's battery gets low, not Sleep (Sleep requires the computer to have power, which in the case of UPS's and Laptops power is probably not available so Sleep is useless)

I'm wondering the same thing with my Vista Ultimate pc.

[chris128]

In those cases, yes.... but in the case I'm experiencing, I tell it to shut down.... and I get to the "Logging Off..." screen.... and it just sits there....doing nothing. If I leave it long enough, it will hibernate... which isn't supposed to happen... I want it to shut down. I've given up shutting it down... I just close it now... skip the middle man process.

-tg

OK I just encountered this same problem with one of our user's laptops at work - it just stays on Logging Off forever. Even in safe mode! I've uninstalled all recent windows updates but it hasnt made a difference and I cant use System Restore because that requires a clean shut down Did you (or anyone else) find a solution to this? It must be a recent windows update if its started happening to a few people at the same time but it doesnt look like uninstalling the update resolved the problem!

[Krokonoster]

Pretty much tried everything you guys suggested.
Yesterday I shut down...and drop my laptop in the bag.
One hour later I need it, take it out...OMG....Hot like hell, with some molten plastic seeping out the air vents. So hot the rubber around the webcam stick onto the casing, tearing off when I open it. Thougth that's the end of it, but lucky the laptop still work! (miracle...this thing survived a *real* drop, and now this!)

Eventually followed my own advice..remove bitlocker from the system driver....that solved it.

[chris128]

Aw, we dont have bitlocker on this machine that is having the problem

[chris128]

For anyone that's interested, I resolved our logging off problem today... by uninstalling .NET Framework 1.0!

Massive thanks to Mark Russinovich's Process Explorer utility as that showed me that the winlogon.exe process was tagged as a .NET process and I knew that it was not supposed to be so I thought I would see what happened if I took .NET off completely and voila, the laptop shut down without a problem as soon as I took it off. Luckily the user does not need .NET 1.0 any more so problem solved.

[techgnome]

huh... interesting... I'll have to see if that works for me.

-tg

[chris128]

huh... interesting... I'll have to see if that works for me.

-tg

Yeah let me know if it does
Also, I emailed Mark Russinovich (for those that dont know, he's on the Core Windows Development team at Microsoft) just to say thanks for writing Process Explorer and making so many informative blog posts/videos and he replied within like 30 minutes to say thanks for me sharing my example of Process Explorer being useful with him - I often dont reply to my emails at work that fast so I have to say I'm pretty impressed that someone on the core windows team at microsoft a) responds to random emails like that, b) does it so quickly!

Oh and TG - he also asked if I had a screenshot of Process Explorer showing winlogon.exe highlighted in yellow (which shows that it is a .NET process) but obviously I cant do that now as the user's machine is fixed. I dont suppose before you try removing .NET 1.0 you could try running Process Monitor (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb896645.aspx) when your machine gets stuck at Logging Off and see if you can get a screenshot if it is the same cause for you? When its stuck at Logging Off you can press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to bring Task Manager up and either use the New Task button to run Process Explorer or use Process Explorer's "Replace Task Manager" option.

[techgnome]

No prob... I'll give that a go... glad I waited now. I have my laptop with me and was going to do it... but in order for me to use PM, I'll need to connect to the internet which I can't do from here, so it'll have to wait until I get home.

-tg

[techgnome]

It must have been threatened. I grabed a copy of Process Monitor, got it sll set... and told the laptop to shut down. And it did. With out complaining. Ah well, at least now I have what I need to check up on it next time it happens.

-tg

[chris128]

haha typical... yeah if it does happen again it would be interesting to see if its the same solution for you

[chris128]

I've narrowed it down further than just the .NET framework 1.0 being installed (as obviously not every machine with that installed gets this problem). I've now found that it is only when an XP machine has the .NET framework 1.0 AND a piece of software called GemSafe eSigner installed (its like a bank card reader thing used by online banking sites to verify identity). Of course it might happen with other programs + .NET 1.0 as well but that is the program that sparks the problem in my case as it was installed on the user's machine that originally had this problem and I've just replicated it in a virtual machine. Going to dig a little deeper and see if I can actually fix it without having to uninstall either .NET 1.0 or the GemSafe software..

[techgnome]

It started back up for me last night... oh joy... the Ctrl+Shift+Esc didn't work, neither did Ctrl+Alt+Del.... once it went into the "Logging Off" mode, that was it.

Now, this morning when I booted up and fired up IE, IE asked me if I wanted to restore my last session, thinking that it had been interrupted... which it wasn't... and then half of my cookies were gone, forcing me to login to several sites.

Don't know if there's anything to it or not.

-tg

[chris128]

damn it sounds like you have a slightly different problem to what we had then... I was very surprised (and grateful) that I could actually bring task manager up when this happened! Have you tried uninstalling .NET 1.0 anyway just to see if it is the same cause? Bit of a long shot but it might be worth giving it a go as its only a 20MB install if you have to reinstall it... Have you also tried running in Safe Mode and then trying to log off/shut down to see if it still does it then?

If you want to try troubleshoot it further you can try running Process Monitor (not the same as Process Explorer but also a freebie from sysinternals) as the local system account so that it does not exit when the logoff/shutdown routine starts, and have it write to a log file, then load the log file when you boot back up after the hang. If you are going to do that though then I would get familiar with Process Monitor first as you will get a hell of a lot of information and will need to know how to look through it properly (if I run it for 10 seconds on my PC I get 4000 items logged).

[techgnome]

some new info... I've noticed a commonality on when this happens for me. Usually happens on Sundays.... after the Window Backup process has run. Even when I cancel the backup process, it still happens. Going to take the backup off line for a while, see if it corrects my problem.

-tg