XP restarts instead of shutting down

Interesting behavior from my machine the last couple days - the system won't shut down, as of last night (12/22).

Start > Shutdown, ctrl-alt-del and Shutdown, or even hitting the power button on the tower just restarts the machine - if I do a legit shutdown through Windows, it goes through the motions and gets to the point where it should click off, and restarts; hitting the button just restarts right away.

I've already disabled the Automatically Restart option under the system failure section of System Properties > Advanced > Startup and Recovery to no effect; Avast, Spybot, and Malwarebytes all come up clean. I've installed or removed no programs for quite some time (and have no outside burning software installed at all), and the only software change at all would have been Avast's own update.

All searching has come up with elsewhere are several-year-old threads that talk about disabling the Automatically Restart option - what else can I do here?

 

Have you also tried System Restore - 12/21 ?

 

Hi

I'm not sure how comfortable you are with computers, but one thing you could do is crack the case open (assuming it's a desktop) and check the wires running from the power button to see if there is possibly a short.

Another thing you can try (to rule out a hardware issue, and see if it's Windows doing this) is to download and burn a live Linux CD and boot from that (have it loaded in the CD tray when the computer restarts, and make sure that BIOS is set to boot from CD before the hard drive). Then, once Linux loads, attempt a shutdown from Linux. Two good Linux live distros are Mint and Ubuntu. Obviously, if the computer shuts down fine from Linux, it's a Windows issue. However, if the computer restarts instead of shuts down from Linux, then it's a hardware issue.

 

Oh, I really hope this issue isn't coming back again! I saw the title and thought - I haven't seen that in 5 years (Because it took me forever to eliminate it off of the workstations)!

Ok, so here are some things to try. I'd look around at all the hardware considering all the devices that have caused this.

# USB Connections - several different USB-related issues can impact shutdown. If several USB devices (PDA cradle, flash card reader, etc) were plugged into the motherboard’s USB ports, the computer would reboot on an attempted shutdown; but when, instead, they were plugged into an external USB 2.0 hub, shutdown went just fine.

# “Wake on” power settings - Power-management settings that have the computer “wake” on LAN, USB, modem, or (for that matter) probably anything else may also trigger a restart after shutdown. Also found was an Logitech USB mouse would trigger “wake on USB” after every Windows shutdown. The solution was to remove that particular mouse and all worked fine.

# Hidden “wake on” power settings - If you have an Ethernet card integrated into your motherboard, you may have hidden “wake on” settings that are harder to find. It was found that an Asus P5GDC-V Deluxe motherboard had a “wake on” setting in Device Manager | Properties | Advanced rather than in the BIOS or Power Management settings. (The Asus P5AD2 and P5GD2 boards have this also.)

# Y-SB3 Logitech Internet Keyboard can also cause this problem. If you use it as a simple generic keyboard, there’s no problem; but, if you install the Key Commander software that drives the special Internet functions, Win XP will restart instead of shut down. Unfortunately, Logitech has decided that they will not be updating this driver for this keyboard.

 

Did crack the case and check my wires, no obvious issues, unfortunately.

1) Maybe. I jacked in my external drive to do a backup yesterday; only the second time it's been live ont his machine. I had the drive powered off and disconnected before shutting down, though.

2) Haven't changed any power settings, and it's a generic MS mouse.

3) Again, no changes to power settings.

4) It's an IBM keyboard with no special software installed.

I probably should note that I've had this system up and running for ~2 years, and this is the first time I've seen anything like this.

 

Try booting the live Linux distro and see if you can shutdown from that (using it live means it won't install anything on the computer, it will run from RAM only).

 

Lots of reasons good computers go bad from one day to the next, not the least of which is Microsoft itself. Just last week they gave us another bad update.

Your backup drive, does it have a one-touch button or auto-backup feature? Does it try to autorun a backup program when you attach it? Did it install a driver?

Anything in the device manager have an X or a question mark on it?

Can you shutdown normally from Safe Mode?

 

1) No to all of the above. It's just an external HD. However, I seem to have strange luck with USB devices - if I jack the device into a port other than the one I initially installed it with, sometimes it acts as if the device is completely new and needs to be installed again; changing ports or occasionllay just un- and re-plugging corrects.

2) Yes, unnamed Ethernet and RAID controllers - but they've been showing 'driver uninstalled' states since I got the machine.

3) Nope, same result.

 

The usb recognizing a device as new is normal if you are using a different set of usb ports - i.e. on the front vs. the back or the two integrated vs the two added on. Sometimes it looks like they are one group of 4 or 5 (2 up, 2 or 3 below is what i have) but they are two different sets.

I guess it's on to the Linux disc. I've never had to try that but I've made a note to self -- burn Linux disc to boot from and add to bag of tricks. I bet that's a handy one now that i've thought about it. (First thought was wow, over my head in the first post!)

 

Guess so. Next trick is how to get into my BIOS to change boot order...

 

depending on the make, to get into bios is often either F2 , or, del button, on startup.

 

Sometimes boot order can be changed by pressing f12, or, f10 , as you startup on some models.
I hope it help-
Gotta go
Have a good XMAS, AND NEW YEAR

 

Well, moot point now. Posting from my ancillary machine - the one I'm trying to fix took a dive and wouldn't come back up. At this point, I'm suspecting hardware; power supply specifically. Turning the power on spun the fans up and started the drives for about two seconds, then it clunked and restarted the sequence. Never even got to POST.

Shot trouble all the way down to pulling everything but the fans just to test, and it still blipped every couple seconds and started over.

 

If you have got that far-
Is the cpu fan working- will cause shutdown as it overheats quickly.
IF FAN O.K- CHECK CPU IS LOCKED DOWN -WORTH REMOVING, AND APPLYING SOME ARTIC SILVER, AND RESEATING- TO SEE IF IT HELPS- GOOD LUCK