can't shut down computer

My current configuration is as follws:

amd athlon64 3200+
1(2x512) gig corsaie value ram
ECS K8t890-a motherboard
Western Digital hd (80 gig sata150)wd0800jd
thermaltake 430w psu
pny Geforce fx5500(128 mb)
Raidmax midtower ATX case
Windows XP Pro-sp1

I'm building this system as a music editing station, hence the non-suped up configuration. Though modest compared to some systems you guys are probably using now, it should suffice my needs quite nicely, and hence why I'm here, your knowledge.

My computer will not shut off.I get the "it is now safe to turn off your computer" screen, I press the power button, and it does nothing. If I hold the button for 5 secs it shuts off, except for the led in the mouse.

I've installed everything directly according to instructions. I've rechecked connections 10 times. I've installed updates for everything, service pack2, windows updates, vid card and mobo had no updates from what I saw. I've adjusted Bios settings. I enabled hybernate in Power Options. I do not get a standby option.

I have reinstalled windows a few times with 2 different versions of XP Pro, one consumer edition and one school edition. I'm currently without updates, a fresh install of all the components and drivers on the school edition of XP Pro(one you do not have to activate).

Please help me!!

 

It seems to me that you need to set the soft off in bios. I could look at my bios if you can't find it in yours. I believe it is something that has to be enabled either on the mb or in the bios.

 

Also see how you go here>>

Control panel/Power options/Advanced/Power buttons.

Check the settings.

 

kurdpatton;

I'm sure u have been through the connections I pulled the following from the on line manual. U might want to look carefully at the connections to ur on off switch, (and the pin lay out for connecting to the case front panel
Front Panel Header
The front panel connector (PANEL1) provides a standard set of switch and LED header
commonly found on ATX or micro-ATX cases. Refer to the table below for information:
Pin Signal Name Function
1 HD_LED_P Hard disk LED(+) 2 FP PWR/SLP *MSG LED(+)
3 HD_LED_N Hard disk LED(-)
5 RST_SW_N Reset Switch(-)
7 RST_SW_P Reset Switch(+)
9 RSVD Reserved
4 FP PWR/SLP *MSG LED(-)
6 PWR_SW_P Power Switch(+)
8 PWR_SW_N Power Switch(-)
10 Key No pin
* MSG LED (dual color or single color)
Pin Signal Name Function
Hard Drive Activity LED
Connecting pins 1 and 3 to a front panel mounted LED provides visual indication that data
is being read from or written to the hard drive. For the LED to function properly, an IDE
drive should be connected to the onboard IDE interface. The LED will also show activity
for devices connected to the SCSI (hard drive activity LED) connector.
Power/Sleep/Message waiting LED
Connecting pins 2 and 4 to a single or dual-color, front panel mounted LED provides power
on/off, sleep, and message waiting indication.
Reset Switch
Supporting the reset function requires connecting pin 5 and 7 to a momentary-contact
switch that is normally open. When the switch is closed, the board resets and runs POST.
Power Switch

*****************verify that ur on off sw is as below**************

Supporting the power on/off function requires connecting pins 6 and 8 to a momentarycontact
switch that is normally open. The switch should maintain contact for at least 50 ms
to signal the power supply to switch on or off. The time requirement is due to internal debounce
circuitry. After receiving a power on/off signal, at least two seconds elapses before
the power supply recognizes another on/off signal.

******************************************************

the pin count per the on line manual was
9 7 5 3 1
10 8 6 4 2
.... p p
.... w w
.....r r
switch

hope this helps
asturnacle

 

Stardis- I have no idea what a soft is and have not seen any setting on the bios nor a jumper on the board. I'll look around again with that in mind but I would appreciate if you could check on that and elaborate soft.

Hipster Doofus- when I go to control panel>power options>advanced.....I only have the upper options box for the icon in the task bar and the password from standby. I do not have the lower "Power Buttons" box in both installs of xp I have tried.

Asternacle- I have rechecked the panel1 header a few times, because thats what i thought too, that a connection was off or misaligned. I even replaced the power switch with the reset switch. no luck. I am, however, using a Raidmax case, the $44 one, (who needs a great case if its gonna be hidden anyways?) and the power switch connector was a 3 pin female connector with only 2 wires, one on the far left and one on the far right, and an empty wire slot in the middle. I moved one of the wires over to the middle pin slot to be able to align the wires of the power switch with the header pins so that 2 pins went to 2 wires. I know thats probably not the prob, but by some small chance, could it be?

 

do like he said^. in power options at the top of the box you will find,power schemes, advanced,hibernate,ups. click advanced and see what yours is set at. its really there. ed

 

The "soft off" refers to "software off" or the operating system shutting down the computer instead of you doing it with the power button.

I understand what you are saying about the header pins and the switch plug not aligning-- but even when I thought they didn't, on further examination, I found that I was misreading and the plug has always lined up with the proper pins. On several motherboards I thought I might have to move a pin as you did but I wasn't looking at things correctly and the marking is difficult to decipher at times-- I know. I have to wonder about moving that pin. I will look some more at my documentation.

 

If you hit the power switch and the computer stops responding with that error and you can turn the comp off by holding the switch for 5secs you can categorically rule out the switch as the problem

Read and follow the steps in this article

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=810903

 

As an example, my Asus K8N-E mb has a system panel connector with 20 pins. Two of those pins are for the ATX power switch. That switch is is referred to in the manual that came with the mb as:

"ATX Power switch / Soft-Off switch lead (Yellow 2-pin PWRSW)

This connector is for the system power switch. Pressing the power
switch turns the system between ON and SLEEP, or ON and SOFT OFF,
depending on the BIOS or OS settings. Pressing the power switch
while in the ON mode for more than four seconds turns the system OFF."

Under the advanced tab on the Power Management Options (in XP) I have selected "shut down" as the option when I press the power switch.

In the BIOS under the Power menu you might have to look at the suspend mode (asuming your BIOS is similar to mine). I haven't yet looked at what my BIOS settings are but, they probably have the suspend mode set to S3 Only. I am not very smart with computers and I can't remember what S3 refers to; I will have to look that up.

The computer that I am using right now has a Gigabyte K8u-939 MB and has the AMD 64 3200+ Venice and I have "shut down" selected as the option when I press the power switch-- it has the soft off working ok.

 

interesting article on acpi...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACPI

Once, I had to reset the bios defaults on a computer that could not be shutdown except by holding the power button in for 5 seconds. That fixed it. I don't know if that would be a good thing for you to do or not depending on your particular setup.

 

To recap.....In control panel>power options>advanced, I do not have any power button options, none at all, I know I should, Ive seen thm on other computers,even on the computer I was using previously with my same xp disk, they are just not on mine.

As far as the wring on my front panle heder, it's a 10 pin header, 5 pins on top, 5 pins on the bottom. The tenth pin is missing as a key. If I was to use the original wiring configuration on my 3 pin connector with 2 wires then that would place one wire on pin six and one wire on pin 10, the no pin, the key. I'm supposed to be on pins 6 and 8 which I have been so far.

as far as the bios goes.....Under power settings I do not have a suspend mode. my manual shows that I should, but have not been able to find it. I've cleared CMOS, I've used the default settings, except changing my video card to AGP, because it defaults to PCI-E.

 

Yeah, I see from looking at the manual that pins 6 & 8 are the power switch.
When you enter the BIOS there is the menu for Power Management. What do you have selected there? This is copied from the manual:

ACPI Aware O/S Yes
Power Management Enabled
Suspend mode S1
Suspend Time Out Disabled
Resume on RTC Alarm Disabled
LAN/Ring Power On Disabled
Keyborad Power On Disabled
Wake-Up Key Any Key
S3 USB Device Wakeup Function Disabled

It seems like if you had these settings then you would have the power button options in XP's power options, button options (does that make sense?).

When you look at Device Manager do you see something about ACPI under Computer? Do you see something about ACPI under System Devices?

I have never had a BIOS bug, but I guess that is possible. Do you have the latest BIOS version?

On my American Megatrends bios, I have to press F1 to get into the advanced bios options, is that how your's is?

 

In my Bios I do not get the suspend mode option under Power Management. I do, however, get the ACPI Aware O/S, and it is selected to on.

I checked my Device Manager ..... Mycomputer>properties>Hardware>Device Manager

Under Computer it says MPS Uniprocessor PC. with the driver provided by Microsoft.

 

In Device Manager, under Computer I have: ACPI Uniprocessor PC.

It seems odd that you don't have Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) which I think (and I am starting to go beyond my knowledge here)
should have have been installed with your XP. Your motherboard's bios says ACPI Aware O/S is YES. Is "Power Management" set to enabled in the BIOS?

From what I think I am reading, you may not have the correct HAL or Hardware Abstraction Layer file installed. It seems that XP would
have just automatically installed the correct one during windows setup. Check out this link to Microsoft:
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=309283

Also, this link is about reinstalling XP and mentions HAL and third party HAL:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315341/

Maybe contact one of the newsgroups via the link at those websites; those people are pretty sharp.

If you don't mind experimenting a bit, you might try to update the Computer driver in Device Manager. I guess the worst that could happen is that you
may have to reload XP or just rollback the driver. Perhaps try the troubleshooting button in the Computer properties window and see what results you get from it.

Sorry I haven't been more helpful.

 

Check out this Microsoft webpage:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/299340/

This is very interesting. Especially read the "Force in a system HAL" part.
My socket 939 mb is x2 capable and it seems that the correct HAL for it is:
ACPI Uniprocessor PC
Applies to an ACPI multiple-processor board but with a single processor installed.

When installing the sata driver did you press F7 accidentally?
Copied from the webpage:
1. During the Text-mode phase of the Setup program, when you receive the following message across the bottom of the screen, press F5:
Press F6 if you have to install a third-party SCSI or RAID driver.
Note If you press F7, the Standard PC HAL loads and the ACPI compliance check is bypassed.

Thought you might find this interesting.

 

Hi,
The same problem of not being able to shut off a computer running XP Home edition happened to me and I was able to resolve it finally, after a week, with a simple fix.
I downloaded "Startup Mechanic" freeware from MajorGeeks and ran a "scan".
Among the startup items was a "power configuration profile" (or something worded very similarly to that).
I'm not sure how it got created in the first place, but by "disabling" the item using Startup Mechanic I cured the problem.
Prior to that I had tried everything I could think of including tweaking BIOS settings, making sure the "when I press the STOP button I want me computer to ....." setting was on "turn off the computer", and every other thing anybody advised me to try.
I hope it works for you also. phlegmox

 

ok guys, here's some more information I thought I'd tell you that I found interesting. When formatting and installing, or even just from the fresh install on a brand new hard drive, I have to disable ACPI aware o/s in my bios, otherwise in the installation of Windows XP after loading all the devices and before getting the window to format or install and all that good stuff, It sends a blue screen that shows a PCI(I think.sys) error. Once ACPI is disabled on the mobo Windows formats fine. I've even tried turning ACPI off in bios, letting it format and load the files, then after restart, go into bios and turn ACPI back on before Windows completes final setup and installation. No bones.
But from what I have read up on, ECS doesn't have a dedicated controller for their AGP "express" slot, it's actually worked into the PCI express controller. The reason I got the board is because it had PCI express and AGP express. I used a PNY Gforce FX5500 agp graphics card and was planing on using the pci express for sound controllers for editing programs(not hooked up yet). NOw, under ECS's AGP support list, not only is the manufacturer not supported, but the Gforce FX5500 chipset that it uses is not supported either, I think the Gforce 5600 is though.
Now, I do not get the hibernate option in the power options of Windows until my graphics card drivers are installed.(not sure if its always like that)
So, would it suffice to say that because I am using an unsupported AGP card in the AGP express slot that uses the PCI express controller, when after Windows installation starts up and loads the drivers with ACPI aware o/s enabled in BIOS, that that combination would produce the PCI(i think .sys) error in the Windows installation and hence not allow installation of the ACPI driver that Windows comes with?
I'm sorry, for the long sentance.

 

kurdpatton;

u may have a good point on the graphics card but I think it is not the power problem.

after u have windows installed did u go back and also install the mother board drivers supplied with the mother board?
also does the atx case have a reset button on it? (it should have and if it does disconnect it for the time being and see if u have any change in the power down. also try reversing the leads on pin 6 & 8 to see if this has any change in pwr down.

astunacle

 

have reversed the leads, installed mobo drivers, will try disconnecting reset button right now and send a post. thanks.

 

Truth be told, unless someone can give me a good reason, I can't see why you shouldn't just be able to use the switch directly on the powersupply to shut it off when it says it's safe.

My computer case won't for example, allow me to turn on or off if it's set the way the manual says. By realigning it along the 1 2 pins though, it functions as an on button well enough. I might suggest it's a case problem. See if you can get the power switch from another machine to shut it down for you. Mine is attached to the front bezel, so it's fairly portable, but others might not be.

 

Triaxx2;

kurdpatton said he had rpld the on off switch.
the idea on slim chance of reversing the pwr pins is that he has a ground connection in the case that is not allowing the mobo to see a short when he pushes the on off which should go away when he releases it. since he has put in a new switch this should have no effect if it does a whole different matter.
I do not think it is going to change anything removing the mobo reset connection (temporary condition) will get rid of a reset condition setting from the case.
I am hoping that he can get the windows installed then re run the the mobo drivers and then run the utility that Stardis suggested.
I do not at least on my pc have to turn off the machine since the bios and windows are talking when it shuts down the pc. Because of the lighting in my area I turn every thing off with the ac outlet surge/protect strip on/off switch. I must then turn on the ac and hit the on off switch to boot up.

He also has a possibility of a bad mobo or outdated bios or bad info on the pwr sw on/off connections to the board from the manual but do not want to go the bad board just yet. If he can get the bios and os talking then what Rikky said will prove and rule out a lot if he can get to that step.

More minds the better on this one..

asturnacle