Impact of forcible poweroff?

yeeha · Aug 30, 2007

I am having a problem in which my machine will not shutdown. Startup is fine but the shutdown process never finishes and I have to poweroff forcibly. What is the impact of this? My understanding is that leftover charge inside the machine coupled with the surge of a power on can damage components if the machine is not let to cooldown for an indeterminate period before starting up again. Is this accurate? Is there more to it than that?

This is on my mind right now because I'm going through the malware procedures outlined on the malware forum and I've had to reboot about a dozen times so far.. I'm wondering what I need to know to avoid damaging my machine.

Thanks in advance for any help.

DavidGP · Sep 2, 2007

The main possible issue with forced power offing a PC is data corruption, but if your running XP with NTFS as the file format then this is minimised a bit more than using FAT32, its possible that a HD head may crash, but rare.

Yes motherboards do for a rew seconds - minute drain out power, I can see this on mine via a small light, good indicator that its ok to put your hands inside.

Likely the quicker you can get the malware removal sorted the better to minimise any hardware issues, but I would recomend you backup all your important data and files ASAP.

bigbazza · Sep 2, 2007

Not sure if this will help you, in your situation, but you could try creating a shortcut with
C:\WINDOWS\system32\shutdown.exe -s -t 0
as the parameters.

Note the 3 spaces, after exe, after s and after t, and a zero on the end (not an Alpha "O").

More reassuring than forcing a hardware shutdown, IMO.

Bazza

Log in or Sign up

Impact of forcible poweroff?

yeeha Private First Class

DavidGP MajorGeeks Forum Administrator - Grand Pooh-Bah Staff Member

bigbazza R.I.P. 14/12/2011 - Good Onya Geek