Why does'nt my computer shut down completely?

My computer will be working fine and then all of a sudden it will act as if I pressed a million keys and will lockup. It won't shut down completeley, but I can't enter anything from the keyboard and the mouse moves really slow. Also the internal beeping noise in the tower beeps continually. I thought I had a virus so I ended up re-formatting my computer. I then thought it was the keyboard so I switched it out, but it still does it from time to time (at least once a day). I can reboot and it will be alright for a day or so. What can this be? Thanks.

This question was answered on December 15, 2004. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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Have you tried downloading Service Pack 2 for Windows XP? Do you receive any error messages? Have you ran a virus scan on your computer? This is a Web site you might want to look over on why you computer does not shut down completely:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q307274

The safest thing you can do is to make sure all programs have been closed before shutting down This alone may solve your problem Don’t overlook programs running in the system tray It’s easy to forget these are running as we become so accustomed to seeing their icons on a daily basis As a general rule, if you don’t see some visible shutdown activity within 1-2 minutes of initiation, something is holding up the process One readily identifiable sign that some application or process is not terminating properly is the appearance of the "Wait, End Task, or Cancel" dialog box The program or process listed needs to be examined as to why it isn't terminating properly Often times a visit to a company website will provide an update to address the issue.

Windows XP uses many processes that are built into the operating system that interact with outside vendor supplied programs These interactions don't always flow as smoothly or quickly as planned and can account for shutdown delays Extending the amount of time a process is allowed to close before invoking the "Wait, End Task, or Cancel" dialog box can sometimes be of benefit To get a better understanding of what this involves as well as why not to overdo the time extension, the following article may be of value.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q305788

These additional articles may lead to a solution:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314101 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q311787

As for the beeps and keyboard make sure your all your drivers are updated The BEEP takes over for the system event sounds when your sound card is not installed Check device manager and see if it is not installed for some reason or the drivers became corrupted.

Check your to see if your video card is not overheating Another thing, make sure you do not have any PCI cards in the slot next to the AGP

About the author

Posted by Henry of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on December 15, 2004

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