Takes an AGE to shut down.

Drunkenmassacre

Drunkenmassacre

Drunkenmassacre

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As the title subtley suggests, my computer is taking an epic amount of time to shut down. For example, to get the 'shut down' dialogue box to appear when first clicking shut down takes about 5 minutes. From clicking shut down, it takes another 10-15 minutes to fully turn off. Any reasons why this would be?

My rig is in my sig, running XP pro.

Cheers guys :)
 
Have you made sure that all the programs/operations have stopped running? think i've had a similar thing once before, and i had to alt, ctrl, del something to get it to shutdown right.
I couldn't tell you what to look for or anything, but that could have something to do with it.
 
Looks like something doesn't want to play nice and turn off when it should.

Turn off everything in your System Tray [right-click each icon and exit blah blah] and once empty try another shutdown. If it is normal then you know it is one of your running programs. If it is still slow it is probably a service, which requires a bit more trial and error to spot.

Quick way to see if it is a service is to open msconfig.msc from the Run dialog and click on the Services tab. Put a check in the Hide Microsoft Services option towards the bottom. The list should contain only third-party services [from stuff you have installed] Uncheck them all. Click OK. You will probably be given a warning message, tell it to go away. Now reboot. Now shutdown. If it is a normal shutdown time, you have a dodgy service.

Which service it is, again, is trial and error. You will have to use msconfig and re-enable one service and shutdown and see what happens. Rinse and repeat. I would start with services you don't recognise or from anything you installed recently. If you find the one that causes a slow shutdown, uninstall the application it is associated with. Then under the first tab in msconfig choose Normal Startup to restore all your services.
 
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This seems to be a common issue with XP. There is a setting where you can force reluctant services to be closed at shutdown, though I can't remember where right now. A google will probably find it.

Besides, if possible, I'd upgrade to Windows 7 to get the most from your rig. It's a whole lot better than XP and Vista.
 
In MSconfig, goto the start-up tab, uncheck everything there, along with all the non-MS services, then restart.

Open up a few apps, play about and then restart. If it behaves normally, something that was starting up is causing the hang. Again, trial and error to find it by starting them up one by one.

Another thing could be just a general house-clean. Programs like CCleaner to remove all teh temp files, a good defragger and other such tools.
 
ok guys, spring cleaning is probably overdue. Thats my next thing to try me thinks. Ive tried the msconfig route, to no avail. Also tried closing all running tray icons and programmes before shutting down, but still took an age.
Ill let you know how it goes.

Thanks again :)
 
I had an issue similar to this. When I clicked shutdown, the hard drive would start thrashing for 2-5 mins, and then it would shutdown.

I just turned off a registry setting to clear the page file when shutting down. A quick google turned up:

It's not only start-up that you'd like to speed up; you can also make sure that your system shuts down faster. If shutting down XP takes what seems to be an inordinate amount of time, here are a couple of steps you can take to speed up the shutdown process:

* Don't have XP clear your paging file at shutdown. For security reasons, you can have XP clear your paging file (pagefile.sys) of its contents whenever you shut down. Your paging file is used to store temporary files and data, but when your system shuts down, information stays in the file. Some people prefer to have the paging file cleared at shutdown because sensitive information such as unencrypted passwords sometimes ends up in the file. However, clearing the paging file can slow shutdown times significantly, so if extreme security isn't a high priority, you might not want to clear it. To shut down XP without clearing your paging file, run the Registry Editor (click Start > Run, then type regedit in the Run box) and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

* Change the value of ClearPageFileAtShutdown to 0. Close the Registry, and restart your computer. Whenever you turn off XP from now on, the paging file won't be cleared, and you should be able to shut down more quickly.

Note: Please be careful when editing the Registry; you can do a lot of damage here. Don't change or delete anything unless you know exactly what it is.
Click to expand...

Hope that helps ;]
 
Oooh I remember that tweak from ages ago :D.

It is worth a try I suppose, but it may not be curing the problem, just hiding it.
 
ok, so i've tried it in safe mode and found it shut down quicker. However, I have also noticed that if i shut down/restart within say 5 minutes of booting up, I have no problems. If the computer has been on for a length of time, it then takes ages to shut down. Make sense?

i.e. the longer the computer is on, the longer it takes to shut down.

I've also tried the user hive clean up, no difference there though.
 
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