Computer Will not Shut Down

If you have a computer that will not shut down this is generally caused by an application or process that has locked or frozen.

Finding problem processes and applications
Even if you don’t run many applications there may still be around 60 processes running, and finding out which of these is causing the computer shutdown problem can be a major task.

One way is to open launch Windows task manager and then shutdown the computer, go to the process view and watch to see which processes do not close, of course many will be Windows operating system processes, but this should still give an idea of which processes are remaining open.

fixing a computer shutdown problem

When you find the process causing the problem you need to find out what it does and the application it’s attached to, a free application called process explorer will allow you to this.

Another way to problems when your computer will not shut down is to use Even Viewer, this can be launched by running eventvwr.exe from the Start menu, from here you can see the Application and System logs, and they have times by them so it’s easy to see what is going on and when events occur.

As we said above a computer shutdown problem is usually caused by an application, the specific reason for the problem though could be several things, this includes

• Corrupt files – File can become corrupt for many reasons, this includes viruses and hard drive read errors
• Incompatible with your operating system – Double check that the application causing the problem is fully compatible with your operating system, this is one of the biggest reasons a computer will not shut down properly.
• Hard disk errors – If your computer’s hard drive has problems and it is trying to save or open a file from a problem area it can cause a pc to freeze on shutdown.

Precautions to take
Run a disk cleanup every few weeks, this can also include defragmenting and running checkdisk over the hard drive (if you have a solid state hard drive do not defragment it, this can reduce the life of the drive and reduce its performance)

Set the Windows page file not to empty on shutdown, this can speed things up greatly as a large page file can take a while to clear down (never use this option on a shared computer, as the page file can still contain your data from the last Windows session)

For more on computer shutdown problem help and cleanup techniques discussed here use the site search

If you want your computer to boot up and power down quickly consider using hibernation and sleep modes.

computer adviser computer will not shut down article article