WinXP oddity when shutting down
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One of our machines has recently (04-Nov) begun to misbehave when shutting down. (PIII-700MHz, 512MB RAM, XP SP2) When shut down, instead of switching off, it now stalls with a blank desktop background, and a mouse pointer. The mouse pointer can be moved, but hitting C-A-D does nothing (nor does caps/num lock), and if the machine is powered down by pressing the button on the case (not the screen - there are none), it does switch off. When booting up again, there are no complaints about not shutting down properly etc. What's likely to cause this? My guess is that something is not closing cleanly, but I'm at a loss to know what this would be. Anyone any clues? It has Symantec AV Small Business edition installed, and no, there are no recent configuration changes that we're aware of.
Steve S Developer for hire
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One of our machines has recently (04-Nov) begun to misbehave when shutting down. (PIII-700MHz, 512MB RAM, XP SP2) When shut down, instead of switching off, it now stalls with a blank desktop background, and a mouse pointer. The mouse pointer can be moved, but hitting C-A-D does nothing (nor does caps/num lock), and if the machine is powered down by pressing the button on the case (not the screen - there are none), it does switch off. When booting up again, there are no complaints about not shutting down properly etc. What's likely to cause this? My guess is that something is not closing cleanly, but I'm at a loss to know what this would be. Anyone any clues? It has Symantec AV Small Business edition installed, and no, there are no recent configuration changes that we're aware of.
Steve S Developer for hire
Usually a badly behaving device driver can often cause this, but ... Check that Symantec hasn't got any issues with your device drivers you have installed, or any programs you have installed. For instance, current version of AVG complains that an older version of Roxio Easy CD/DVD may not be fully compatible and should be updated. This kind of thing could easy be a reason for your PC behaving as is.
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Usually a badly behaving device driver can often cause this, but ... Check that Symantec hasn't got any issues with your device drivers you have installed, or any programs you have installed. For instance, current version of AVG complains that an older version of Roxio Easy CD/DVD may not be fully compatible and should be updated. This kind of thing could easy be a reason for your PC behaving as is.
Like I say, nothing changed (except Symantec virus definition file update). However, having managed to look in the system event logs, there are startup errors relating to ACPI. On further reading, this could be battery failure on the motherboard, which might also cause issues when shutting down. I'll check this out when I'm actually in the same office. I'm around 120 miles away during the week, which makes this kind of sysadmin difficult :)
Steve S Developer for hire