Computer Problem

[Things]

Sorry if this is hijacking your thread Simon, though while all the computer guru's are here, I have a question I'd like to ask.

My computer was built from mostly 2nd hand parts, apart from some things like the hard drive and RAM. I haven't really had this problem until a few weeks ago, however.

I am running Windows 7 SP1

Sometimes, when you request a shutdown, it'll log everything off, and get to the screen where it'll say "Shutting down", however, it'll just sit there until you turn the power off manually.

That is one issue, irregardless of that, there is another problem I encounter every time I turn my computer on (Which isn't often, luckily, it's always left on).

After turning the computer on, it heads to the POST screen, however, just before memory testing, it'll just sit there and do nothing. If you restart it again, it'll go a little further, but still won't boot properly. The only way I have found to fix it, is to short the clear_CMOS header (I've even added a button to it now, so I can reset it easily).

Since software isn't really involved during POST, it would point to some part of my hardware on it's way out I would think.

However, once the computer has booted properly, everything functions fine.

 

[BShanahan14rulz]

You might check and see if there are any bios updates for your motherboard. However, I don't think that would have anything to do with the hang at Shutting Down.

 

[Pontiacg5]

Sorry if this is hijacking your thread Simon, though while all the computer guru's are here, I have a question I'd like to ask.

My computer was built from mostly 2nd hand parts, apart from some things like the hard drive and RAM. I haven't really had this problem until a few weeks ago, however.

I am running Windows 7 SP1

Sometimes, when you request a shutdown, it'll log everything off, and get to the screen where it'll say "Shutting down", however, it'll just sit there until you turn the power off manually.

That is one issue, irregardless of that, there is another problem I encounter every time I turn my computer on (Which isn't often, luckily, it's always left on).

After turning the computer on, it heads to the POST screen, however, just before memory testing, it'll just sit there and do nothing. If you restart it again, it'll go a little further, but still won't boot properly. The only way I have found to fix it, is to short the clear_CMOS header (I've even added a button to it now, so I can reset it easily).

Since software isn't really involved during POST, it would point to some part of my hardware on it's way out I would think.

However, once the computer has booted properly, everything functions fine.

I would think that if it only boots with the CMOS reset jumper shorted that you have some incorrect settings in the BIOS. You might look to see if it is automatically detecting settings with bad memory timings or something similar. You might see if turning off quick boot (partial memory test instead of full) fixes the problem as well. Running memtest probably wouldn't be a bad idea either.

As far as it hanging on shutdown, you might check your event viewer to see if there are any timeout errors. Sometimes software can lock up on shutdown and windows will just wait for a finished response from the hung software which usually never comes. You might check to see if you have windows configured to clear the page file on shutdown as well, sometimes that can take a very long time. If your on a secure computer than not clearing the file will make shutdowns faster, usually lots faster. If that doesn't fix the problem you might try disabling boot up programs one at a time until the thing shuts off, I would go into MSconfig and select diagnostic startup only to make sure it is something other than what windows needs to run causing the problem first though.

I still believe Simon's issue is a software problem. The CMOS battery doesn't matter once the computer is running, it just stores BIOS settings when power is off. If an IDE/SATA controller was going bad the problem would appear in safe mode as well, the same with RAM issues. A clean copy of windows won't do much good if you immediately reinstall the bad drivers or P&P hardware as well, so unless we know exactly what he did after the reinstall it could very well be the problem.