How do I get my PC to shutting down (turn off)

There are a buncha problems that could show symptoms like that. With a little more detail, we might be able to focus in on what's goin' on with your machine and direct ya toward a possible solution or two.

For starters, what operatin' system are you runnin, and have you installed or removed any software or peripherals at some time near the onset of the problem?

I am using Windows XP.
I have not installed any peripherals recently, but can't recall exactly whether I installed or removed any software near the onset of the problem.
Strangely, the shutting down problem is intermittent ---- I cannot consistently replicate the problem, and have been monitoring this over the past week.
Any other clues or checks I can do?
Thanks for your help so far.

Here are a few ideas to start with.

In general, startup/shutdown problems often can be traced to audio and/or video issues; check to be certain your audio and video drivers are up to date.

See what happens if you eliminate all of your Startup programs, then re-enabling them one at a time between fairly lengthy sessions of use followed by reboot attempts. It very well could be a problem there.

If that doesn't help, seee what happens when you start from a Clean Boot. If you can shut down consistently without problems followin a clean boot, go back to the System Configuration Utility and re-enable Process System.ini File, Process WIn.ini File, and Load Startup one at a time, runnin' for a while and shuttin' down from time to time before addin' the next, to see if you can narrow in on the problem.

You might find this article helpful; Clean Boot Troubleshooting. My suggestion would be first to go with shuttin' off 3rd-party services first, then re-enablin' them one at a time to see if one of them is the problem.

Every once in a while a service hangs on shut down and Windows allows a grace period for a service to shut down on its own before killin'it. The time Windose will wait is in the system registry. You can change this setting to force Windows kill reluctant-to-quit services more quickly.

Start>Run - type (without the quotes) "regedit", click "OK". In the Registry Editor, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control. Click on the "Control" Folder. Select "Wait To Kill Service Timeout", right click on it and select "Modify". Set it to a value lower than the default 2000. I've found 200 works well for me.

Note - its wise to Backup the Registry before fiddlin' with it.


Other common problem areas for shutdown issues are ACPI and USB - we can get trouble-shootin' into those if you want to.