Restart/Shutdown Problems

[conductor]

Hi All,

When I try to restart or shutdown my Gateway laptop computer it hangs at the shutting Down stage for about 10-15 minutes then gives me a blue screen stating that windows could not shut down properly possibly due to a driver or software malfunction. Consequently I have to do a hard shutdown every time or wait for the somewhat lengthy blue screen message to run it's course, which unfortunately doesn't stay on the screen long enough to read in it's entirety nor does it present an error code . This is a fairly recent development that I've tried troubleshooting myself but to no avail. This never happened prior to installing Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit OS. Any suggestions/fixes on why and how would be greatly appreciated.

TIA
conductor

 

[SYL\X/3K]

run a registry scan and remove any invalid entries , id suggest Tune up Utlilities 07

 

[conductor]

Thanks SYL\X/3K

I'll give it a try.

 

[conductor]

I downloaded and ran the Tune up Utlilities 07 program (good program by the way), unfortunately it did not solve the problem. When I rebooted I got the same hang-up and blue screen message results. I did however make a perfunctory mental note of the first two lines of the message which may provide a clue as to what's causing this problem.

WINDOWS DETECTED SHUTDOWN TO PROTECT COMPUTER

DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE

Any ideas????

 

[Grievearz]

Sounds like a windows driver is corrupted. I'd do a full back-up and then a repair install of your windows install. Seeing as how it's a dell laptop try using their restore CDs to see if you can do a repair function. If not you might do best to just back-up your files and do a clean install.

I could be wrong, but a clean install should fix any issues regardless

 

[conductor]

Thanks for your imput Grievearz

Actually it's a Gateway laptop, none the less I agree with you and believe a clean install of the OS may be the only way to solve this problem although I was hoping I could avoid taking that drastic of a route. oh well, so be it....

 

[Apokalipse]

Thanks for your imput Grievearz

Actually it's a Gateway laptop, none the less I agree with you and believe a clean install of the OS may be the only way to solve this problem although I was hoping I could avoid taking that drastic of a route. oh well, so be it....

you don't have to completely reinstall, just do a repair-install. It keeps your files and settings, but it replaces the core OS files, and uses default drivers.

Once you boot from a standard install CD, it should be [enter], [F8], [R] (when it prompts you for the options)

 

[conductor]

Thanks Apokalipse

That would save a lot of time but I think I may do a clean install anyways, I just noticed that the used space on my c drive is 61gb, which seems to me to be far to high seeing as how I've only owned this laptop since May 2007 and only installed the Vista OS in July. In my estimation it should be about 1/3 of that. I could see this much space being used if I were a gamer with lots of games installed but that's not the case. Currently my two largest file folders contain a total of 13.9gb

 

[SYL\X/3K]

Troubleshooting a Stop 0x9F Error in Windows XP
Troubleshooting STOP 0x9F Error Messages in Windows

my guess is anti-virus or firewall causing this

 

[Grievearz]

If you bought an upgrade copy of Vista retail it's going to give you some trouble doing a clean install but luckily there is a work around. I just went through all of this crap and trust me this will save you a lot of time. Boot from the Vista CD and don't enter your CD key. This will allow you to do a clean install to your hard drive. Complete the install and boot the computer into vista, now insert the Vista CD again and it will autoplay another screen. Select upgrade install and then enter your CD key. This allows a clean install with an upgrade copy. After this you'll have to activate it by phone, just tell them it's only running on that computer and you should be fine.