UESP Forums

Oh sage UESP tech gurus, I need your help!

My beloved laptop (running 64 bit professional Windows 7), which has never had any problems, now refuses to shut down or restart, on top of being very laggy and refusing to open things like the Task Manager. I tried to do a clean boot via msconfig, but it alerted me that it cannot restart the computer, either. I have no idea what to do short of wiping the thing, but thought I would try to avoid it, if possible. Does anyone have any ideas? It says it has no viruses and I cleaned it up with CCleaner and all, but clearly something is crashing behind the scenes.

The laptop itself does not do any heavy lifting: I use it for internet searches and Microsoft Office and Adobe applications, and not really much else. The only thing that happened right before this occurred was that I let my better half use it...which just goes to show that you should never share your electronics.

If holding the power button doesn't work, you can always just take the battery out. That usually helps me.

Well, removing the power source will probably do the trick, but I was looking for a more long term solution.

For clarification, even if I tell it the sleep/hibernate or hold the power button, it simply idles until it runs out of power. It really refuses to turn off at all, for whatever reason.

Holding the power button for several seconds (5 or so) should shut the computer off no matter what. If that isn't happening then something may be wrong with the motherboard or power supply.

Try opening the Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and ending the program Windows Explorer, then try shutting down from the Task Manager.

As MM said, it sounds like a motherboard or powersupply problem. Run a scan to see if something nasty has infected your laptop and has something that prevents it from shutting down.

She already said that it was clean, TLD.

I can't get the Task Manager to open, as I said in my OP. I did hold down the power button and got prompted with the "windows did not shut down normally" message, but I'm going to try and restart in safemode to see if I can do it there. The laptop is two years old, so I suppose a power supply issue is possible. It has served so faithfully I'd be sad to find out that's the case.

Also, I have subscription antivirus, and it claims the computer is clean, but I'll try to check again.

Edit: I was able to shut down in safe mode, if that means anything.

Sounds like an application or process is keeping the laptop from shutting down as well as open the Task Manager. It sounds like a virus to me.

http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials

Go there and download that if you can. It's a free anti-virus made by Microsoft. Try running it (or your own anti-virus if you can't get it to download) while in Safe Mode and see what happens.

Yeah, now that I managed to get back into Windows on a restart, I'm running my antivirus to see if it detects something new. I did manage to get the Task Manager up now and I didn't see anything too suspicious, but we'll see what the antivirus says!

Edit: No viruses. I'm going to go back into msconfig and enable my processes one by one and see if that changes anything. Maybe it's one of those, or maybe it's the motherboard/power supply like you guys suggest. Thanks for the help! I'll let you know what I find.

Edit Edit: I seem to have somehow fixed it, though I have no idea how. Thanks for the help, everyone!

I had similar kind of problems with my desktop. I installed an antivirus software, and it used practically all of my CPU power, so my CPU was running at almost 100% almost all the time. Somehow the program seemed to lock the whole system, thus making normal shutdown or restart impossible. Uninstalling it solved the problem.

Checking program CPU usage might not be the worst of ideas? But anyway, we quite clearly meet the common phenomenon in IT: It could be practically anything.

Best of all to everyone.

Oye, yes - there are so many unexpected joys in the world of things-that-want-to-kill-my-computer!

There wasn't anything exciting in my task manager, but I did back things up. I'm guessing that when my better half borrowed my computer, he probably enabled something that managed to take over the laptop. I backed things up and I'll have to keep an eye on it, but so far it seems to be shutting down normally after all of that, so it's at least a temporary success.

I had a similar problem, and it turns out a virus called "MagniPic" was making my computer super laggy and causing it to not open anything. I had to restore the computer to factory settings.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is one of the basic methods, I missed to mention it too: restore point. Unnecessary to mention it now, concerning your present / past problem, but it tends to work quite well. In Windows 7 itself, as well as in Safe Mode, you can simply write "restore" in the search window of Start, then pick System Restore. It'll tell you options, and what programs will be affected. But it's a good method to get rid of latter time additions. With all its flaws, Windows is pretty good with keeping record of what has happened - to understand and correctly interpret what those records mean is, lightly put, another matter.

With courtesy to AddictedtoMorrowind who mentioned the word "restore". Cheerio.

I'll have to try a system restore. I back it up pretty regularly so I have a few to choose from.

This morning it gave me a random Blue Screen of Death, and it was okay on a reset. Guess I have to see if a restore solves anything, but sounds like maybe my laptop is starting to feel its age.

You could try running "cmd" and then type "shutdown -s" it is bound to restart then.
DOS <3

Windows, with default settings, creates so-called dump files in cases of BSOD. They should be found in C:\Windows\Minidump. If the blue screen is a one time occurrence, ignore it. I've had my share of blue screens, they usually disappear after some [mainly Microsoft] update. Still, you might want to post the .dmp here?

Another thing is, Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Administrative Tools\Event Viewer gives tons of info.

As far as I understand, it's not really an issue of getting your computer started, but an issue of getting your computer to work properly.

I'm pretty ignorant about BSODs, personally. If you get them all the time, especially if you get them in midst of a program, a rather thorough tool to use could be http://windows7forums.com/blue-screen-d ... oblem.html

It picks practically all of the problems concerned.

Do note, I'm not Captain Jack. I'm the unsinkable ship that finally sank...