comp lock up

[OUTLAWS Jag]

can anyone please help me latley my computer has been locking up either in games or just surfing the net.... but the biggest problem is it just wont shut down it goes through the steps of shutting down all the lights turn off but it just keeps running and every time I have to shut it down manually.... I have done scan disk and a defrag and nothing seems to work....someone told me I need to format my HD and wipe everything clean and then it should be all set. I am trying to avoid this so if there are any sugestions that would be great....
:WTF: :bandhead:

[OUTLAWS WHOCARES]

What os are you running.
Please describe your system specs.

[OUTLAWS Jag]

ME
P3
1.0 ghz
512mb ram
radeon7500

I know its a little older but until now have had no problems but need to get it running right so me and the wife can play at trhe same time when I get the new one in a month its always a rush to see who get the comp first to play SSSE. :bandhead:

[OUTLAWS WHOCARES]

Ok I have me as well.
My advice would be to run Nortons System Doctor and see what it finds.
Also remove the cover from your pc and clean the dustbunnies out.
I have noticed that when I pc is loaded with dust it will lock up and crash.

[OUTLAWS The Machine]

Hmmm. Could be heat. Or RAM. Those would be the 2 most likely posibilites if it is not software related. When did this start? Do you have more than 1 stick of RAM? If so use 1 at a time.

[OUTLAWS Behind You?]

I've seen this, "will not shutdown" hang before with Win98 and ME. Windows XP doesn't seem to get this problem. I've always had to re-install windows to fix it. You might try other approaches before this, but in my experience, they turn out to be a waste of time and it's quicker to just re-install. You can re-install over your existing system without losing any existing installed programs. You might have to re-install some device drivers afterward, usually, video and/or sound. So make sure you have all of your install CDs or lastest drivers saved somewhere first. And the part I hate most, you will have to go back to Windows Update and re-apply all the updates again. Thank God for broadband. Hope you have it.

Now don't get me wrong, I believe the problem is probably some registry entry causing something to hang and not finish so that shutdown can continue. The problem is find the one registry entry to delete. The install process does a lot of cleanup and fixes a lot of different things.

As I was typing I thought of one other quick and dirty thing you can try. Boot into safe mode. Let the system start completely, i.e. disk activity stops for a while. Then shutdown and re-boot back into normal mode. Safe mode does some cleanup and may do the trick. To get into safe mode, hold the Ctrl key down after your bios initializes and before it goes to boot from your hard drive. If you have your floppy drive as the first boot device and your hard drive as the second, you can start holding Ctrl down when bios attempts to boot from your floppy, i.e. floppy drive's light comes on and make noise.

Hope ths helps and let us know what you try and the results. As Red Green would say, "I'm pulling for you. We're all in this together." :wootrock: :jammin:

[Dissectional]

I have found that the will not shut down problem is sometimes caused by network/device driver problems also. Behind You has the best idea. It would be quicker to reinstall the OS, then it would to go through a HUGE troubleshooting fiasco to find the problem.

[Death-Dude]

As you can see, there are a lot of things that can cause it, and these guys have given you some good suggestions. I'm not an ME fan, I'd rather go with 98SE than that, but I'd like to know what all is running on your system commonly. Go to "Run", hit "msconfig" (no "quotes") and click on the start-up tab, all those checked items are running on your system to start-up. Get rid of RealPlayer, Quik-time tasks, and as much as you can - LEAVE Explorer, systray, your AV program, like Norton AV. Also, you can re-install DirectX with impunity - if that's not the problem, you won't hurt anything, and some of the older versions have had troubles. Do blow out the dust-pigs you're growing in there. There was also a 98 shutdown problem. Here MS KB item (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q273746)
Is a discussion of ME shutdown troubles, get the straight poop from Bill.


SUMMARY
This article describes troubleshooting steps that may help you solve problems that occur when you shut down Windows Millennium Edition (Me). This information is also available in the Windows Me Startup and Shutdown Troubleshooting Wizard. Microsoft recommends using this wizard, but this text-based article is available for your convenience. The Windows Me Startup and Shutdown Troubleshooting Wizard is located in the Help and Support Center in Windows Me or at the following Microsoft Web site:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/windows/tshoot/

[OUTLAWS The Machine]

Sure fix - Format c:\u ........ install WindowsXP. ;)

[OUTLAWS Jag]

Thanks guys I am going to try to clean everything and then see what that does... :thumbs: . this is what i have running at "start up"

system tray
loadQM
task monitor
PDPserver
AtiPTA
NAV agent
script blocking
load power profile
Scheduling Agent
SSDPSRV
State manager

is there anything else I should be running or is this too much and I should take some off :bandhead: :WTF: