Windows ME shutdown problems
George McClain
ME won't shut down or restart from the start button. I get a black
screen with a blinking cursor. I have to reboot with the reset switch.
Anybody else have this and did you find a solution?
Thanks,
George
Jef Norton
Two possibilities:
. Have you downloaded the Windows Hard Drive IDE Cache Package from the Windows Update site? If not, it's the place to start.
. With the Hard Drive IDE Cache Package it may be necessary to increase the delay it adds to the shutdown so that Windows can successfully close down all the running tasks and flush the disk cache. In C:\Windows\INF\QFE\273017 you'll find a number of .reg files: Delay2, Delay4, Delay8 and Nodelay. The update installs the Delay2 registry entries by default, adding a two second delay to the shutdown. You can increase this delay to 4 or 8 seconds by double-clicking either Delay4.reg or Delay8.reg and responding that you wish to incorporate the changes into the system registry. Shutdown, restart and shutdown again and see if your problem is fixed (it may not be fixed on the first shutdown because registry changes are flushed to disk as part of the regular shutdown - so the old delay may be present the first time). If you need an even longer delay, you can run Regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion and change the CacheWriteDelay double word value to a greater number. Eight seconds is entered as decimal 8000 or hex 1F40, ten seconds as 10000 decimal and 2710 hex, etc.
My desktop computer shuts down fine with the four second delay every time. It occasionally would hang with the two second delay (blank screen with a blinking cursor). My notebook requires the eight seconds to reliably shut down every time.
Good luck and hope this helps.
Jef
"George McClain" <gdmc...@mediaone.net> wrote in message news:3B9CEAC7...@mediaone.net...
George McClain
Thanks for the response. Just tried that and it still doesn't shutdown.
I went up to 10 seconds in the registry. The only difference I see is
that instead of a black screen and blinking cursor after selecting
shutdown, it now just has a black screen. No blinking cursor. I also
checked my system settings under device manager and noticed I don't have
any reference to an APM setting. I have the ACPI enabled and have the
setting for that but no APM. Is this normal and could it have an effect
on the shutdown?
Thanks,
George
Homie
Homie
"George McClain" <gdmc...@mediaone.net> wrote in message
news:3B9D1844...@mediaone.net...
Jef Norton
You shouldn't have anything for APM in device manager with ACPI enabled under Windows ME.
Couple of thoughts:
. What video card are you running and are the drivers Windows ME compliant? I'm running a GeForce2 MX200 and didn't get good stability until I upgraded to the Nvidia 12.41 drivers (which I'm still running). From my reading, the next most common cause of the Windows ME shutdown problem is due to video drivers.
. In your BIOS, under Power Management Setup, do you have PM Control by APM enabled? Probably should set it to No with ACPI installed.
For additional clues, Microsoft MVP Jim Eshelman's site is an excellent reference for Windows shutdown problems. It's at www.aumha.org/a/shutdown.htm . Pay particular attention to his Windows ME page toward the top.
Jef
"George McClain" <gdmc...@mediaone.net> wrote in message news:3B9D1844...@mediaone.net...
Derek Ryan
One of my systems had the same problem. I cured it by booting up in "SAFE
MODE". When fully up, wait for ALL DISK ACTIVITY TO STOP. Then do a normal
RESTART and again wait for the disk activity to cease then RESTART again.
Del
"Jef Norton" <bird_janitor[at]ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:9njbj2$g7k$1...@slb1.atl.mindspring.net...
George McClain
Did the safe mode thing. It will restart and shutdown normally coming
out of safe mode. Anything else has the same problem. I did the thing
with msconfig and isolated the win.ini and system.ini and could do only
some of the static Vxd's. any attempt at isolating NDIS and a few
others gave me the BSOD at boot. I could always go into safe mode to
reset it but so far have not come up with any success in solving the
problem.
Thanks guys,
George
Jef Norton
O.K. - I'm officially stumped.
You never responded to my question regarding video card and drivers.
Perhaps this is where your problems lays?
Do note that in Safe Mode none of your startup files are processed and the
default drivers (including 640x480-16 color video).
Anyone else have any ideas?
Jef
"George McClain" <gdmc...@mediaone.net> wrote in message news:3B9D642B...@mediaone.net...
George McClain
I finally found the problem with the shutdown and restart. It is my
powered USB hub. When I narrowed it down to the USB, I started
isolating components on the hub and still had the problem until I
isolated the hub itself. I don't use the onboard USB because it has
given me so many problems and was very unstable. I have an Adaptec USB
version 2.0 addon card which was needed for its increased data transfer
rate as I use a USB hard drive for my backup medium. Everything else on
the card works fine. Just not the hub. I mean the hub works fine, it
just won't let Win ME shutdown correctly. The 3 files that are drivers
for the hub are usbhub.sys, usbccgp.sys, and ntkern.vxd. I have tried
other versions of these files and have the same result. The hub is USB
version 1.1 which is compatible with 2.0. Version 2.0 hubs are not out
yet, or at least I haven't found any, and Adaptec's driver does not yet
support 2.0 hubs. So I guess I will have to wait for the 2.0 hubs to
come out and try that. Any other suggestions on a fix? Thanks for your
help.
Jef Norton
Check the date and time on all three of the driver files. If any aren't 06/08/2000 5:00 p.m., you may be able to correct the problem by extracting the original Windows ME files from your installation cabs.
All the installation cabs are by default stored at c:\windows\options\cabs. Usbhub.sys and usbccgp.sys are stored in base2.cab. Ntkern.vxd is stored in win_20.cab. If you want to try to extract new copies, copy the ones you have currently to another location (in case you end up making matters worse you can put them back) and Start|Run|Msconfig (push the Extract File button).
Jef
"George McClain" <gdmc...@mediaone.net> wrote in message news:3B9E79B3...@mediaone.net...
George McClain
I checked all the file dates and they are correct. I even used Win 98
versions just to see what would happen and had the same problem. I
would guess it is a problem with windows but need to swap hubs to make
sure. This is the only powered hub I have. If it's not one thing it's
another. Thanks for all your suggestions.
Jef Norton
I'm still stumped.
However, I just paid a visit to Adaptec's site and noticed that they have a link on their main page dated 8/8/2001 indicating that they've released USB 2.0 drivers for all Windows versions.
The article is at http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/company/pressrelease.html?pressCat=%2fTechnology%2fUSB&prodkey=08082001a .
You might want to give their drivers a try. If you have System Restore enabled, you might want to take a checkpoint before installing any new drivers, again, just in case you have problems with the new drivers.
Jef
"George McClain" <gdmc...@mediaone.net> wrote in message news:3B9EB97D...@mediaone.net...
George McClain
Those are the drivers I'm using. As a matter of fact, they're the only
drivers available. They didn't include them with the USB card. Their
drivers seem to work fine as everything else hooked to the card works
and ME shutsdown fine as long as the powered hub drivers are disabled.
Jef Norton
That's interesting because the three files you mentioned before as being the installed drivers for your card are from the standard Windows ME distribution cabs and CD. Are you certain that you've actually got the Adaptec drivers installed? You might try to reinstall the driver - this time telling the installer the location of the drivers (the advanced option at the bottom of the hardware window) and then using the Have Disk button and browsing to the directory where you have the drivers downloaded.
Just a thought (and I am still stumped).
Jef
"George McClain" <gdmc...@mediaone.net> wrote in message news:3B9ED2F4...@mediaone.net...
George McClain
Let me clarify a little. The Adaptec driver is for the PCI to USB
Enhanced Host Adapter. That's the only driver that is Adaptec. The
other USB driver files are for the USB hub, not the Adaptec USB addon
card. These files are native Windows files as this hub support
capability is built in and no other drivers are supplied by the hub
manufacturers. So outside of changing out the hub, there is no other
option available that I am aware of. So even changing the hub would
still use the same Windows hub drivers.
Don't feel bad...I'm about as stumped as you can get.