7 replies to this topic

[blindeye]

I just performed a complete reformat on my Dell E1505 laptop. I installed my OS and drivers from disks provided by the manufacturer. No problems yet.
Then I downloaded the rest of my drivers from Dell.com, after I did that my computer won't shut down anymore.

When I start the shutdown sequence all programs turn off, the start bar goes away, along with icons and everything on my desktop. Just my wallpaper is left and thats where it stays.
I still have control over my mouse, but there is nothing running. I can't pull up the task manager or any type of application. My computer has stayed this way for upward of an hour. Its frozen here.

Any advice?

[Derock]

I just performed a complete reformat on my Dell E1505 laptop. I installed my OS and drivers from disks provided by the manufacturer. No problems yet.
Then I downloaded the rest of my drivers from Dell.com, after I did that my computer won't shut down anymore.

When I start the shutdown sequence all programs turn off, the start bar goes away, along with icons and everything on my desktop. Just my wallpaper is left and thats where it stays.
I still have control over my mouse, but there is nothing running. I can't pull up the task manager or any type of application. My computer has stayed this way for upward of an hour. Its frozen here.

Any advice?

Push and hold the power button. It will automatically shuts off the computer. And do a disk cleanup when you restart the computer just in case.

[True]

Have you tried taking out the battery? The computer should turn off if there is no power source.

[Sora no Kitsune]

Push and hold the power button. It will automatically shuts off the computer. And do a disk cleanup when you restart the computer just in case.

That what i do. Shut off by holding power button, turn back on, fix any problems, then try and shut off regularly. That should do the trick.

[blindeye]

Thanks for the advice. However, I can still manually turn my computer off. The problem is that it won't shut down properly.

I called Dell and they didn't know what to do, so they connected me to some service that I would have to pay for. Forget that.

I disabled all the unnecessary programs at startup (gtalk, firefoxpreloader, etc...) and the problem still exists.
But when I started my computer up in safe mode, it restarted properly. (I don't know what this result means. If you do, please explain.)

Right now I believe the problem is with the drivers I downloaded from Dell, because my problems started soon after. I'm going to uninstall each driver and restart after each one until I can resolve my problem. I'm also going to uninstall each program I installed soon after and see the results.

EDIT: heh heh.... Uninstalling drivers is scarier than I thought... I might not do that, but we'll see. If you have any advice on how to do this I'll gladly take it.

Edited by blindeye, 10 April 2009 - 05:03 AM.

[JoHamSandwich]

try doing a system restore. go back to a date before you installed your drivers from dell.

[blindeye]

RAWR!

I did it! =D

Ok this is how it went down:

My hypothesis was that the problem was with the drivers I installed from Dell.
I first tried to narrow down which driver was faulty by throwing them into the recycle bin to hopefully disable them. Turns out that does absolutely nothing.

Next I went to Run and typed in msconfig to access my System Configuration Utility. I did a diagnostic startup and my shutdown process worked fine. Then I proceeded to do a selective startup. I started up with SYSTEM.INI files, then added WIN.INI files, then System Service files. I found that the problem lied within System Services, which happens to have the biggest list of programs, too many to try each one. I decided to start up the first half of the list, my computer worked fine. Then I enabled all services created by Microsoft, computer works fine. Next I enabled all services created by known corporations, computer works fine. All I was left with was services created by unknown manufacturers. One of these drivers, Dell Wireless WLAN Tray Service, had been bugging me ever since I installed it. So I decided to enable that driver, the computer won't shut down anymore. Target identified! =D

I decided to do some research regarding Dell Wireless WLAN Tray Service and found that others have had problems with it too.
http://forums.techgu...s-problems.html
I found out how to disable the program on the above thread. I would like to thank Shahhere from there for the info.
I entered services.msc into Run and found the driver. I right clicked the driver for properties and and changed the startup type to manual as recommended in the thread.
I put my computer's startup back to normal and now everything works fine.

Problem solved!

[Smiter]

Nice work! I'm sure others will find your troubleshooting process very useful.

Closing thread.