WinXP SP2 Hang at Shutdown

[Kobalt]

This is on a BRAND NEW install on the following configuration:

Athlon X2 4200+
2GB (4x512mb) GSkill
Chaintech VNF4 Ultra (Nforce 4 Ultra)
Radeon X300se
Windows XP Professional w/ SP2
500w 24pin atx 2.03 psu
2x Hitachi 80GB SATA II in RAID 1

Whenever I try to restart/shutdown windows, the system just hangs and will not turn off. It stays on the screen that says "Windows is Shutting down" but does not freeze, the mouse pointer can still be moved. The hard drives are idle and I cannot hear any disk accessing. I've tried changing the page file size (which is now at 1.5GB) and that does nothing...any ideas? Could it have to do with the raid configuration?

[Jupiler]

Maybe XP is trying to clear the page file at shutdown.
Check in the registry if it's enabled or disabled.

\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ System\ CurrentControlSet\ Control\ SessionManager\ Memory Management\

Look for a DWord called "ClearPageFileAtShutdown". If the value is 0 (zero), then it's disabled. 1 = Enabled.

[Kobalt]

Checked that already :) , but thanks for the quick reply. Remember this is a brand new install, so barely anything, if anything at all has been changed. Here are some updates:

I tried booting into safemode to see if it would shutdown properly, and it still does the same thing. Another thing I noticed was that the two hard drives are listed under the "Safely Remove Hardare" tray icon. Perhaps they are not being properly disconnected at shutdown which causes the system to idley hang. But anyways, why are they even listed there? Is it because they are SATA II drives and are hot-swappable? I'm going to look in the bios for any power options that might be causing the system to not turn off...



Update: I messed with every single power option in the bios and still the same results. I even tried running with just one stick of ram. I think it has to do with the drives being hotswapable...any way to disable this temporarily?

[Kobalt]

sighs...ive tried so many things. Uninstalled nvidia drivers...unplugged keyboard and mouse...clear cmos...taking out various hardware...all no go. Im about to reformat this thing

[nfm]

Woah, I have same exact problem with my DFI LanParty Nf4. Nodody seemed to have any similar issues with that board

In my situation, it's not Windows problem, it's problem with BIOS + RAM + MEMORY TABLES WITHIN BIOS

I was lucky, 510-2ModFix is the only BIOS that fixes my PC from that problem. What's different between 510-2ModFix and rest of dfi bioses is that it has modified mem tables, the're tighter than normal ones

Try restarting with one stick of ram or another pair of ram. I can only conclude that in my and yours situation RAM and memory tables don't get together

Anything else :stick:

[[XC] moddolicous]

Try some of these:
http://www.tweakxp.com/article37045.aspx
There only tweaks but maybe one of them got messed up while you installed.

[Kobalt]

I just reformated and still it WILL NOT RESTART. One thing to note, it wont even restart now outside of windows! In windows setup after copying files, it would not restart. After installation it would not restart! WHAT THE HELL!

I'll try some other ram and bios settings pertaining to ram.


Edit: Just tried 1 stick at 2.5-3-3-6 1T as opposed to 2.5-4-4-8 2T with 4 sticks. It still doesnt shut down/restart

[KoHaN69]

reinstall :p:

[twiggy]

I had that problem before on an Abit mobo. I had to enable USB mouse/KB support(thats even if your using a USB KB/mouse). Just a suggestion.:)

[Kobalt]

reinstall :p:


I just reformated


umm..ok



I will look into the keyboard/mouse thing

edit: usb keyboard is already enabled

What are some of these bios settings and what do they do?
Cpu, SATA, and PCIE Spread Spectrum
Under Memory Settings: Bottom of 32-bit IO (input in hex), Read preamble value (ns), async latency value (ns) S/W memory hole remappping, and MTRR maping mode.
Under Advanced CHipset Features: Err94 Enh.
Other settings in there are HT frequency (x1, x2, x3 etc), system bios cacheable, flash bios protection, and HT width.

This pretty much exhausts any bios settings...ive tried most if not all other settings...


I even put bh-5 in there last night.

[Kobalt]

bump...i could really use some help on this

[Kobalt]

The problem was isolated to the hard drives because it would boot fine and work with just one hard drive running (this is RAID 1).

So anyways...problem solved...i dont know what or why but it works so I could care less...so exhausting.