why so long to shut down?

[jammoboss]

im running windows xp with sp3, im guessing it could be to do with service pack 3?

my pc spec is

Asus p5q deluxe mb
intel core 2 extreme qx6850
ocz 4 gig ddr2 1066 ram
ocz game Xtreme 1010 watt psu
500 gig sata hitachi hard drive
nvidia 7200gt <--- only a temp card until i get money for a nvidia 280

It boots up pretty fast but shutting down is takeing almost 2 mins, when i had an athlon 3200xp basic spec it was about 15-20 seconds.

thanks

 

[little_pob]

Sounds like it could be having difficulty stopping processes.

There is a hack to reduce the time that XP waits before it forces a process to terminate on shut down. I don't know it off the top of my head, so going to have a quick google.

[edit]
Found the solution I was looking for. Its a registry hack so make sure you back up your registry before doing it...

Quoted as lifted almost word for word:

1. Open Start >> Run and type regedit and press enter
   
2. Now navigate to ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\’
   In this entry, you will see a registry key named WaitToKillAppTimeout .
   
   Double click on it and set its value to 1000 , this value is the time in milliseconds for which the windows waits before all the processes and services are closed.
   
   This way you have set it to 1 second.
   
   Not only this, there are some other registry settings set by default due to which Windows XP will prompt the user for input if there are one or more applications still not closed or not responding. This increases the shutdown time due to no response from the user.
   
   So, you should also change that registry key settings value.
   
3. Navigate to ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop’
   
   Double click on the registry key ‘AutoEndTasks.’ and set its value to 1
   
4. done, exit regedit and reboot.

Alternatively you can make a quick shutdown link on the desktop:

1. Right click on your desktop and select New >> Shortcut
   
2. copy the following command: %windir%\System32\shutdown.exe -s -f -t 00
   
3. Name your shortcut as instant shutdown
   
4. You can use this created shortcut for fast shutdown.

This will forcibly end all running tasks and shutdown instantly.

 

[karym6]

what other applications do you have running in the background?

When 4od first came out, I installed in on XP and found that it took ages for my machine to shutdown. After removing it the problem went away.

Whilst you may not have this installed on your machine, it is possible that there is something running on it that is causing it to pause for a while on shutdown. When did this first start happening?

 

[robc11]

Goto registry editor, Start>Run>type regedit.
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Look for the String AutoEndTasks and change from 0 to 1
Next look for HungAppTimeout string and change it to say 4000
Also look for WaitToKillAppTimeout and change to 1000

The HungApptimeout decides how long before windows decides that the application(s) have timed out. Also the waittokillapp timeout is the wait till windows will kill the apps that have time out. Something like that anyways lol. Have a play with the values if its too fast for the last two.

 

[karym6]

but, bear in mind that some apps do need a long time to wait on shutdown - especially if you are using some sort of connected service.

 

[robc11]

Yeah always take care when editing the registry, back it up first if in doubt, then you can just restore it if its starts playing up.

 

[jammoboss]

I tried all of those suggestions its timing is around 2 mins 5 sec before it switches off.

I have zonealarm security and Soundmax control pannel on, in the task bar

i tried outing everthing in msconfig for sartup programmes but its still taking the same length of time.