PC won't sleep or shut down, only restarts

March 18, 2005 9:56 PM

I've built a PC with a Shuttle AN35 mainboard (with Award BIOS) and it won't shut down or standby. When I shut down (through software) it goes through the motions of shutting down, but then instead of ultimately going black & quiet it just reboots. Same with attempts to make it standby - it just reboots. I have checked the connection of the PC case's PWON connector to the motherboard, diddled with Windows XP's power settings, and poked around in the BIOS a little but am not sure what to do. This sucks because when I ultimately have to shut it down to move it or something, I have to do it the ugly way: with the mechanical switch on the power supply. help!
posted by scarabic to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

This Knowledge Base Article may help.
posted by genial at 10:45 PM on March 18, 2005

Response by poster: Okay that definitely did something. Now when I shut down I get a blue error screen (not exactly BSOD). Must continue to fiddle.
posted by scarabic at 9:53 AM on March 19, 2005

Might want to look at your device manager for driver conflicts, maybe check to see that your drivers are xp compatiable. Take a look at the event viewer too (control panel > administrative tools > event viewer - the system and application logs) and see if any error reports are being generated, they might provide a clue as to what is going on.
posted by squeak at 12:24 PM on March 19, 2005

If you just built it there may be a problem with the memory, try taking a stick out or if you can swap it with some other kind that might work. I'm assuming after you changed the settings you are able to read the error screen in detail? If it's a specific "stop error" you might be able to find more information on it here.
posted by genial at 12:48 PM on March 19, 2005