shutdown question

When shutting down a windows machine (98/98se,ME,2000,XP) and the machine requires you to physically press the on/off button to shut it down, after the "It's now safe to shut down the computer" what causes this. BIOS issue. I experience it mainly on older machines but I built a new machine for someone the other day and ran into this problem. OS was XP pro.

Andy

I think it's a problem related to the ACPI power options. Sometimes you may need to upate the bios in the mobo. You can check when you go to the device manger and checked the system devices and you'll find the microsoft ACPI-compliant system. If it is there then i think your system is ok and you can shutdown it by software. BTW way are you using a non atx power supply in the older computer? If that so your prob may ok for that but not for the new machine.

ATX powersupplies use soft power. When you press the on/off button, you're not really turning on or off the 120V to the PSU, you're closing a little sensor switch that tells the PSU to turn off the power. The mobo can also tell the PSU to switch off the power, and it is this feature that newer machines use to automatically turn themselves off when you shut down.

If the mobo dosen't support ACPI (I think that's what it is anyway ), the computer can't shut off. If it uses an AT PSU instead of ATX, it definatly dosen't support it, and can't turn off automatically.

JigPu

yea, AT PSUs use the click-in/click-out type buttons. To turn of an AT computer instantly, just push the button. To turn off an ATX computer, you usually have to hold in the power button for a few seconds.

Thanks for the replys/insite folks.

It's funny the machine I built the other day and installed XP on I physically have to shut the machine down. The same machine with 2000 it shuts down automatically. It has an ATX ps & MB is ACPI / APM compliant.

I also ran into this with an old gateway p II 300 that I still own to this day. With Win 98 or 98se or 2000 server installed the machine shuts down automatically but with 2000 pro it will not. It has an ATX ps & MB is ACPI / APM compliant.

So quess it is a combination OS, MB, and PS.

Andy