Windows 7: Win 7 PC won't shut down--help!

Hello everyone. I need your help

PC is a Gateway FX series specs:
Windows 7 64-bit (upgrade CD from Vista)
Intel i7 950
GeForce GTX 285
8gb RAM
Avast! free home virus

The issue is that any time I play ANY game, when I try to shut down the computer, it stays at the "Shutting Down" phase forever and then after 15-20+ min, sometimes it re-starts itself.
Of note, is that when this happens and I manually shut the computer off, and turn it back on I get a "Windows has recovered from an unexpected shutdown" message. and the error ID is BlueScreen-something.

This does NOT occur when I use the PC for anything else such as browsing the internet. No matter what game it is, any time I play a game (not counting minesweeper, solitaire, etc), the computer will not shut down.

All drivers seem to be up to date. Any ideas on what could be causing this?

Thanks in advance. Figured I would try here before paying someone to fix it.

Pretty safe bet that there is a process running that won't play nice and shut down when you are trying to shut your computer down. You should be able to identify this, by running Task Manager after playing the game(s), prior to attempting a shut-down. You should be able to identify the offending process, by running Task Manager before running the game, and then after, and see what process is still running that previously was not.

weezheat,

Likely suspect is your video card driver.

Go to the manufacturer's website and fetch the latest video driver for your os.

Oh yes, to help you fill out your "system specs", following program is very useful.

SPECCY- System Information Tool
http://www.piriform.com/speccy

Operating System, CPU and Temp, Ram, Motherboard, Graphics, Hard Drives, Optical Drives, Audio, Peripherals, Network info.
Simply put—this is the best and it’s free!

First of all, thank you for your answers and suggestions.

Update since the post:

I did a complete system restore to the day I upgraded to Win 7.
I took a screenshot and then compared pre-game processes and after.
I noticed 2 things:
1- audio.dg program was not running after the game
2- There were two svchost.exe extra running after the game.

I ended the 2 extra and this didn't work since I tried shutting down the PC and it wouldn;t.

I then went to device manager and clicked on "update drivers" for the video card. Device manager said I had the latest drivers. If I go to the Nvidia website, the update I get is: NVIDIA DRIVERS 258.96 WHQL

I haven't downloaded that yet.

Ideas? thoughts?

Help!

Do the update from NVIDIA. It may not be available via Windows Update.

Thank you Petey.

Unfortunately, I installed the latest drivers directlyu from Nvidia and tried again with no luck, as the system wouldn't shut down.

Any other ideas?

Do me a favor and try ending those processes manually before shutting down next time, and let me know what happens. You can end a process by right clicking it on Task Manager, and clicking End Process or End Process Tree

Ok, so yesterday I tried ending all the processes under my username prior to shut down. I think I closed every one, except for explorer.exe and the task manager.

It still didn't shut off. Should I try uploading pictures or the dump file or something?

Thanks X1000 for all the help!

Here's the best way to post the dump files: This tut will get all the necessary files you need. You might also want to start a new thread in the Crashes-Debugging section so it gets more attention from BSOD experts.

http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-d...tructions.html

Done & done. Post is here

Hope this works