Windows 7: Power still supplied to motherboard after Win7 shuts down

I hope this is in the right place; if not, sorry about that.

Over the last weekend I installed a new hard drive into my system, and on that drive installed Windows 7 Ultimate x64. Over the past week I have been tweaking my settings, resolving issues, and installing programs.

So far everything is working fine, except for the fact that when I shut down, there is still some power being supplied to my motherboard (NumLock indicator does not turn off, and if I open the case the power LED on the motherboard is illuminated). This does not happen when I shut down from Windows XP (I have a dual-boot configuration; XP is on my smaller hard drive).

Here are the things that I HAVE done:

1. I have gone into my BIOS and disabled all the relevant power management settings (as far as what devices can wake the system, etc.).

2. I have gone through my Windows 7 power management settings and disabled/changed all settings that seemed relevant.

3. I have gone through my device manager and made sure that, for all devices that have a power management tab in their properties, the check box that says something like "Allow the computer to turn off this device when shutting down" (or something like that) is selected. Yes, even for the firewire port. There are some items for which the check box is greyed out and cannot be selected (such as the keyboard).

Here are the only things that I think may have an impact that I have NOT done:

1. Installed the chipset drivers for my motherboard in Windows 7. I have not done this because: a) other than powering down, everything else works fine; and b) I am not sure which driver package I should install (due to the mixed northbridge and southbridge chipsets on my motherboard).



If anybody could help me out with this issue, I would be most appreciative. I have been doing some googling, but most other people seem to have resolved the issue by selecting that check box for their firewire port.

I'd rather not have to boot into XP just to shut down, and I'd rather not have to install drivers that may have potentially destabilizing effects on my system, if I can avoid it.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

. o O (The tl;dr crowd need not reply.)

As far as I know the power LED "on the motherboard" being on when the PC is shut down is normal. Both of my ASUS motherboards do that, it indicates that the power supply +5V AUX supply is active. The +5V AUX voltage is what is used to power up the system. It can also power the USB ports when the PC is off if your motherboard supports that function. My ASUS motherboards have jumpers to turn that function off. The motherboard power LED is there to warn you that the power supply is plugged in and its power switch is on. If you are talking about the power LED on your case my guess is Windows 7 is going into hibernate or sleep mode instead of shut down mode.

Hi Zig Justice,

As Alphanumeric said, the LED on the motherboard being on after Shut Down is completely normal. It's on all the time on My Dell system unless I switch off at the mains.

Nothing is out of the ordinary here. if the motherboard has power from the power supply, it will stay powered up to some extent. if you want to completely kill the power, you may have a power switch (NOT THE RED 115v/230v SWITCH) on the back of your power supply. otherwise you can always use the power strip switch. assuming your using a power strip.

Thank you for the replies.

This begs the question then, why doesn't the same phenomenon occur when I shut down from Windows XP? Since the only difference is the OS, I can only imagine that it must have something to do with the power management settings. (Perhaps my topic should have read "power supplied to keyboard" rather than "power supplied to motherboard".)

I know it's not a major issue, but it is baffling, especially considering other threads I've read indicated that by selecting that check box I mentioned (for various pieces of hardware, but most people seem to think the main culprit is the firewire port), the issue has been resolved for others.

I guess it's really more of a mental problem than a computer problem, then.
Guess I'll just have to stop worrying and love the bo... I mean, NumLock light.

. o O (Thanks again.)

you can check the bios to make sure there are no devices set to allow the computer to wake... windows may have changed something in the bios.

but this really isn't an issue if you ask me. you'll get used to it

Windows control panel , power settings, as far as I know, do not have any effect when Windows is shut down. They only come into play when windows is actually running. When Windows is shut down the motherboard and power supply are still partially powered up. It needs to be to respond to a power up signal from the case power supply button. The power supply has an auxiliary +5V power supply that is always on as long as the power supply is plugged in and its main power switch is on. On some motherboards you have the option to power up from other signals. I can power up my ASUS motherboards with a mouse click or by pressing a key on my keyboard. To do this I have to set a jumper on my motherboard that feeds the AUX +5V to the PS2 ports and USB ports and then change a BIOS setting. If I do that the caps lock led on my keyboard stays illuminated even when windows is shut down. Also if I have my MP3 player plugged in to a USB port it will charge even when Windows is shut down. If you read though the owners manual for your motherboard some of what I said may make sense.