Slow shutdown (2-3 minutes)

[Michael000]

ASUS P8Z68-V LX
Intel i5
8GB Kingston DDR3
WD SATA6 and Seagate SATA1
Windows 7 Professional

Hi

My machine is taking a 2-3 minutes to shutdown (blue screen with windows logo saying shutting down with swirling circle to the left).

I have searched this forum for similar posts and have taken screen shots (see here) of the Task Manager processes running, the msconfig startup and the waittokillservicetimeout screen in the registry.

I have gone into the msconfig and disabled all services (made no difference).

Any ideas?

TIA

 

[wanchoo]

Please shut down after all the open programs have been closed and advise the time taken to shut down. Looking at the running processes a number of programs including IE seem to be running.

After this test we shall try the close a number of programs in start-up that appear unnecessary and retest.

 

[quickdraw2011]

Take a look at this tutorial. Maybe it will speed up shutdown time.
Shut Down -Speed Up

Check that you haven't got the paging (aka swap) file set to clear on shutdown. See Virtual Memory Paging File - Clear at Shutdown - Vista Forums

This Microsoft forum answer may help you isolate the problem:

Windows 7 is very slow to shutdown - Microsoft Answers

 

[Michael000]

Please shut down after all the open programs have been closed and advise the time taken to shut down. Looking at the running processes a number of programs including IE seem to be running.

After this test we shall try the close a number of programs in start-up that appear unnecessary and retest.

Hi,

Shut down all 'open programs' - by that do you mean:

1. End process in task manager of all programs running under my user name?
2. Disable all processes in msconfig startup?

Thanks

M

 

[Michael000]

Take a look at this tutorial. Maybe it will speed up shutdown time.
Shut Down -Speed Up

Check that you haven't got the paging (aka swap) file set to clear on shutdown. See Virtual Memory Paging File - Clear at Shutdown - Vista Forums

This Microsoft forum answer may help you isolate the problem:
Windows 7 is very slow to shutdown - Microsoft Answers

Hi

The first one talks about speeding it up from 12 seconds to 2 seconds, I'd be happy with 12 seconds as I currently close on 150 seconds.

The other two I am happy to try and I'm comfortable tinkering with the registry but before I do that I would like it to be a bit more targetted if possible?

Thanks

M

 

[wanchoo]

What I mean is close all the program windows open or minimized on the Desktop.

Please shut down after all the open programs have been closed and advise the time taken to shut down. Looking at the running processes a number of programs including IE seem to be running.

After this test we shall try the close a number of programs in start-up that appear unnecessary and retest.

Hi,

Shut down all 'open programs' - by that do you mean:

1. End process in task manager of all programs running under my user name?
2. Disable all processes in msconfig startup?

Thanks

M

 

[Michael000]

What I mean is close all the program windows open or minimized on the Desktop.

With all progams closed (apart from anything running in the background e.d. exploere.exe. and dwm.exe etc.) and all process disabled in the msconfig startup it takes about 120 to 150 seconds

 

[wanchoo]

Hello Michael,

Hardly shows any improvement. Suggest you read the tips at My Computer and Windows 7 Optimization Guide: Reduce Windows 7 Boot Time and Shut Down and try them out.

Amarnath Wanchoo

 

[Michael000]

Hi

Does anybody know the shutdown routine? I presume the system will go through a set routine of doing stuff before it switches off? Does it, for example check any hardware?

TIA

 

[Michael000]

OK - shutdown now comes in 12 seconds! What did I do?

I modified the clearpagefileatshutdown in the registry from 1 to 0.

It appears (correct me if I am wrong) that this command in the registry (for security reasons) deletes the information in the page file (virtual memory on the HDD).

I kinda like the idea of stuff being deleted from my virtual memory, so the question follows; could I have solved this problems by reducing the size of my virtual memory?

I have two HDD inside my box and the system reports that the size of my page file is 8103mb (I don't know if that is the same for both drives). I have 8GB of RAM so do I really need 8GB of virtual memory?

 

[cyclic]

It would have speeded things up but personally I don't see a need for emptying the page file.
Good call with the regedit.

 

[Michael000]

I'm back!

I shut down last night and it seems that at a point in time sometime during the day something reset the clearpagefileatshutdown in the registry from 0 back to 1 giving me the 2 minute shutdown again!

Of course I can modify it again back to zero and then spend some time trying to figure out what is resetting it to a default value but before I do that I'd like to talk about virtual memory.

I can recall years back when windows introduced this feature and the reasons why (limits on RAM size). Now that (with the 64bit OS) that limitation is removed and in my case I have and can see 8GB, what programs want or need VM and do they really need 8GB? Next question, I have two HDD in my box, does this 8GB VM allocation apply to both of them i.e. is it a physical allocation per drive or a logical allocation to the HDD?

TIA

 

[marsmimar]

This article helped me to understand the whys and wherefores of page files / virtual memory in Windows 7.

TweakHound - Tweaking Windows 7, Page 7

 

[alishathomaz]

Performing a Clean Boot:

Click Start > Run > type msconfig in the searchbox
Click msconfig in the search results
Click the General tab, and click Selective Startup
Under Selective Startup uncheck Load Startup items
Click the Services tab, check the Hide all Microsoft Services box, and then click Disable All
Click OK, and when you are prompted, click Restart.

If the problem does not return while your computer is in clean boot mode, a background program is likely causing interference. You can try to determine which background program is causing the problem while the computer is in clean boot mode.

Enable half of the Services items:

In this step, you are trying to isolate which background service is causing the interference with the program. Start by turning half of the services on and turning half off.

Click Start > Run > type msconfig in the searchbox
Click msconfig in the search results
Click the Services tab, check the Hide all Microsoft Services box, and then click to select half of the check boxes in the Services list, leaving the other half unchecked.
Click OK, and when you are prompted, click Restart.

Hope problem is resolved.

 

[gregrocker]

It's better to disable all except AV in msconfig>Startup, then after reboots enter msconfig>Services, check the box to Hide all MS Services, then do the same again. Check back that nothing sneaks back into either list. You now have a clean boot for best performance.

You can find clues to the ongoing problem in the logs and System resources using these troubleshooting steps.

If these or the paging file inquiry doesn't solve your problem you can use the tool the Pro's use to trace with certainty the cause of the Shutdown hang: by Gathering a Startup, Shutdown, Sleep, Hibernate, or Reboot Trace. If you need help interpreting the trace our expert Cluberti can be PM'd to read the uploaded zip file.