Every Shutdown now triggers a restart

I meant internal but I see OP's spec is of a laptop, so scratch that one. Lets see how Linux will behave.

Noel, I was thinking of removing the front panel connectors from the motherboard, and then short circuit the power on pins.

Okay, I downloaded Linux Mint to my flash drive and selected Shutdown and was waiting for the restart per usual so I could choose the Flash BUT it stayed Shutdown! Does this make sense to you? So I waited a few minutes and restarted and it all looks normal. So, I tried the Shutdown again and NO restart. Hoping it is fixed but can't understand how.
Thank you all for such good suggestions and help!

Heh, no idea what happened, but create a System Restore point now :) System Restore
Also if you can, image with Macrium free (or your paid app if you have one) - Imaging with free Macrium

Good idea about the restore point! thanks.
Image with Macrium free?

Restore points have saved a lot of trouble but they can get deleted and lost due to many reasons. Imaging is much better in terms of recovery and usually faster than a System Restore too. With imaging (image to another drive) if your HDD dies, you can be up and running in a matter of minutes whereas System Restore would be totally useless.

Sounds good! Will do. Thank you!

Here is the situation, when the flash drive was in my PC shuts down without the restart. Tonight when I ejected that usb drive and shutdown the old familiar restart happened again. ugh.

Did you image System Reserved (if there is one) and C partitions yet? Maybe we should try some afterwards.

Meanwhile set Auto start off - My Computer Reboots When I tell It to Shut Down | PCWorld

(I guess someone else suggested this already?)