I have an older home built machine that won't shut down or restart on it's own. ie. going through windows shut down process. It will go to the shutting down screen and stay there. I have to restart it manually. The same is true if it goes into hibernate mode. I have hit restart manually to get it running again. I'd tell you more about the machine, but not sure what you need to know. It;s running on phoenix award bios, 3ghz chipset, 3 gigs ddr 400/3200 ram- and on windows 7- although this happened with xp, and vista as well. Im sure i haven't provided enough information about the machine to help someone help me, so please ask me any pertinent questions that will help you diagnose my problem. Thanks, David

Maybe some help: http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/shtdwnx...

If it's happening regardless of the OS, then it's hardware related. Did you build the machine yourself or have someone build it for you. The reason I've asked is to know how comfortable you are going inside the machine. Windows 7 News!

Well, I got the machine already built, but have upgraded it substantially, so I feel ok about tearing into it. The motherboard is 1865g, bus clock: 200mhz, bios is phoenix award- ltd 6.00 pg 04/25/2005 3.00 intel pentium 4, 16 kb primary memory cache, 1024 kb secondary cache- hyperthreaded (2) it had 2 512 mb cards of ddr400/3200- I installed 3 cards of 1 gig ddr400/3200 -sdram had (1) 320 gb hard drive, I installed an 1 tb hard drive as slave- both hard drives are ata Other than that I upgraded the vidio card from Nvidea geforce 5500, to ATI Radeon HD 3650 agp Im running 7 ultimate, but had the same trouble with vista and xp. I hope I provided enough info. if not, ask me and I'll try to find out what you need. Im no pc expert, just a parts changer. Dont know much about the motherboard except it is used for industrial purposes such atm machines and the like. I know it is upgradable to 4 gigs of ram. I would also like to find a pdf of the users guide to Phoenix Award Bios, if anyone knows where I could find that- I looked on manufacturerd site last night, but it was late so I may have looked at it 20 times and not seen it. Thanks for the help and the reply! David

Since this is not a Windows issue, you're better off asking for assistance on this issue within the "General Hardware" forum. For now, I would suggest tearing the machine apart and benchtesting the motherboard. You do that by taking the motherboard out of the machine & reconnecting the motherboard & other components on a non-conductive surface, like a cardboard piece & see if the problem persists. It is not unusual for the problem you are having to be caused by a short within the case or a faulty PSU. Windows 7 News!

The computer has an ATX power supply and motherboard. ? The problem here in my opinion looks to be the power supply for this PC. Old Power Supply doesn’t have the capability to restart the system automatically. Make sure that the PS on you system is an ATX.