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OK, today it seems to have sorted itself out. It shuts down and restarts as it should. Peculiar beasts sometimes!!

Hi Scott5,
You mentioned that you run CCleaner manually – in order to preserve any minidumps, you still have to untick the box I mentioned in my previous post, a good practice just in case. Also, if you use Microsoft Security Essentials, you need to untick the box under the Application tab, Windows, MS AntiMalware. Otherwise, it deletes your scan records. It’s a good sign you haven’t had any BSOD’s since the clean install. Personally, I always turn off Sleep and Hibernate and just start the computer when needed but, each of us has their own way of doing things and, of course, these functions should work flawlessly (should I say “in an ideal world”?). Good luck!!

Do you use CCleaner to run when Windows starts? If so, you have to untick the box under the Windows tab, System, Memory Dumps. Otherwise CCleaner will delete the minidumps. Or maybe other software you have that “cleans” the system on startup?

You need to explain the problem further. Basically, you’re saying that all drives are visible although I think you mean that C and D, etc, are not visible.

Are you running Windows 7? What are the mapped drives? Have you mistakenly “hidden” the drives? Are the visible in Disk Management (right-click My Computer, choose Manage)?

OK, problem solved!!!!! It was not a Microsoft update.
Because the clean boot procedure did not solve the problem yet booting into safe mode did, I went one step further with the clean boot. I turned off all services, including Microsoft services (msconfig won’t let you turn off 3 services that are required for Windows to boot). After I did that, shutdown took the normal amount of time. I then started fiddling with those services, turning on a few, then rebooting. During this, I did not connect to the Internet via my wired adapter, and I noticed that rebooting or shutting down took the normal time. However, at some point, I did connect the adapter and suddenly, rebooting or shutting down took a long time.

In any case, it turned out to be my wired network adapter. Normally, I use wireless but we’re staying somewhere else for Christmas and the router is a wired one only. I do however, keep all my drivers updated and the Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller was updated in the last few months. It is now version 7.48.823.2011 so, if anyone is having shutdown issues and this version of the Realtek driver is installed, it could be the culprit.

Thanks to everyone for trying to help with suggestions.

OK, a few things to report.
1. So far, I’ve done various AV/malware/spyware scans which haven’t helped.
2. If I boot into safe mode, shutdown happens as it should – takes just a few seconds.
3. If I do a clean boot as specified by Microsoft (and suggested by Jerry), shutdown still takes a long time.
4. I’ve examined various logs in Event Viewer and nothing has stood out.

The only thing I can conclude is that it is either a Microsoft service or a driver that is causing the problem. As I haven’t updated any drivers for a while, a Microsoft service seems to be the culprit. The next step is to look at Microsoft updates to see if any have been applied since the problem began.

Other suggestions/questions?????

I do use backup software – Acronis – I’ve been using it for years with no problems whatsoever. I also checked the logs that Jerry mentioned and there are no clues as to what might be causing the slow shutdown.
Yesterday, just on the off chance that I could have AV or malware problems, I ran a scan with both Malwarebytes and Super AntiSpyware, both of which found no problems.
I also booted into Safe Mode – curiously enough, the shutdown from Safe Mode took the normal amount of time. I conclude from that that one of the drivers may be causing the problem, but I haven’t updated any drivers since the problem started. Still, it’s a start but I’m not sure what to do next to narrow down the problem.

All,
I tried the clean boot procedure from Microsoft Answers and Jerry above however, that did not change the time it took to shutdown. I must admit this is very odd as it appears that there is no program or service that is causing the system to take a long time to shutdown.
Does anyone know of a monitoring program that will keep track of what is happening at shutdown?

Hi All,
Thanks for all the responses. To take your suggestions one by one – I have upgraded a few apps, namely PDF Creator (PDF24), IrfanView and DriverMax. My first thought was that one of those was responsible. I checked Task Manager and nothing is running that shouldn’t be there. No problems with AV or Malware, and I always shorten the kill apps timing. Also, nothing under Performance Issues. No USB devices were/are connected. I will go through the Microsoft Answers page when I have time and report back. Firefox is not causing the issue.

Dieten, Java was the one application on which this problem occurred most often but I’ve seen it on Office and a number of others. Sometimes uninstalling software, when you just want to update it, like Java, is a pain. The Cleanup utility is a handy tool to have in any case. I agree that an uninstaller like Revo is handier if you just want to uninstall software.

I used to encounter the “cannot access network location” message a lot on Vista, less so on Windows 7. No matter – the solution, if you are installing an updated version of the software, is to download Windows Install Cleanup utility. Install it and run it, and delete the offending application from the window. Your software will now install with no problem. To just uninstall an application is a little bit more involved. Run the cleanup utility and delete the software from the list. Then go to Program Files and delete the software from there. If you’re really ambitious, run a registry cleaner and delete the registry entries for that software.

OK, I found the problem!!!! Thanks to Tinto Tech – you got me thinking about the keyboard. I put in some search terms, such as “keyboard stuck on boot”, read a few forum messages, one of which said if a key is stuck in the down position, sometimes a continuous beep is heard.

So, I examined all my keys and discovered that one I NEVER use – the zero key on the right-hand keypad (controlled by Numlock) was stuck in the down position. I freed it with a small screwdriver and lo and behold – no more beeping!!!!!!!!!! Just goes to show, sometimes the most niggling problems have a simple solution. Unfortunately, I went and spent £70 on new memory and a GPU fan. However, lesson learned now!!!!

What kind of detail do you want for the clean install? I have now turned off boot-tome diagnostics since I can press the F8 key and boot. The hard-drive controller is set to AHCI; F8 normally allows boot into safe mode, but initially pressing it (when computer is turned on) does not bring up the safe mode screen – that only appears if I continue to press the key past initial boot loading. There is no hidden diagnostic partition.

Regarding possible keyboard issues, no BIOS option for keyboard settings (probably the simplest BIOS I have ever seen, in terms of options). The keyboard does function correctly on all keys after boot. However, it is an interesting possibility – I will go into Device Manager and uninstall the keyboard driver and see what happens, although that driver is not loaded until boot.
Thanks for all your ideas – I’ll continue to answer any questions and look at possible ideas/solutions from you guys. I really do appreciate it. There is a firm over here that uses Clevo motherboards for the laptops they supply (PC Specialists) – I think I may email them on the off chance that they’ll be kind enough to say whether they’ve ever encountered anything like it in the past with their customers. Although, considering I didn’t buy the laptop from them, they probably won’t even pay any attention to the email. But, stranger things have happened!!!!!

Well, I just updated the BIOS to the latest (I contacted Clevo to get it), and it has made no difference.

Strange thing is pressing F8 repeatedly when laptop starts prevents all the beeping, but then I get the post beep as though nothing is wrong!!

I think I’ll just have to live with it and put up with pressing F8 every time.

It would be very unusual in my experience for that to happen. Rock went into administration a couple of years ago, taken over by Stone Computers – they won’t even give me the benefit of their advice without my re-installing Vista, the original OS that came with the laptop!!!

I sure it is a hardware fault somewhere but once the machine boots, it runs perfectly.

I ran Memtest with absolutely no errors.

Do you think there might be someone else on here who has some ideas?