strange shutdown issue

[MotzTech]

I'm having a weird issue with a laptop that I took as a trade in. For some reason Windows simply will not power off the machine. Hardware diagnostics do not reveal any issues. The system starts and runs perfectly fine. When you issue the command to shut down the it goes through the normal process. The screen goes black and the hard drive stops but the system never shuts down. Attempting to restart has the same result. Running a Linux live CD presents no issue in shutting down or restarting.

I have tried to the following to no avail.

- Full hardware diagnostics (No issues)
- Swapped memory
- Swapped the hard drive
- Reloaded the OS (Tried 7 and 8)
- Fully updated both installations and installed all relevant drivers
- set PowerDownAfterShutdown to 1
- Disabled fast startup in 8
- Ran "bcdedit /set disabledynamictick yes" in 8

Some additional info
- System is able to sleep and restore from sleep fine in 8 (but not in 7)
- It's a Acer Aspire 5560 Laptop
- Both OS installations are 64bit as the system has 6GB of ram
- Issue presents itself even during Windows installation. When the system tries to reboot to continue, it just hangs.
- Event logs do not reveal anything. In fact they don't even show unexpected shutdown events. Which leads me to believe Windows is shutting down, but the hardware isn't.
- As I mentioned, a Linux live CD had no issues shutting down or restarting the system. Only Windows.
- Both drives have fresh OS installs, so no real chance of a virus infection.
- During operation the computer works fine, not problems or issues to speak of.
- I don't think it's a heat issue, fan runs strong and has a good flow. It does not matter how long the machine is on. You can turn it on and immediately try to turn it off and this happens.

I'm not really sure if this is much of an issue to be honest. I planned on giving this machine to my wife. Since it appears to be shutting down the hard drive, I suppose shutting down hard via the power button can't do to much damage. Still, it is annoying. Any insight would be appreciated.

 

[Moltuae]

Sounds like a motherboard driver issue. Did you install the chipset drivers from the manufacturer's site (rather than rely on MS drivers)?

 

[MotzTech]

Sounds like a motherboard driver issue. Did you install the chipset drivers from the manufacturer's site (rather than rely on MS drivers)?

Oddly the manufacturer site did not have any chipset drivers. I just went with the ones MS installed by default.

EDIT: I think the chipset is AMD, so I used their autodetect. Downloading a new driver now.

 

[MotzTech]

Updated chipset drivers via AMD website, issue still present.

 

[mr m]

Is it partitioned as MBR or GPT? I'd bet it's GPT. That laptop has an issue with GPT so set BIOS to legacy mode and reinstall win 7 or 8 to a MBR partition.

I had this problem a while back and found this work around on Google.

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

Have you tried updating the BIOS?

 

[Markverhyden]

Agreed about updating BIOS.

Also

1. Have you removed unneeded hardware like 802.11 card, opti drive, blue tooth?

2. Tried a bootable M$ disk like UBCD4WIN?

3. Reset BIOS to defaults.

 

[frase]

Maybe if you did this in the initial not going to help now..

Have you tried simply recovery mode via image?

F8 on startup
Select Repair
Select recover via image { if an image is available }and >>>

 

[MotzTech]

Is it partitioned as MBR or GPT? I'd bet it's GPT. That laptop has an issue with GPT so set BIOS to legacy mode and reinstall win 7 or 8 to a MBR partition.

I had this problem a while back and found this work around on Google.

This is a pre windows 8 machine and from what I can tell does not use GPT

Have you tried updating the BIOS?

Yes, it was already up to date but I flashed it anyways, no change.

Agreed about updating BIOS.

Also

1. Have you removed unneeded hardware like 802.11 card, opti drive, blue tooth?

2. Tried a bootable M$ disk like UBCD4WIN?

3. Reset BIOS to defaults.

1. Yes
2. Issue is not present in windows XP or windows 8 boot discs
3. Yes

Maybe if you did this in the initial not going to help now..

Have you tried simply recovery mode via image?

F8 on startup
Select Repair
Select recover via image { if an image is available }and >>>

These are fresh installs from DVD. There is no image available as the original drive crashed quite badly. I have reloaded multiple times, both Win 7 and 8.


Maybe I'm just unlucky enough to have two hard drives with issues. It's the only thing that makes sense at this point. If it was hardware issue with anything else it would happen on the live discs as well.

 

[Bootman 650]

Had a similar issue with a Shuttle not so long ago - is there a power management driver for that particular model?

What about your power settings for your Ethernet/Firewire etc controllers? "Allow this device to wake the computer"

 

[MotzTech]

I just went back and looked again. It does look like this system has secure boot but there is no way to disable it...wtf?

Anyone run into that?

 

[MotzTech]

Some additional info

Bios is "phoenix securecore tiano"

It does not have any option to disable secure boot or UEFI. I'm running the latest version available from acer.

 

[MotzTech]

So I pulled the drive out, wiped it clean and formatted with with one giant NTFS partition and set it up as MBR. It tried installing windows but it said it could not install on a MBR drive since the system has UEFI enabled. Just out of desperation I tried it on my other drive and it works. The disk is using MBR and Windows 8 installed fine and now shuts down correctly! So it looks like that was the culprit after all. Now if it just keeps working we will be good to go.

Rep added for relevant posts, thanks!