shutdown but busy light keeps blinking

my mother inlaw has a computer with windows xp. she uses the newest ie version. when she goes to shut down her computer the power light goes off but the busy light blinks and makes a clicking noise. ive been having her turn off the power strip its plugged into after she shuts down and the blinking starts. if she leaves it be the blinking will stop after about 3-4 hours or so.

i checked for spyware, viruses, malware, worms, everything i could think of. used adaware and ewido and this program she has called avg. also ran the newest stinger. a few cookies was all it found. i ran msconfig and checked to see what was running on start up. didnt find anything that shouldnt have been running. i dont know what else to do.

why would her computer be acting like this? is it a hardware problem or a software problem? i didnt know so i posted it here figuring if its the other it will be moved. any idea, any help, i would extremely thankful.

 

Hi LK,

Maybe more info is needed.

Does it show the "Windows is shutting down" box? Does it show the "Windows is saving your settings" box? Does it seem to quickly go to a blank screen, say, compared to your computer?

Do a start-up. When you get to logon, do Ctrl+Alt+Del and select Shutdown. Does it shutdown correctly? This should identify the problem as OS or hardware. It could still be a problem with the way hardware is being handled in Windows.

Check if there are any problems listed in Device Manager.

I think it may be that Windows cannot save the settings for a program or the hardware that it runs (you mention IE, maybe the it's the internet connection...does it shutdown correctly if you don't connect to the internet?).

Find when it does shutdown correctly, the difference should tell you (us) where the problem is. If it always shutdowns that way, even outside Windows, it is a hardware problem.

By "busy light ", I would take it you mean the Harddrive (HDD) LED. Do a disk cleanup, run CheckDisk and do a defrag.

Matt

 

over a year ago her cd rom drive stopped working. the device manger still says it does work. she now has an external one i got for her. i checked the device manager it says everything is still working properly.

when i shut down windows i get the shutdown screen, goes through everything mine does, but after the power button goes off the busy light, the hdd drive light, starts blinking and there is a clicking sound. if i hit the power button it stops and the computer starts up like normal.

what could be the problem?

 

Clicking of drives is not a good sign. I have not come across a drive that clicks at shutdown though. Take it as a bad sign and do backups.

I would open the case, pull and reseat the cables to the drive/s. The IDE controller may be having problems. Go to Device Manager and uninstall the IDE Controller, it will be automatically reinstalled when you reboot.

I would disconnect the cables to the faulty CD drive and leave it disconnected if you are not going to use it again.

Do this:

If your mother-in-law does not know much about computers, it may not have been done since it was purchased. Check how much unused space is left on the drives by right-clicking on their icon in My Computer and selecting Properties.

Download and install the free version of Everest in my signature. Under the drive/storage information it will tell you the brand of the harddrive. See if there is anything out of the the ordinary listed under S.M.A.R.T. Get the drive manufacturer's utilities from their website, run the tests (post back here if you need some guidance with those).

You will need to do these sorts of tests to find the source of the problem.

Let us know how it goes.

Matt