I cannot shutdown my computer: when I normally press the buttons shutdown, restart, standby nothing happens.
All the applications are actually closed and I've not done any particular thing with my computer today. Suddenly it doesn't want to respond to the shutdown buttons.
What can I do?
163 Answers
Open up a Command Prompt Window by Pressing Windows + R.
Type shutdown -s -t 0 -f.
Your computer shuts down!
(You could change 0 to the time in seconds after which you want Windows to shutdown)
Because the question itself is not 100% clear, this is what I was able to make of it so far.
All of the sudden, when you go to the start menu, and press shutdown, and you get the shutdown box, you choose one of the options, and press OK, but nothing happens.
My first suggestion is to try again with Notepad open to see if at least notepad is being closed or not.
This will indicate if shutdown is being blocked by a program that is not responding and keeps the system active, and/or if a system component is damaged which prevents you to do this.
My recommendation is to hold the power button for 5 seconds until the PC is fully powered off. Unplug the power cord and press the power button once to ensure that all power in the system is gone. Wait 5 seconds and plug in the power cord.
Start up your system and check if the shutdown options work now. If so, it was a program/service that crashed. If this happens again, you should look into what program is hanging and why it does. If not, it was just an event happening once.
If you can't shutdown at this time though, a system component is corrupted.
Start a command prompt and type in: sfc /scannow. This command will check all system components and fixes any issues there may be.
You will want to look in your BIOS settings. Most have an option that dictates the functionality of front PWR and RESET buttons for a chassis. Make sure they are setup properly so that the PWR handles a shutdown and RESET resetting of course. Since you indicated that it will shut down through windows and it is just the buttons that don't work I would recommend this.
Also check that the buttons are still physically plugged into the motherboard. If you had it for years and all of a sudden this is happening, the wires could have come loose. Open up your computer case, and locate on the motherboard the pins that do this. It could help to have your motherboard manual for this. Ensure tha the two wires coming from the front button are going to the PWR pins. Do the same for the RESET wires.
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