Computer hangs on shutdown

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

[ISSUE SOLVED]
 Please read last comment on thread.

Hello there, I am experienced a rather irritating problem.

I recently purchased avast! Internet Security 6.0.1203 and since doing so have noticed that when I shut my PC down it hangs in the Shutdown screen and won’t power off (occurs 9 out of 10 times) leaving me to turn the PC of by the power button.

I have always had avast free edition installed since I purchased the PC but have since purchased the edition but this is when the issue came about.

I have tried all sorts of hints and tips to help. I have:

disabled “fast switch user”
shut off all avast shields temp before shutting down
disabled all none microsoft services when booting up PC (sure did make computer start faster lol)
disabled microsoft firewall
turned off all running programs and waited a minute or so before shutting down
went back to a system restore point

I have never had any other anti virus program installed or used any others apart from Avast free edition and the free edition never caused this issue.

HP Pavilion Slimline S5206uk
Windows 7
4gb RAM
Pentium Duel-Core CPU 2.60ghz

I haven’t tried re-installing avast or rebooted Windows 7 but from what the internet has told me that it seems that another program may be interfering with avast stopping the motherboard from stopping power to the rest of the PC.

Please help with any advice!

Thank you.

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I have never had any other anti virus program installed or used any others apart from Avast free edition and the free edition never caused this issue.
HP computerts usually come with a preinstalled 60/90 day Norton.......and you say this was not......are you 100% sure ?

it is recomended to run a removal tool so all leftovers are gone…you can find it here

Uninstallers for Security Software - run and reboot
http://thewebatom.net/uninstallers/security-software/

3

Have a look in the Event log it may tell you whats hanging at shut down.What information appears in event logs (Event Viewer)?

You must be logged on as an administrator to perform these steps. If you aren’t logged on as an administrator, you can change only settings that apply to your user account, and some event logs might not be accessible.

Event logs are special files that record significant events on your computer, such as when a user logs on to the computer or when a program encounters an error. Whenever these types of events occur, Windows records the event in an event log that you can read by using Event Viewer. Advanced users might find the details in event logs helpful when troubleshooting problems with Windows and other programs.

Event Viewer tracks information in several different logs. Windows Logs include:

•Application (program) events. Events are classified as error, warning, or information, depending on the severity of the event. An error is a significant problem, such as loss of data. A warning is an event that isn’t necessarily significant, but might indicate a possible future problem. An information event describes the successful operation of a program, driver, or service.

•Security-related events. These events are called audits and are described as successful or failed depending on the event, such as whether a user trying to log on to Windows was successful.

•Setup events. Computers that are configured as domain controllers will have additional logs displayed here.

•System events. System events are logged by Windows and Windows system services, and are classified as error, warning, or information.

•Forwarded events. These events are forwarded to this log by other computers.

Applications and Services Logs vary. They include separate logs about the programs that run on your computer, as well as more detailed logs that pertain to specific Windows services.

1.Open Event Viewer by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Security, clicking Administrative Tools, and then double-clicking Event Viewer.‌ If you’re prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

2.Click an event log in the left pane.

3.Double-click an event to view the details of the event.

4

Ok I used the remove tool for Norton as requested. You were correct Pondus I did still have some norton files hanging around from when I first purchased the PC so those are gone and I have tried shutting down several times now. The problem does still occur but still sometimes shutdowns as normal so it really feels like it chooses when it wants to shutdown and when it does not. :confused:

I am currently checking the event logs a lot of the events just seem to be indicating when I had to do a hard shut down and a few errors on programs that failed to load. One thing that does pop up sometimes is my SUPER antispyware free edition but I only ever open that program roughly every 3 weeks to do a quick clean up and don’t have it running every time I boot my PC and it isn’t listed in my system services as a continuous running program. Could this be the problem?

I have currently updated my SUPER antispyware free edition and running it now to see if their is any nasty bugs in my PC that may causing the problem (but surely avast would of picked this up first).

When I boot the PC and then shut it down without opening any programs the PC seems to be ok with shutting down but once you disabling avast shields it’s like “Uh oh you moved the mouse thats going to take 30 minutes to scan for harmful viruses and we aint letting the PC turn off sucker!”

Would it help if I screen dumped some images of my event log? I’m not sure what I should be looking for.

5

@Ronnie7,

You should be aware that booting and immediately shutting down is not good enough (as a test).

Several processes and services are still “warming up”, even if the main GUI of Windows is already available.

Avast itself will perform some checks, even around 8 minutes after booting.

Other security tools might have leaved remnants (as you already noticed). You’d need to review “all” the tools that were preinstalled so to check this (even when yo think you uninstalled them).

Windows Update and Windows Defender, backup, restore points, driver updates not fully performed,… All these are examples of tasks that might interfere in your immediate shutdown.

Opening Windows Task Manager could show you at least part of the services and processes that are active (but not necessarily all of them), and would also give you some indication of “how much your system is really idle” before shutdown by seeing the relative CPU and RAM usage.

In any case, ideally you should wait around 10 minutes after booting to really check and test the shutdown (yes, PITA).

Reviewing the “start items” might give you an additional clue, if something there is not really known.

Just to be clear, almost all security tools have some problems with remnants of other tools, and that’s why most of them have some specific removal tool. This includes antivirus, firewall, anti-spyware and so on.

I am guessing you don’t have problems to shutdown from Windows Safe Mode.

6

Now that you have run the norton removal tool you should run it again then run a search through the run bar for Norton and Symantic and finally close it out by running ccleaner including the registry clean, once all that is done reboot, wait ten min’s and do an avast repair via programs and features and reboot again, if that has not solved your issues by now you may have to do a clean install of avast.

7

Good man you just beat me to it.

Do a search for any Norton that night be left behind.
Then paste this in start menu’s search box------- regedit

  1. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
  2. HKEY_CURRENT_USER --------expand this with the + sign click on software delete Norton file if any.
  3. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE-------- Same with this one. Norton
  4. HKEY_USERS
  5. HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG

Go into Add & remove click on Avast change/remove click scroll down repair.
See what happens after reboot.
Also uncheck all programs not needed at start up like SuperAntiSpyware Java etc

8
Also uncheck all programs not needed at start up like SuperAntiSpyware Java etc
there is a small program from malwarebytes that can help here

StartUpLite
http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/startuplite

If you post (attach) and OTL log then essexboy may see if there is anything wrong…
It is not only Malware problems he can see from this log

see how to here http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=53253.0

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Ok I used the CCleaner and repaired avast as advised. I have shutdown once and it was successful as far as having my computer on for a good few hours whilst net surfing and playing winamp and steam to! I’m crossing my fingers that the enxt few times I shutdown it will actually be successful.

Thank you for all your help guys! I’ll keep you updated with my status whether I’m successful or not for the next few attempts.

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I hope you don’t have the same problems that others with Steam have/had. Search the forum for “steam” (without quotation marks) (look the upper section of the forum screen).

The problems are not exactly reproducible.

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No i havn’t had any of those kind of issues with steam and avast conflicting or avast blocking Steam but…

It did it again… >_<

sigh looks like I’ll try a clean install but uuhh I kind of deleted my avast install program. If I completely wipe avast off my PC will I be able to download avast again without re-purchasing I still have my e-mail confirmation of purchase.

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  1. http://files.avast.com/iavs5x/setup_ais.exe
  2. Yes. :slight_smile:
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oh yeah there it is in my e-mail whoops sorry and thanks for posting it again for me.

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NP Ronnie7…!

15

Help! Help! Help! Help! Help!

Formated my computer yesterday with “winXP SP3”

Updated Windows! >>> Installed Avast!
after installing “Avast Free 6.0.1203”
Windows won’t shutdown or restart!

FORMATED again :cry: but nothing changed! still can’t shutdown or restart!
(worked well when i uninstalled Avast!)

i spent 2 days searching and reading but NOTHING changed ???
-downloaded UHPclean User Hive Profile clean
-checked event viewer
-Tried Chkdsk etc…
-And i tried every single solution i found on web :-X

NOTHING CHANGED! 
STILL CAN'T SHUTDOWN OR RESTART MY WINDOWS WHILE AVAST 6 INSTALLED...

--------------------------(SYSTEM INFO)--------------------------
OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name STEVE
System Manufacturer Hewlett-Packard
System Model Presario 2100 (DG327A)
System Type Компьютер на базе X86
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 7 GenuineIntel ~2193 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies Ltd. KE.M1.73, 4/25/2005
SMBIOS Version 2.3
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale Russia
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = “5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111)”
User Name STEVE\Steve
Time Zone Russian Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 512.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 122.80 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 1.03 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys

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Install this: http://files.avast.com/files/beta/6.0.1279/setup_av_free.exe
And next time please start a new topic. :wink:

17

I agree with Asyn and to add to that you are using a very outdated version of pctools firewall, the latest is 7.0.0.123 and threatfire’s development has come to a stop i believe plus i dont think it is compatible with avast.

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Thanks ;D

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I’m not using pctools & threatfire long time ago :o
i changed it :wink:

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You’re welcome…!