System freezes prior to shutting down completely in XP

[bobdaman98]

Every time I attempt to shut down or restart windows XP, it will freeze completely at the time the screen says "windows is now shutting down". The only way to continue is to hold the power button down until it turns off. I've gone through a couple of power supplies and wonder if I have something in the wrong position or missing files. Any help is appreciated.

 

[iss]

The most comon cause of the problem you describe is a device driver or .dll file that window doesnt like. did you install or uninstall and software or hardware prior to this starting?

 

[bobdaman98]

The most comon cause of the problem you describe is a device driver or .dll file that window doesnt like. did you install or uninstall and software or hardware prior to this starting?

I very rarely turn off the computer so this potential file could have been installed awhile ago.

 

[iss]

Just to make sure it is not a corrupted .dll file or other system file causing the problem you could run System File Checker. witht he XP Disk in your optical drive open a command prompt and type sfc /scannow this will run system file checker and will replace or repair any missing or corrupted system files.

also check in device manager are there any devices with yellow question marks or yellow triangles next to them?

 

[bobdaman98]

Ran sfc /scannow and got no error messages. Device manager shows all good. I ran several utilities to cleanup any unneeded files, but it still locks up at the "windows is now shutting down" window.