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I have windows 10 running on an HP Elitebook 8570w. I recently did a clean reinstall of the system as my OS was getting bogged down with various stuff I'd accumulated over the years. As usual, after installing, I tweaked the system around a bit to my liking with a combination of normal settings, registry tweaks, group policy tweaks, and turning off some services. Nothing huge or crazy like getting rid of all telemetry and the other more controversial ones out there (disabling the pagefile, etc.). Afterwards I installed a few applications, some games etc.
Everything runs fine now except for ONE issue, and I have no idea what triggers it. Every now and then, if the computer's been running for a while, it takes FOREVER to START the shutdown process. This issue is about impossible to Google because all the results are about the computer taking forever to actually shut down once the shutdown process has already started. When I press the shutdown button on the start menu, absolutely NOTHING happens for what seems like at least 3 minutes if not longer. This doesn't happen all the time or even most of the time. This definitely has never happened if I shut down shortly after booting up. Only after some prolonged use (say I go to work, use my computer there, then I'm packing up to go home at the end of the day, and I go to turn off my computer).
So I click, "shut down", the start menu does collapse again, but then nothing happens for several minutes. During that time the computer functions mostly normally. I can still launch programs and use them. Everything seems no different than when it's on normally. The ONLY difference I can recall is that I wasn't able to start task manager via the context menu on the taskbar, but I was able to via Ctrl+Shift+Esc. Whoops, I had this backwards. I CAN start via the taskbar context menu, but NOT by Ctrl+Shift+Esc.
Any ideas as to what could be causing this? Has anyone experienced something similar? Is there a service that would affect the shutdown process that I may have accidentally touched? Is there any way I can run a shutdown via the CLI that would show verbose output? I tried in cmd but there was no such option. Does the respective command in powershell have anything? Is there any way I can get some kind of log to diagnose this?
If it would help, I have a full list of every tweak I did, every setting I applied, every application I installed, and just about everything else (call me crazy but I got tired of tracking things down every time I reinstall Windows so I documented literally every change I made to the system from the first boot).
creepblockedunderturret
Posted 2017-03-04T23:52:29.927
Reputation: 11
"If it would help, I have a full list of every tweak I did, every setting I applied, every application I installed, and just about everything else." That would probably be helpful. Although you say that you didn't do anything "huge or crazy," you did emphasize that you implemented "registry tweaks, group policy tweaks, and turning off some services." While that may seem conservative to you, that still sounds like a lot more modifications than the best Windows admins that I know typically utilize on their OS builds, and the problem you are having now probably isn't a coincidence. – Run5k – 2017-03-06T05:03:32.023
There's some more controversial things out there like editing specific registry values to override some deeper level things that the OS has been updated to handle perfectly fine on its own since the winXP/7 days that some people still do while others adamantly stand against. The tweaking I did is more on the side of messing with transparency, disabling cortana and onedrive, some optimization on how network traffic is handled for gaming, and some other more tame options. Nothing that should break the system to that degree. – creepblockedunderturret – 2017-03-06T16:19:22.340
I adjusted my services based on Black Viper's guide which I've used many times before without issue.
This should document everything I've done to my machine from installation til now: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ace1FwCMHIytE3Tk9VNT3V5hJ2VabLmO968JSL8EQKE/edit?usp=sharing
I had this backwards so I edited above, but I CAN start via the taskbar context menu, but NOT by Ctrl+Shift+Esc. – creepblockedunderturret – 2017-03-07T23:49:46.153
Ah BlackViper. I ran his suggested builds years ago and had a rather amazing XP laptop setup that could run for about 6 hours of DVD playing at 80% brightness due to the very aggressive cleanups he'd documented. – music2myear – 2017-03-08T01:00:29.557
Just like @music2myear, I have been a fan of Black Viper's work for many years! I have no doubt that his configuration changes have been thoroughly tested. Taking a closer look at your Google doc, you do have quite a bit of changes... that list definitely transcends merely "tweaking the system around a bit to my liking." To be honest, at this point if I was faced with the same problem and still wanted all of those changes, I would start over and test the shutdown functionality after every modification. It would be rather time consuming, but it would also find the culprit! – Run5k – 2017-03-08T01:30:32.983
I've used his guide on just about every win10 installation I've done without issue, so I'm thinking it's probably something else. I just wish there was some way I could test it. Unfortunately it happens so infrequently, I'm never in a situation to debug it when it does (always when I'm packing up to leave for something). It happened again today at work, and out of curiosity, I started ending some applications from task manager, but nothing I ended affected anything as far as I could tell and eventually the shutdown process kicked in like it always does after like 5 minutes. – creepblockedunderturret – 2017-03-08T01:34:28.787
@Run5k the problem is there's no absolute way to test it. The issue isn't consistent at all and sometimes it never happens. I could leave my computer on and running all night and it turns off fine in the morning. Then it's on for a couple hours at work and the next time I try to shut down, it won't for 5 minutes. It's maybe happened 4 times now in the past 2 weeks between dozens and dozens of power cycles. – creepblockedunderturret – 2017-03-08T01:37:15.397
I mean, there's gotta be some map of what happens from the moment you hit that shutdown button right? And all I need to do is figure out where the blockage is on the map (in very simplistic terms). I've googled around though and I can't find a single detailed explanation of how the shutdown process works at a deeper level than "it quits stuff and things happen" with no indication of the respective processes and triggers responsible for those events. – creepblockedunderturret – 2017-03-08T01:47:18.313
Have you already tried scrutinizing the
– Run5k – 2017-03-08T02:16:04.827Windows LogsinEvent Viewerimmediately after one of the troublesome shutdown events? If not, this guide may point you in the right direction: Windows 10: Read Shutdown Logs in Event Viewer in Windows. In addition to those recommendations, check additional entries in theSystemandApplicationlogs near the time of the problematic shutdown. Hopefully, they will reveal that something unusual is happening.Here's something weird. I followed the directions on the link you provided and this is what i'm seeing. So it looks like when I trigger a shutdown via the button on the start menu, the process responsible is RuntimeBroker.exe. Most of the logs with event ID 1074 can be attributed to that, although some are others like when I tried to use the shutdown in task manager. Quite frequently, I'm seeing a log indicating a dirty shutdown, even when I distinctly remember that at those times, the machine shut down promptly. http://imgur.com/a/ciuLM (shutdown seemed normal this morning/weekend)
– creepblockedunderturret – 2017-03-08T02:32:13.577I think i've worked through the confusion. I completely forgot I left work early today. So all the system logs say is that I requested the first shutdown at 4:57 and again at 5:02 when it didn't work. In between those two, there is one log from the Service Control Manager saying " the NSM Service service terminated unexpectedly". The only odd thing is I don't see anything indicating the system actually shut down (a 6006 or 6008) between that and when the system booted on again at 5:46... – creepblockedunderturret – 2017-03-08T02:52:05.113
The only thing in the application logs near the time of the shutdown today but before my computer started again at 5:46 is these repeated logs at 4:45 http://imgur.com/a/z3cPd
– creepblockedunderturret – 2017-03-08T02:55:53.617Oh, the NSM service thing is from when I terminated NetSetMan from task manager while I was waiting for the shutdown. so not relevant... – creepblockedunderturret – 2017-03-08T03:02:11.340