Problem With Shutting Down

Ey guys, I have a friend who has a Dell Latitude D420 running Windows XP and is experiencing problems with shutting down. He bought his computer used about 6 months ago and wanted it reformat and I did so. A couple days after he has his computer he calls me and lets me know that he is having shutdown problems and was wondering how to shutdown besides using the menu in Windows. I told him how to force shutdown(hold power button for about 5-10 seconds until system shuts off) and he really didn't like that alternative. He says that when he currently tries to shutdown, the screen just freezes on him. He will be coming by sometime soon to give me his computer to look at and I was wondering if there is anything specific I should check for... You guys have any idea what may be wrong, and how to fix it? Thanks in advance!

 

Most shutdowns really take the same process, so I dont know if it'll help but I have about 1 or 2 more methods for emergencies (besides hard cycle). If the screen freezes, it might be a process that's hogging the system and preventing it from killing the task, check for suspicious processes (use whatisthatfile.com or if that doesnt work google the process). You can first try shutting down through the command line, type in shutdown -? for options (basically use shutdown -s first, and then shutdown -r).

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