Need help with 10 day old NEW HP computer???

[gavkiwi]

ugh, soo I finally got a new gaming rig to play some new games, and that part of the new pc is awesome, runs games great....however I am having a Real problem with Logging off a user in windows or Turning off, shutting down/restarting the PC

Now, switching a user in Win XP, no problem, takes like 5 seconds max switching users, but loggin off the user, or turning off pc, sometimes it does it in about a minute, other times it takes 5-10mins waiting to shut off/log off....WTF !

then, a couple of times it does not shut down at all, waited like 20mins (after clicking on 'turn off computer') one time and I had to cold shut it off holding the dam power button until pc turned off

PC specs are

HP amd dual processor w/2 gigs of ram
320 gig HD, about 200 free
im running the norton anti-virus that came with the pc, have adaware spyware installed aswell.

this happened right out of the box, 1st nite I had it, was on maybe 2 hrs, didnt think anything of it, now that it's happened 3-4 times now, I need some help, Ive put a bunch of stuff on it already and dont really want to exchange it, but its frustrating me that If it does it again, I'll bloody do that

any help would be appreciated...

thanks,

Gav

[shmokes]

You've got a bunch of software running.  I have no idea what you've personally installed, but I can pretty much guarantee that HP installed loads of crap.  Head into the Add/Remove programs utility and get rid of junk you're not going to use.  Don't talk yourself into keeping stuff that you don't need. 

Next click Start, Run, and type MSCONFIG.  Click OK.  Click the Startup tab.  Here you can see the programs your computer runs in the background every time you start Windows.  All you have to do is remove the check from the box and it will stop loading.  This thing is 100% safe.  If you kill something and then realize that you needed it afterall you can just go in and put the checkmark back. 

Some program that's running in the background is the culprit.  It's having a hard time shutting down and it's stopping Windows from logging out and shutting down properly.  Plus, when you get rid of all the crap that's running in the background you'll get snappier performance too.

[boykster]

shmokes is probably right on, and specifically, look for hpcmpmgr.exe running.  Its part of HP's printer manager stuff and is NOTORIOUS for hanging machines on shutdown.  I have it on my pc at home because I have an HP all in one printer thingie, and I often have to manually kill that program to get the pc to turn off.  I just leave my pc on all the time...

If you don't have an HP printer, I'd recommend uninstalling ALL of the HP printer stuff.  You'd want to install the newest latest and greatest drivers anyway if you did buy a new printer, not the old bundled crap they put on their pc's

 

[hnugz]

i had this same issue on my the new pc i just built.  I had to reformat for hard drive reasons, but after reinstalling it wouldnt shut down anymore.  the only difference that i had was I tried using zone alarm for my firewall just to try it out.  i ended up formatting again using comodo any now everything is peachy.  It's most likely your software.

[mrhowell]

Shmokes is right, turn off everything in MSCONFIG.  Delete Norton, Delete adaware(if you need that software, you're going to crappy internet sites). Delete Zone alarm.  Get a free antivirus software somewhere.  Did you run Windows updates?  You don't need all that protection.  99% of spyware is put on by the user.  All else fails, get a gerneric copy of windows xp and reload.

[hypernova]

Besides the extras, one thing you'll want running is "systray."

Keep your Norton stuff if you want, then turn off pretty much anything and everything else.  If you can't figure out what something does, move the cursor over the divider to the right of "command," and move it over more to the right, so you can see the location of the program.  This should help figure out most of the things that you can't decipher from the name alone.

I wouldn't follow mrhowell's advice.  Keep Ad-Aware.  For goodness sakes, it's free.  Sometimes, you'll NEED to go to those "crappy" sites (for reasons I won't state, and I'm not talking porn!)  Plus, you may inadvertantly hit one of those aforementioned porn sites, and they're the worst.  Keep Norton too, especially if you aren't the only user.

[daywane]

get rid of norton even if you have a year free or how ever long you get it free.
avg is allways free and I have fixed many PC's that had norton with AVG
I was a norton fan.... 1 oH crap after my sister paid ot $100.00 to them and still was stuck.... she put the PC in the shop... after a few month the PC came back to her as bad as it went in.

I put in AVG and fixed all problems... tried to give PC back to her but she would not even look at it... She was that upset with it
I got a great Gateway PC for free.... Thanks AVG 

[gavkiwi]

thanks for all your comments, i removed anything HP related in startup , plus someother crap I did not need, runs like a charm now 

Gav

[Tahnok]

I also recently bought an HP (very similar to the above mentioned) and noticed it has problems shutting down sometimes. Hopefully the problem is finally fixed now.

The other thing I've noticed with it is that it seems to be setup so that a lot of programs don't display correctly. I'll open programs and either they'll be completely off the screen (and no, the screen does not scroll), or windows will open too small to accommodate all the controls in it. There's a program that I use all the time that always cuts-off the OK button of any window it opens. Of course, the window can be stretched open and then you can click OK, but it's a major pain when going between multiple windows. The program has no problems running on other WinXP PCs. I've tried changing every display setting I could find, but to no avail. Any ideas?

[shmokes]

Try stretching it to the size you want it and hold down the CTRL button while clicking the X button to close the program.  What this should do is tell Windows how you want that program's window to look on startup, but it doesn't always work.

When programs open up off-screen (usually this happens if you had a dual-monitor setup at one time but don't anymore), you can always press Alt+Space on your keyboard and then press M.  This will initiate the Move command.  You can then use the keyboard arrows to move the window back onto your screen, or since this also jumps your mouse-pointer up to the title bar of the window you can just click and hold the left mouse button and drag the window onto the screen.  Once again, hold down the CTRL button when closing the program to tell Windows that you want that program to open up on-screen.

[Tahnok]

Try stretching it to the size you want it and hold down the CTRL button while clicking the X button to close the program.  What this should do is tell Windows how you want that program's window to look on startup, but it doesn't always work.

When programs open up off-screen (usually this happens if you had a dual-monitor setup at one time but don't anymore), you can always press Alt+Space on your keyboard and then press M.  This will initiate the Move command.  You can then use the keyboard arrows to move the window back onto your screen, or since this also jumps your mouse-pointer up to the title bar of the window you can just click and hold the left mouse button and drag the window onto the screen.  Once again, hold down the CTRL button when closing the program to tell Windows that you want that program to open up on-screen.

Thanks for the suggestions.

CTRL doesn't seem to change anything. That's a shame. But that's not the biggest problem.

Looking at the problem programs again, it's not so much that Windows is opening the window off the desktop, but the programs themselves don't seem to display correctly. On my other PCs, I've had no problems. But this one never seems to handle GUI functions correctly. Even if you move and stretch out the window, its still cut-off.

Here's a couple screenshots. The first one show an example of a window that opens too small. Not a big deal in this case, since you can just scroll down. But in other cases it cuts-off entire buttons and you have to enlarge the window.

In the second screenshot the window is stretched out as far as it will let me (top-left of program left out for filesize reasons), and it still cuts it off. No matter how big the window size, the objects adjust to display pretty much the same (cut-off). I've never seen anything like this.

[shmokes]

Ew . . . that is ugly.  My first suspect would be the DPI settings.  First make sure you've got a proper resolution set, especially if you're using an LCD monitor.  Check the model of the monitor and find out what its default resolution is.  If it's 19" non-widescreen it's most likely 1280x1024, but could be 1600x1200.  If it's smaller than 19" it's probably 1024x768 (again non-widescreen only).  Right-click on the desktop (just somewhere on the wallpaper, not on an icon) and click Properties.  Click the Settings tab.  Use the slider to select the proper resolution and click Apply.  Now, frankly, I don't think this is your problem, but it's worth checking.  What I do think could be causing your problem is the DPI settings which is where we'll go now.  So, now, from this same screen click the Advanced button.  Here, on the General tab, you will see a drop-down box for DPI setting.  Make sure that it is not set to Large Fonts or some Custom Setting.  Set it to Normal (96 dpi).  See if you're still having display problems.

It certainly couldn't hurt to download and install the latest drivers for your videocard.  This is a good idea with or without display problems.  Even if your current drivers are the newest ones out there, or if there's nothing technically wrong with them, installing new drivers, or reinstalling existing ones could reset some funky setting back to the proper defaults.

Beyond that nothing immediately pops into mind, but I'll keep thinking about it in case anything else does.

[Tahnok]

Ew . . . that is ugly.  My first suspect would be the DPI settings.  First make sure you've got a proper resolution set, especially if you're using an LCD monitor.  Check the model of the monitor and find out what its default resolution is.  If it's 19" non-widescreen it's most likely 1280x1024, but could be 1600x1200.  If it's smaller than 19" it's probably 1024x768 (again non-widescreen only).  Right-click on the desktop (just somewhere on the wallpaper, not on an icon) and click Properties.  Click the Settings tab.  Use the slider to select the proper resolution and click Apply.  Now, frankly, I don't think this is your problem, but it's worth checking.  What I do think could be causing your problem is the DPI settings which is where we'll go now.  So, now, from this same screen click the Advanced button.  Here, on the General tab, you will see a drop-down box for DPI setting.  Make sure that it is not set to Large Fonts or some Custom Setting.  Set it to Normal (96 dpi).  See if you're still having display problems.

It certainly couldn't hurt to download and install the latest drivers for your videocard.  This is a good idea with or without display problems.  Even if your current drivers are the newest ones out there, or if there's nothing technically wrong with them, installing new drivers, or reinstalling existing ones could reset some funky setting back to the proper defaults.

Beyond that nothing immediately pops into mind, but I'll keep thinking about it in case anything else does.

Shmokes you are a God send! I played with every setting in that menu, except DPI. I've never had to make any changes to that setting. Needless to say, it was running at 120 by default and all the problems are fixed since it was changed to 96. Thanks again.

[shmokes]

Don't mention it!  I'm glad that worked for you.  If that hadn't been it I think you'd have had me stumped.

[Hildy_42]

I just recently purchased a new computer from Best Buy.  I tried the MSCONFIG and disabled everything and then restarted the computer.  I get a message telling me to click Normal start-up to undue the changes.  Is that normal when you use the MSCONFIG function?  Wasn't sure if I turned something off that I wasn't suppose to or if that always pops up when you disable something.

[Tiger-Heli]

I just recently purchased a new computer from Best Buy.  I tried the MSCONFIG and disabled everything and then restarted the computer.  I get a message telling me to click Normal start-up to undue the changes.  Is that normal when you use the MSCONFIG function?  Wasn't sure if I turned something off that I wasn't suppose to or if that always pops up when you disable something.

That is normal - I much prefer StartupCPL to MsConfig - http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml Can run as either standalone or Control Panel app.  This shows you at a glance what items are being loaded by the current user at start-up, by the all users tab at startup, and by the registry HKLM, HKCU at startup.  Uncheck any box to keep it from loading, or right-click and delete the entry to permanently kill it.

Regarding the previous comments, I'm a big fan of AVG and also Windows Defender Beta for Anti-Spy.