Win 98se shut down problems (again!)

[Eric]

My particular problem with this particular old chestnut is that windoze 98se goes through the normal shutdown process then displays the 95 screen, "It is now safe to turn off your computer".

I've done a search through the various threads but haven't come across this one.

I realise that it's easy just to keep the button pressed for 5 seconds, but it's more convenient to be able to leave it do it on its own.

Any ideas from the whizzes?

[fobotcso]

Don't know about the "95" message. Sounds like an upgrade didn't go acording to plan. This is probably not connected with the failure to shut down.

I would personally see if I could find "logo.sys" in C: \ or C: \Windows and rename to something like "logo.old" and see if this peculiarity disappeared.

Have you tried: Start>Run>type in "msconfig" and press Rtn

On the next screen, under the "General" tab click on Advanced

Check or uncheck the "disable fast shutdown" function.

Save as you leave and see what happens.

My 98SE test machine actually has this Checked; but it still shuts down normally.

There's another peculiarity regarding loading EMM386 in the Config.sys file that I won't bore you with at the moment.

Ausatco is correct in his following post. If you have an ordinary ON/OFF switch, there is no way that your 'puter can turn it off. That's down to you!

[Ausatco]

Mine always did that - I thought it was normal.

Mine was an old mobo, though, and no power management smarts.

edit: fobs beat be by a millisecond, and his post reminds me - there are shutdown issues in 98SE that are worth pursuing in http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;[ln];kbhowto

AA

I thinks fobs and I are in a duelling edits loop.

I have stopped now, fobs.

Cheers

AA

[Eric]

Thanks for those guys, I'm at work at the mo, but I'll have a play tonight and see what happens!

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Eric,

It has been a long time since I had seen those "Safe to Turn Off" Screens in Win95-98 but I think (Memory failing here) they used the same screen in both OS'.

Did check in your Device Manager under System to see if you have an error on power management?

It would help if you gave us the brand and model of your motherboard.

Take Care,

Capt. Richard J. Gentil, Pres.
Naples Air Center, Inc.
Custom Computers of Naples, Inc.

[Cornish Jack]

fobotcso
Butting in, I'm afraid, but could you bore ME with the EMM 386 peculiarity, please? I keep getting intermittent messages during boot-up saying that EMM 386 can't be found but the boot-up continues anyway. Is there something which can be fiddled to sort this? EMM 386 is resident in Windows System so I don't understand what the message is about.:( :(
TIA

[fobotcso]

CJ, gladly - for what it's worth.

My Grandfather Pentium Desktop is a Win98SE test machine with 64MB RAM and runs light. I could not get it to shut down properly until I "REM"ed out the following line in CONFIG.SYS as shown.

rem DEVICE=C: \WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE noems /v

if I remove the "REM" it starts erratically and sometimes stops erratically.

However! There's another Win98SE machine on a multi-boot laptop with 288MB RAM in which that line in CONFIG.SYS does not have to be "REM"ed out to make it start and stop properly. Even though 288MB is more than the recommended RAM for Win98SE. (Too many processor overheads in managing the RAM refreshes etc.) Disregard -see later post

So, it might be worth looking at your CONFIG.SYS and if that line is there and not "REM"ed then do so. If it's not there at all then put it there AFTER:

DEVICE=C: \WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS

and check that the line in CONFIG.SYS doesn't have a space between EMM and 386 as your post would suggest. The file you're telling the system to use is EMM386.EXE - usually in the \Windows folder but can be in the Root directory as long as the address is correct in CONFIG.SYS.

I'll be interested to hear you get on.

{Note: I have to corrupt the C Drive address to avoid getting a smiley}

[Eric]

fobs,

I tried the msconfig settings, that made the machine re-boot on restart which I've seen on the other threads is caused by the disable fast shutdown setting so there's some connection there!

Richard,

Power management is ok and my board is a Matsonic 8308e with an AMD K7 Athlon 2000 chip.

While I was checking the msconfig settings, there were quite a few gaps in the listings which were highlighted but blank when clicked which doesn't seem normal to me.

3 months ago I replaced my main hard drive and I used a ghost utility to save me downloading all the useful little programs again - I thought that this had been sucessful but now I'm not so sure. The machine has been doing odd things like changing the clock speed and video settings which I just put down to Windows doing its exasperating stuff, but as James Bond says, "The first time is happenstance, the second time is coincidence, the third time is enemy action".

I think it's time for a rebuild :uhoh: :{

[Cornish Jack]

Many thanks fobotcso
Will give that a whirl and let you know.

[Cornish Jack]

fobotcso
Have 'given it a whirl' (several times, actually) and still get intermittent failure to shut down - but my machine is a different 'spec' - P4, 512Mbs Ram etc. Looks like I'm stuck with the Scan Disk startup routine for a while longer!!:sad:
If you have a moment, maybe you could consider my latest problem saga - see DMM.EXE??? thread. :ugh:
Thanks again.

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Eric,

With the other problems you listed it sounds like it is time to FDisk/Format/Install from the Cabs again.

There is one thing I would like you to check though. In your motherboard manual on page 23 it talks about power management. It looks like power management is disabled by default. You need to just enable the first one for it to work with your OS. Leave all the other options under the power management setup page disabled.

Take Care,

Richard

[Eric]

Hi Richard,

I'll look into this because I'm pretty sure that all power management is disabled, I'll let you know!


CJ,
Looks like I'm stuck with the Scan Disk startup routine for a while longer when I was looking at the msconfig settings, I seem to remember a check box for "scan disk on startup" if that's any help?

[Cornish Jack]

Thanks Eric
I was being a bit cryptic - I meant that not being able to cure the shut down problems would mean an occasional manual switch-off with consequent Scan Disk on the subsequent switch-on. :ugh:

[fobotcso]

CJ, sorry it wasn't a help.

But your post gives me the chance to correct the impression I gave in an earlier post that too much RAM can be bad. Not so. I was mis/half remembering an old DOS/Win3.1 limit.

From Win95 on it has been possible to use 2GB RAM (4GB in some cases). So my 288MB is puny and your ½GB is handsome! :\

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Eric,

Go to this page in your BIOS:

Power Management Setup Page
This page sets some of the parameters for system power
management operation.
______________________________________________
AMIBIOS SETUP – POWER MANAGEMENT SETUP
(C) 2000 American Megatrends, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Power Management Enabled
Standby Time Out Disabled
Suspend Time Out Disabled
Display Time Out Disabled
Hard Disk Time Out Disabled
Ring On Power On Disabled
Keyboard Power On Disabled
RTC Alarm Power On Disabled
RTC Alarm Date Every Day
RTC Alarm Hour 12
RTC Alarm Minute 30
RTC Alarm Second 30

_____________________________________________
Power Management
Use this item to enable or disable a power
management scheme. If you enable power
management, you can use the items below to set
the power management operation. Both APM and
ACPI are supported.
_____________________________________________

You need to set your BIOS Page to look like what I listed above.

Take Care,

Richard

[Mac the Knife]

fobs, you can't usually use more than 512MB RAM in Win9.x/Me without a tweak (Vcache chokes up).
See http://tweakhomepc.virtualave.net/ram/vcache.html & read the sections ">512MB" and ">1GB"

Set MaxFileCache in System.ini to reduce the maximum amount of memory that VCache can use to 512 MB (524,288 KB), or a little less (510MB, or 70% of RAM, whichever is least).

Example:
[VCache]
maxfilecache=522240

[Eric]

Thanks for your help Richard but still the b:mad: r won't behave, it looks like a reload when the little errors build up to be too annoying!

[fobotcso]

Thank you Mac, so my mis/half remembered stuff wasn't entirely wrong. (You know, I'm not perfect, I once thought I was wrong when I was right!:confused: :) )

Here's Micorsoft's (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q253912&) version

This can reduce even more to as little as 128MB with early chipsets (TX) and Mobos.

Here's a detail about the issue with Windows 2000 RAM (http://www.jsiinc.com/SUBE/tip2200/rh2238.htm)

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Eric,

Now would be a good time to change your OS to WinXP if you were ever thinking of doing it.

There are many advantages with WinXP over Win98SE. (Especially now that Win98SE support is being dropped. Pretty soon it will be with Win3.1/11 and Win95.)

Take Care,

Richard

[fobotcso]

MS have just announced that they are going to continue support for Win 98SE for at least another six months.