Computer won’t switch off (forced power off)
This seems to happen most often to laptop owners. Desktop owners usually resort to pulling out the power plug, but you can’t do that with a laptop due to the battery.
There can be many reasons that cause a PC not to shutdown normally, but many people don’t realise that there is a “secret” way to force a computer to power off.
A quick word of warning: powering off in this way can lead to data loss, or even a non-starting Windows, as vital data can be either not be saved, or even corrupted… The chances of this happening can be minimised if you make sure the HDD light is off before you try this:
Press (and hold) the power button for about 5 seconds. That usually forces the computer to power off.
Note: you should rarely need to power off in this manner. If you need to do this often (or all the time), then there is something wrong, and you need to fix the cause of the problem.
Another one….. if your laptop does not power up for no particular reason, then pop the battery out, leave the power cord plugged in, turn the laptop on.
turn the laptop off again and re-insert battery.
I do something similar.
If the laptop doesn’t respond to the 5 second “power press”, then I resort to popping out the battery *and* the power cord.
I leave it for a few seconds and even push the power button… just to make sure all juice has been drained.
This also works (minus the battery) with desktop towers; as the motherboard can sometimes end up in a non-listening state so it doesn’t respond to the power button.
Since power supplies can keep the motherboard “powered” for many seconds (even 60 seconds), then pulling the power cord and then pushing the power button, will drain the power supply, and take the motherboard to zero volts.
I’ve heard rumors that some really bad motherboards also need to have the CMOS battery removed!
This tip work for my desktop that has been having shut down problems when it hangs. Thanks a lot. Just added you to my Blog Roll.
Thanks frenchy chu.
Just remember that there is a slight risk of corrupting windows by shutting down like this.
I have had to do this one from time to time. Seems to happen when something particularly nasty tries to get into my system, and the comp freezes up.
Some times when I travel I put my laptop to the sleep position, and it wouldn’t wake up…
then I do what you suggested…
Is is harmfull?
Thanks!
Hi Ruth,
If the laptop entered sleep mode correctly, then forcing the power off shouldn’t cause a problem.
Of course, it depends on a few factors like: if it didn’t really go to sleep properly, then there is a risk of data corruption. Also: if your windows filesystem is using FAT32, then you have a higher risk of corruption (compared to NTFS).