Problem with my HP Z420 not shutting down completely

[nallegro]

My HP Z420 (and my Z400 before that) will sometimes not shutdown completely without pressing the power button and holding it in.  If I just go to Shutdown, it will close most things, then shut off the monitors, but still be powered up (light is on in front, and can still hear fan running).  I've waited a long time, even overnight, but I still sometimes have to manually power it down to shut it off completely.  I can see by a quick search this is a common problem, but I haven't seen a definitive solution.  One solution talks about a Intel Virtualization Tehnology, but I don't have that in my Device Manager where they say it's located.  thanks for any help you can give.

[gabornico]

that's a well known Windows 10 bug/feature, it affects all PC platforms/brands.

Instead of switching the workstation off, the operating system puts the system in a reduced power state (STD, suspend to disk).

I think there is a workaround, but tbh I'm not sure.

[SDH]

Sleep/hibernation/suspend levels... all kind of a black art.  I worked on a desktop shortcut to have the workstations be able to go instantly into a sleep state by double clicking that and found that the shortcut's syntax needed to be very specific AND also that on a system level hibernation needed to also be turned off.  Below is how to turn hibernation off on a system level, and how to turn it back on.  Of interest, if you do this from the elevated command level, necessary, there is no way I found to know it was turned off or on.  You just enter it and things work differently.  So, give this a try, both ways.  Full shutdown after each time you change things.  My notes:

Disable hibernation in W7 and W8 in order for the NewSleep icon to work properly, or Re-enable hibernation:

a. Click Start W7 icon ball bottom left corner, in Search bar type cmd, right-click cmd.exe, and select Run as administrator. This is termed using an elevated command prompt.  (In Windows 8, go to the Search charm, type cmd, right-click Command Prompt and select Run as administrator).

b. Resulting command prompt is C:\Windows\system32>. Now type   powercfg -hibernate off    and then click on ENTER key.

c.  Or, to turn hibernate back on type powercfg -hibernate on and then press ENTER.

You can copy/paste those commands in if you wish. You cannot use CTRL + V for that paste in CMD.  You will not see any indication that anything changed but the OS will power configuration will have been changed to disable hibernation by using step b above.  For my project this was the key step to have the desktop icon work properly and all other power configurations to also work properly.

[nallegro]

Thanks for your reply, but I'm using Windows 10, not 7 or 8.  This is a Desktop Workstation and is being used in my studio.  I have dual monitors, and an external USB drive.  I also have a firewire Audio Interface.  Not sure if that makes a difference.

[DGroves]

One of the most common causes of a failure to shutdown is a running (or crashed) task/windows service that prevents windows from shutting down the task/service, this causes windows to pause/hang in a forever waiting state

determining which specific program/task/service is the cause is not easy and very time consuming it may be better to simply reinstall windows, confirm proper operation once all security updates have been applied, then install video drivers, and again check, then printer drivers and again check, and then the applications one by one

at some point you may experience the shutdown issue, you can then try to determine why that application/driver is causing a issue with all of the previously installed drivers/apps/services

this (and other reasons) are why admins and "IT" personal are reluctant to change a working system without fully testing a update/change on a test system using the same hardware/configuration as the production systems