Re: MS-7536 - P4 MOBO - can't shut down on logoff

aß wrote:
>
> Recently bought this mobo (& the required RAM & vid card) when my
> trusty Asus mobo started finally acting hinky. The Asus used APM power
> management, the new MSI has ACPI.
> Installed Win XP Pro/SP3 as usual, & everything seems to work
> normally...except..when I attempt to turn off the PC via the
> Start/Shutdown method, Windows shutdown, but instead of powereing off
> the PC as normal, I get the "It is now safe to turn off your computer"
> screen, something I have not seen since Windows 98.
>
> Is this normal for an ACPI mobo? This extra step is kind of a PITA.
> Any way to get the PC to power down automaticall, as before?
>
> Thanks for any help!
> aB

Check Device Manager. Go to the "Computer" entry. It should
say something like "ACPI Uniprocessor" or "ACPI Multiprocessor",
depending on whether you have a P4 with Hyperthreading or not.

If the ACPI was not enabled in the BIOS, or if that particular
BIOS release had a broken ACPI implementation (passed bad tables
to the OS), the OS reinstall may have failed to install in
an ACPI friendly way. While you can go to the "Computer"
entry, and do a "driver update" to switch from the Uniprocessor
to Multiprocessor, I understand that won't work if you want
to change from "Standard PC" to one of the ACPI types.

"Standard PC" is the one that says "It is now safe to turn
off your computer", and that is my guess as to where you are now.

In the BIOS, enable ACPI 2.0 if there is a setting there, and
also enable S3 suspend to RAM. Neither is likely needed to
get past "Standard PC", and it could be a general issue with
the BIOS version.

I'm not aware of a way to fix it, but maybe there is a recipe
out there. I think someone checked once, and one difference
between "Standard PC" and "ACPI ..." is a large number of
registry changes.

When that happened to me, the installer gave a warning message
(which I ignored at the time). It was only later, when I saw
the "It is now safe..." that I realized I should have been
paying more attention. My motherboard at the time was
an Asus, and flash upgrading the BIOS to the next version,
was enough to correct whatever was wrong underneath with
ACPI. Just cost me another install.

Paul