Can't shut down your computer? Here's how to fix it

After you finish using your computer, it’s a common practice to shut it down instead of letting it sit idle. However, there may be certain situations where you won’t be able to shut down the system, or it automatically starts again. In most scenarios, you should be able to restart your system. However, in rare cases, even restarting may not be possible.

This issue mostly happens because of a broken update when the processes involved in shut-down and wake-up procedures conflict with the new system. But some third-party programs may also cause similar conflicts.

5 ways to fix a computer won’t shut down

Use Shutdown Command or Force Shutdown

If you can’t get your computer to shut down the normal way, first try shutting it down through the Run utility.

Open Run by pressing Windows key + R.
Type shutdown /s /t 0 and press Enter.

You can also try forcefully shutting down the system by pressing and holding on to the power button for 3 seconds. However, this may not take care of the underlying reason for your problem. So you still need to perform the successive solutions to properly resolve it. In fact, forced shutdowns can adversely affect your system as your computer can’t stop all ongoing processes properly.

Change Device’s Power Management Options

Your system includes certain power management settings that allow devices plugged into the USB or Ethernet ports or other components like Intel Management Engine Interface to wake the computer from sleep. In some previous Windows versions, these settings prevented the computer from shutting down due to bugs in the OS software. While Microsoft has already resolved such issues, there’s no certainty that this issue won’t occur again in the future. So, you should disable all such options and see if you can shut down the computer.

Open Run by pressing Win + R.
Type devmgmt.msc and press Enter to launch the Device Manager.
Expand Network adapters and double-click on your LAN, Ethernet, or Family Controller device.
Go to the Power Management tab.
Untick all the options and click OK.
Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers.
Double-click on each USB Hub and perform the same action in the Power Management tab.
If you have an Intel CPU, expand System Devices. Double-click on Intel Management Engine Interface and do the same here as well.

Turn Off Fast Startup

Like with the Power Management issue, there was also another bug in a previous Windows version that caused this issue whenever Fast Startup was on. So, similar to the above case, you can still disable this option and check if your computer shuts down.

Open Run.
Type powercfg.cpl and press Enter to open Power Options.
Click on Choose what the power buttons do and then Change settings that are currently unavailable.
Uncheck Turn on fast startup and click Save changes.

Update Windows

Since we already mentioned that update bugs were the most common causes of the issue, you need to make sure you have the latest Windows version. So, you should regularly check for updates and install them as soon as they are available.

Troubleshoot in Clean Boot Mode

Windows 8 had an issue where some third-party apps were preventing the computer from shutting down. You can check for such conflicting apps even in the newer Windows versions.

Open Run.
Type msconfig and press Enter to open System Configuration.
Go to the Services tab.
Check Hide all Microsoft Services and click Disable all.
Hit Apply. Then, go to the Startup tab.
Click Open Task Manager.
On the Task Manager, choose each Enabled program and select Disable.

Then, restart your PC and try shutting it down after that. If you are successful, some apps are definitely conflicting with the shutdown process. Now, you need to find these programs.

Power up the computer again and go back to System Configuration.
On the Services tab, enable the first service, and click Apply.
Restart your PC and see if you can shut it down.
If yes, open System Configuration again and enable another service.
If you can’t shut down your computer after enabling a certain service, disable it and continue with the troubleshooting.
After you are done with the services, do the same for your Startup Apps through the Task Manager.