Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Resolved Question

Never seen this before!

Sep 3, 2011 11:45AM PDT

Just got a new Dell XPS 8300 (Windows 7 H.P.) up and running last week. Everything going good, set up things the way I want, uninstalled unwanted junk, disabled most auto start-ups, etc. I know what I'm doing here. However, when I click to "Shut Down", it keeps restarting! I've checked all the Power Options and see nothing wrong. Any ideas?

Discussion is locked

rje49 has chosen the best answer to their question. View answer

Best Answer

- Collapse -
OK, I figured it out
Sep 7, 2011 10:10AM PDT

<font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: arial; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: en;" lang="EN">My XPS-8300 came with a USB
3.0 PCI express card installed. Seeing as I don't have any 3.0 devices yet, but
I need more USB 2.0 ports, I removed the 3.0 card and replaced it with a 5-port
USB 2.0 card - something I had done with my old XPS-400. However, I neglected
to plug a power cable into the PCI card, although the USB ports worked OK.
<span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: arial; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: en;" lang="EN">Seeing as there isn't an available power
cable that can reach down to the PCI card anyway, I went back to the USB 3.0 card, and plugged a USB 2.0 powered hub into it to take care of my needs. So the cause of the shut-down/restart problem waseither removing the originally installed 3.0 card or not having power to the 2.0 card. I don't know for sure. I do know that I really didn't want to call Dell and
have to go through the dozens of things I already tried.
<font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font>

- Collapse -
Huh?
Sep 7, 2011 11:42AM PDT
What's with all that "font" gibberish, littering the paragraph?
- Collapse -
It's a forum feature.
Sep 7, 2011 11:54AM PDT

The text editor does that when we paste content. Fix? Click the icon to the right of the Smiley.
Bob

- Collapse -
Answer
Restart
Sep 3, 2011 11:54PM PDT
- Collapse -
Nope
Sep 4, 2011 1:28AM PDT

"Unchecking "Automatically restart after system failure" sees like a good idea anyway, but it didn't prevent my restarts. The event viewer, never an easy thing to decipher, shows "The operating system shutting down at system time 15:01:45", then the very next record is "....started at system time 15:02:03".
I usually spend much more time trying to figure these things out by myself, but I'm obviously baffled. I'm thinking it's possible that some program I installed is responsible. I have an older laptop that I upgraded to Windows 7 (with no such shut-down problem), so I'll do some comparing. It may also have something to do with an "incompatible" 32-bit program. I just don't know at this point.
By the way, it will go into hibernation ok.

- Collapse -
Answer
Not even formatting and re-installing
Sep 5, 2011 2:07AM PDT

This bugged me so much that I've re-installed Windows 7. So far, I've just installed basic drivers. As part of my plan, after each step, instead of "restarting", I'll click "Shut Down".... it STILL restarts by itself! I wonder if talking to Dell would be worth it. Right now, the only way to shut it down completely is to press and hold the start/stop button.
Oh well, at least I don't have to uninstall all those "free extras"...

- Collapse -
Opinion
Sep 5, 2011 7:07AM PDT

Based on the Dell 8000 I'm looking at.
This machine came with two optical restore disc........1 windows.....2 drivers.
I would use the windows disc first and the the driver disc second.
If the machine did not shutdown.......call Dell and ask.....How come?
Do not call Dell and tell them that you have not used the driver disc.
That just gives them an excuse to blow you off.
Get your ducks in a row.