Dell Inspiron 710 unable to shutdown with AC adaptor connected

The power controls are under  ACPI control. Check in device manager to ensure that under the computer icon,it is listed as ACPI PC. next, check the power
options in control panel to ensure there are no settings that would interfere with a normal shutdown.
If none of these things are the issue, it may be a problem with the power adapter itself.

Swamp_Thing!,

Try CTRL+ALT+DELETE
Go to the SHUTDOWN and click shutdown or restart.  Let us know what happens.

Hopefully the author will comment back after trying this resolution.

-thephalanx

Comment in regards to  "thephalanx"
  When I try shutting the PC down by doing what you told me to try in your first post, nothing happens.  Granted, the PC tries to shut down after I prompt it to but it never shuts off.

I'd like to add some more info:

The laptop will not shut down when you shut it down from the start menu or press the power button.  You can however shut the pc down by holding down the power button to force a shutdown but i'd rather not have the user do that every single time.  When I tried troubleshooting the issue initially, I noticed that from a cold boot, the laptop was able to start up and shut down fine.  However, if I let the computer stay on for at least 10~15 mintues the laptop would not shut down.  It will close out of all applications, get rid of the wallpaper and be at the last step of shut down where you'd be expecting the monitor to shut off, but the pc just sits there.  Since the laptop is at my work, the user must connect to the LAN via LAN cable and sign in with a username and password.  I mentioned in my initial post that the laptop was unable to shut down with the AC adapter connected, but now it does it when the LAN cable is connected as well.

Make sure you have installed the newest drivers for this notebook from the dell site. Also test it for malware or other not necessary software running in the background.

Download the latest version of HijackThis

http://www.hijackthis.de

(Click on the „Directdownload“ link).

run it and save the log. Paste the log to the following website

http://www.hijackthis.de/en

Follow the following exactly:

At the bottom of the page you'll see a "ANALYZE" button. Click it and you will have an analysis of your log. Now a new button, "SAVE ANALYSIS" will show up at the bottom. Your analyzed log will be saved to a page on that homepage, of which you can post the URL here. I should then be able to see if there is any software causing problems.

 Ok, will do.  I have another post [ https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21913704/Svchost-exe-error-when-logging-in-to-Windows.html ] that I have to do this for and it deals with the same machine.  I will respond once I am able to get onto the user's laptop to run the program.  The above link may help in solving this issue if it helps anyone.  Might want to check it out.

any news?

I ran the log through the HijackThis website and there were no problems...  I don't know what else to do at this point and the user is getting fed up with the issue (aka the president of the company) and so am I.

Post the analyzed link to the log here, maybe we can see more.

The log file is on the user's laptop which is out of the office at the moment but i will paste the link here when I am able to get on his machine.

You mention the LAn connection also causing this shutdown problem. Does the LAN issue occur when the laptop is running on Battery,Or only when the power adapter is involved.

Here is the HijackThis link to the log file:  http://www.hijackthis.de/logfiles/2229e8626e79f54510be3f742edcb301.html

I'd use hijackthis to remove these (except if you are positive you really need them when the PC boots up!):

O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Track-It! Workstation Manager Service Monitor] C:\WINDOWS\TIREMOTE\TIServiceMonitor.exe
O4 - Global Startup: NetScreen-Remote.lnk = C:\Program Files\NetScreen\NetScreen-Remote\SafeCfg.exe
O9 - Extra button: Real.com - {CD67F990-D8E9-11d2-98FE-00C0F0318AFE} - C:\WINDOWS\system32\Shdocvw.dll
O9 - Extra button: Messenger - {FB5F1910-F110-11d2-BB9E-00C04F795683} - C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Windows Messenger - {FB5F1910-F110-11d2-BB9E-00C04F795683} - C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe
O17 - HKLM\System\CCS\Services\Tcpip\Parameters: Domain = goldlinecontrols.com
O17 - HKLM\Software\..\Telephony: DomainName = goldlinecontrols.com
O17 - HKLM\System\CS1\Services\Tcpip\Parameters: Domain = goldlinecontrols.com
O23 - Service: Track-It! Remote Control (TIRmtCtl) - Intuit Track-It! - C:\WINDOWS\TIREMOTE\wuser32.exe
O23 - Service: Track-It! Workstation Manager (TIRmtSvc) - Intuit, Inc. - C:\WINDOWS\TIREMOTE\TIRemoteService.exe

Well I know that I need the following:
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Track-It! Workstation Manager Service Monitor] C:\WINDOWS\TIREMOTE\TIServiceMonitor.exe
O23 - Service: Track-It! Remote Control (TIRmtCtl) - Intuit Track-It! - C:\WINDOWS\TIREMOTE\wuser32.exe
O23 - Service: Track-It! Workstation Manager (TIRmtSvc) - Intuit, Inc. - C:\WINDOWS\TIREMOTE\TIRemoteService.exe

I would probably like to keep these the way they are, but I'm not sure if I need them or not:
O17 - HKLM\System\CCS\Services\Tcpip\Parameters: Domain = goldlinecontrols.com
O17 - HKLM\Software\..\Telephony: DomainName = goldlinecontrols.com
O17 - HKLM\System\CS1\Services\Tcpip\Parameters: Domain = goldlinecontrols.com

And I KNOW there's a pretty good chance that I don't need these:
O4 - Global Startup: NetScreen-Remote.lnk = C:\Program Files\NetScreen\NetScreen-Remote\SafeCfg.exe
O9 - Extra button: Real.com - {CD67F990-D8E9-11d2-98FE-00C0F0318AFE} - C:\WINDOWS\system32\Shdocvw.dll
O9 - Extra button: Messenger - {FB5F1910-F110-11d2-BB9E-00C04F795683} - C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Windows Messenger - {FB5F1910-F110-11d2-BB9E-00C04F795683} - C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe

I am going to remove the ones that I listed in the section right above this and will post back on the results.

hijackthis makes backups, so whatever you remove you can restore.

OK.  Thanks for the heads-up.

Any news, swamp thing?

The user has not been available the past few days but I will post back once I am able to access his laptop.

Ok.  Sorry I haven't posted in a while but here's the status:

  I logged into the users laptop last Tuesday and installed a new VPN client.  I did this because the version we were using before was proven to not be compatible with Windows Service Pack 2 which is installed on the laptop.  I also did this because one of the error messages that would appear when the user would shut down was for the IreIKE.exe file (part of the VPN client).  I then assumed that by installing the new version that it would not display the error message which may be interferring with the shut-down procedure.  I installed the new VPN client and the error message didn't appear anymore.  There was another error message that was being displayed, containing "svchost.exe" in it.  That error message has not been displayed either.  It appears that the new client that I installed fixed the problem, but I did other things as well.  I ran regedit and got rid of a few start up proccesses such as "javaUpdates" and "msmsgs".  I ran msconfig and got rid of a few things there as well.  The user has been out for over a week now so I have not been able to get a report from him since.  I know that the error messages have disappeared because he told me none have come up, but that was only the day after I made the changes.  I also updated his laptop with all of the Microsoft updates that I could find.

Another update:
    The user was out of the office for about a week and a half at his other work location and experienced no problems.  He was able to shut his laptop down with no problems the whole time.  Then he came back from that location to my current location yesterday and connected to the LAN.  When he tried to shut down yesterday night, he wasn't able to and the PC just sat there.  The only way that he was able to shut the laptop down was to hold down the power button to force a shutdown.  It seems like the issue is network related in some way...

Is ther a lan at the other location?

yes

They assign him a static IP address there and then when he come back to us he grabs an IP via DHCP.  My boss had me put a program called NetSwitcher on his laptop so that he could switch back and forth with the click of a button.  This issue has been happening long before we installed NetSwitcher.

Have you tried using another user profile?

As in another user login such as Admin?

Yes, or create a new user.

I can try that but it won't be for a while... it's kind of hard getting on this guy's machine.  I know that I have definately logged in as Admin in the past on his laptop, but I can't remember if it still had trouble shutting down.  The problem with troubleshooting this is the fact that it is intermittent.

I got fed up trying to troubleshoot this whole issue and it has been going on for two months now with no results.  I appreciate all the help that you guys have given me with this, but I had no choice but to reformat his laptop :(

The issue has dissapeared and everything appears to be working fine.

OK with me.

No problem