NEWB , cant seem to get this thing to shutdown properly
 

hangs at
halting system...
power down.

this is after i issue the shutdown -h now command , i dont exactly know wehre you shut it down in the gui , so i just do ctrl + alt + f2 so u are in commmand line then issue the shutdown is there a way to get this to shutdown any help i would greatly appreciate , very noob to this thing just tyrin to get to konw some more stuf about it

No need to go to another screen. You could just launch a console and type "poweroff". This will cleanly power down the system, although I do not know if it will help your problem.

I dont think every computer actually shuts it self off. It you get to 'power down' then I believe you can safely power off by pressing the button. ( Kind of like old windows versions that say "you can now turn your computer off" or w/e it is )

Try looking at the screen and see if you see the drives unmount and the computer switch to run level 0 then you will know its ok.

will check these things out appreciate the help ill let you no how it turns out

by the way i see ur distribution is mandriva is there a way to upgrade to that , and wat are the differences from 9.1 mandrake to the mandriva

k it shows at the end of all the stuff its doin

turning swap off
unmounting file systems
halting systems
power down
then cursor is just flashing here

Does your computer have a soft power button or is it hardware? Most today are soft power.

I do not recommend updating Mandrake/Mandriva. Keep your /home or even make a seperate partition for storing valuables, but install new for best results. I have been using Mandriva since 7.0

im running this system on an hp pavilion ze4600 labtop

Laptops are all softoff. So it sounds as if the video section is receiving something despite the fact that the system is off. Is that right? Have you tried to leave it that way to see if it will eventuall clear off?

ya, doesnt seem to ever power off even if u let it sit there awhile ,