Windows 10 To really shut down or not to really shutdown? Questions and an answer

Jaap Verhage

Senior Member
Hello everyone,

after receiving a lot of help from friendly people on this forum, I thought I'd share a little insight of my own. I have two desktops and a laptop, talking to each other in a miniature network. I noticed that, when shutting down one of the desktops, it didn't seem to really shutdown - there was still power on the USB ports, although the PC wouldn't wake up from mouse movement or keyboard input. Sort of super-hibernation. Being politically on the green side and worried about climate change and wasting energy, I tried everything I could think of and everything other people in various forums had already thought of to get the beast to really shutdown, which was, basically, trying out all combinations and permutations of enable/disable fast startup, enable/disable hibernation, enable/disable sleep mode in Control panel --> Power options --> System settings; and shutdown/shift-shutdown in the Start menu. Trying this out took some time, I can assure you :) . Nothing worked; the USB ports stayed under power no matter what I did. Then it occurred to me that the UEFI/BIOS might have something to do with this. Lo and behold - when I disabled all possibilities to power on on some signal or other there, things finally began falling into place, that is, they began to act like they should. In the table attached to this post I've summarized my findings for this scenario, i.e., when all automatic power-on options in the UEFI/BIOS are disabled.

This means that the setting of hibernation and sleep mode have no influence on how shutdown and shift-shutdown behave, but that the setting of fast startup does, IF wake on whatever has been disabled in the UEFI/BIOS. If that wasn't the case, my PC wouldn't really shut down, no matter what combination of settings I tried.

Well, I might be the last person on earth to finally understand this… but who knows, maybe there's some other poor soul out there, wondering how to really shut down his or her PC. Let me tell you: it might have to do with your UEFI/BIOS.

By the way, I haven't noticed any great shortening of bootup time with fast startup enabled. In my case, enabling it shaved six to eight seconds off a total boot time between 1'23" and 1'31", depending on when I consider my PC to have finished booting. That can be quite some time after the welcoming jingle, I've found.

Regards, Jaap.
 

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I believe that is normal that the usb root hubs still supply power when you power the computer off. This is known as S5 power state or soft off. There still is power being supplied to the CPU and usb hub but it is extremely low probably on the order of a couple watts. The only time there is zero power running through a system is when it is in a G3 power state also known as mechanical off.
 
I believe that is normal that the usb root hubs still supply power when you power the computer off. This is known as S5 power state or soft off. There still is power being supplied to the CPU and usb hub but it is extremely low probably on the order of a couple watts. The only time there is zero power running through a system is when it is in a G3 power state also known as mechanical off.
Hello Neemobeer,
thanks for the information. I wanted my PC's to be REALLY off, so that's why I tried this.
Regards, Jaap.
 
Hi

My PC still has power to the USB connectors when the computer is off as well.
I never really gave it any thought until I read this thread.

I always turn off my PC when I'm not using it because of our dogs, when it's on and the fans are running it's sucking in dog hair and fuz. LOL

If it does that 24 hours a day it looks like a wool factory in there.

My computer does have a second off switch on the back that really cuts power to it, but I've never actually used it.

Mike
 
On some setups, you do want some power on those USB connectors, and that's my case since I run a UPS on my main desktop PC. In a power outage, there needs to be some trickle power on the USB port in order for the UPS to switch over from AC power to Battery Power. If a human being isn't there in front of the computer when this happens, the PowerChute UPS software uses signals sent between the computer and the UPS to initiate an orderly software shutdown prior to the Battery discharging, and the PC crashing as soon as the battery runs out.o_O I run my PC on 24x7x365 (minus a few days when I leave on the house for extended periods of time), so even if my PC is shutoff with it's power switch, it's still protected from power outtages,:encouragement: but since windows isn't running when the PC is switched off, it can't perform a software shutdown, but it's the next best thing as when the UPS shuts down, it filters surges through the power line which connect the PC to the AC outlet.;)

When my PC is running and I'm gone for a few hours from the house, the PowerChute software will perform the orderly shutdown via windows and signals sent to the Motherboard from the UPS via USB, so in this case that's very handy to have some power on those USB ports;).

<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>
 
Hi

My PC still has power to the USB connectors when the computer is off as well.
I never really gave it any thought until I read this thread.

I always turn off my PC when I'm not using it because of our dogs, when it's on and the fans are running it's sucking in dog hair and fuz. LOL

If it does that 24 hours a day it looks like a wool factory in there.

My computer does have a second off switch on the back that really cuts power to it, but I've never actually used it.

Mike
With me, it even looks like that WITHOUT dogs! :D
 
On some setups, you do want some power on those USB connectors, and that's my case since I run a UPS on my main desktop PC. In a power outage, there needs to be some trickle power on the USB port in order for the UPS to switch over from AC power to Battery Power. If a human being isn't there in front of the computer when this happens, the PowerChute UPS software uses signals sent between the computer and the UPS to initiate an orderly software shutdown prior to the Battery discharging, and the PC crashing as soon as the battery runs out.o_O I run my PC on 24x7x365 (minus a few days when I leave on the house for extended periods of time), so even if my PC is shutoff with it's power switch, it's still protected from power outtages,:encouragement: but since windows isn't running when the PC is switched off, it can't perform a software shutdown, but it's the next best thing as when the UPS shuts down, it filters surges through the power line which connect the PC to the AC outlet.;)

When my PC is running and I'm gone for a few hours from the house, the PowerChute software will perform the orderly shutdown via windows and signals sent to the Motherboard from the UPS via USB, so in this case that's very handy to have some power on those USB ports;).

<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>
I see! A UPS is a step too far for me, considering we almost always have excellent power supply in Holland without surges and blackouts.
 
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