My computer at my office is an "industrial" computer, meaning it's built for industrial usage, or to be used together with machines in factories. It is not the common ATX type computer you find at homes, corporate offices, cyber cafes, etc.
Few months back, this problem popped up out of nowhere. There was power management problem with my computer. Whenever I attempt to shut down my computer (which is running on Windows XP SP3), it shuts down completely but the computer motherboard fan and power supply fan are still running. It's as if the computer is shut down but not shut down. It was mind boggling.
I tried to google as extensively as I could to find some solution to my problem to no avail. Almost all of the problems and solutions discussed on the internet do not share the exact problem as mine. After multiple failures to rectify the problem after changes made in Control Panel, I gave up and left it as it is for few months. I had to manually turn off the power switch at the power point socket to shut down my computer completely and to switch it back on whenever I need to start my computer, which was quite a hassle for me actually.
Those internet forums discussions did however give me some help with some useful information and I came to my own conclusion that it was the BIOS problem. After few months, I tweaked something in my BIOS and voila! Problem solved. I don't know whether this could be applied to all computers facing this problem, but what I basically did was change one setting in the power management setting in my BIOS.
Inside BIOS, under Power Management option, find APM configuration. Inside this menu, look for Power Type and chances are it is set to AT. Change it to ATX. That's all. Enter back Windows and try to shut down. The computer should shut down completely without any fans or power still running. If it doesn't work, sorry, you may have different problem need to be fixed!
Sincerely,
Mr. Syntax Geek
