very slow Vista Shutdown time- suddenly

all of a sudden my shutdown time has probably quadrupled and my boot time is noticeably longer as well. i downloaded a few unknown (to me) utility programs yesterday (file recovery and wiping stuff), messed around with a little bit and now it seems like that's when this problem has occurred. unfortunately, i have system restore disabled. i did try to restore some old registry values, thinking that might been the culprit. i have also deleted all of the programs i downloaded yesterday.

these are my shutdown symptoms:

upon selecting 'shutdown", whereas the system was super quick to respond before, now i get nothing for about 10 seconds, when a "please wait" message pops up, screen flash, followed by normal "shutting down" which stays on the screen for at least a 1:30.

i have already made shutdown tweaks months ago such as the WaitToKill tweak in regedit, and boot tweaks such as using both processors during boot up. this problem perfectly coincides with installing and deleting those utility programs, in which i may have inadvertently screwed up my system.

can anybody please help?


forgot to mention: i dont see anything unusual in the event viewer. and nothing new in processes.

 

Any external hardware? New or old?

 

no although i do get this error in my event viewer.. dont know if it's related. thrus a little searching i found it was the JMICRON media reader which i dont use. and i updated the driver for it.. i dont think it's related..



Log Name: System
Source: PlugPlayManager
Date: 5/11/2009 7:11:00 AM
Event ID: 12
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: home
Description:
The device 'JMB38X MS Host Controller' (PCI\VEN_197B&DEV_2383&SUBSYS_30F4103C&REV_00\4&120488ab&0&03E4) disappeared from the system without first being prepared for removal.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="PlugPlayManager" />
<EventID Qualifiers="49152">12</EventID>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2009-05-11T11:11:00.000Z" />
<EventRecordID>51025</EventRecordID>
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>home</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>JMB38X MS Host Controller</Data>
<Data>PCI\VEN_197B&amp;DEV_2383&amp;SUBSYS_30F4103C&amp;REV_00\4&amp;120488ab&amp;0&amp;03E4</Data>
<Binary>00000000</Binary>
</EventData>
</Event>

 

whoops i missed half of your question. i do have an external lcd and it's also connected to a dock.

 

Updated driver - with an error mesage - possibly the driver - it may not respond.

If the screen is new - try without.