Problems shutting off computer

Yesterday I installed Red Hat 8.0 on my computer. I am dual booting it with Windows XP Home. Since I installed Linux, I have had problems shutting down my computer. First of all, the computer does not automatically shut down. Second of all, when I press the power button, all it does is turn the power LED off. The computer is still running! I tried disabling the power management stuff in Windows, because I figured it may have caused the problem with the power button. It didn't fix it. Red Hat does the same exact thing whenever I try to shut down the computer. It just sits at the console saying "Power down".

My system specs:
GRUB Boot Loader
Windows XP Home
Red Hat Linux 8.0
AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (not overclocked)
512 MB PC2100 DDR RAM
40 GB Hard Drive split into 4 partitions:
* NTFS - Windows XP's C: (19.2 GB)
* Ext3 - Linux's Root (/) (17.8 GB)
* Ext3 - Linux's Boot (/boot) (79.0 MB)
* Linux Swap - Swap Space (911.0 MB)
20 GB Hard Drive in 1 NTFS partition
10 GB Hard Drive in 1 NTFS partition
ASRock K7VT2 Motherboard

where you running "shutdown -h now" as root? did you play with your bios? i has something like that happen to my old compaq, i hate power buttons that dont control the power.

Make sure that you have an ATX Powersupply that supports Advanced Power Managment features, including your MB. Maybe some of your BIOS ROM settings have been changed, give that a look through too.

I've never had any problems with this before. Windows XP used to shut down correctly b4 I installed Linux. Now I have to switch the computer off from the back.

I didn't mess with the BIOS at all. I just checked it, and everything is set up correctly.

mart_man00: I just started using Linux a few months ago, and I don't know what special function that command has. I've always shut it down from within the logon screen.

Win XP also has problems shutting down as well, so I don't think it's a Linux setting.

All power management stuff is shut off in Windows, and the only Power Management I got enabled in the BIOS is the Wake-on-keyboard.

I tried using the poweroff command to do it, and it just did the same thing. Shutdown did the same thing as well. It always hangs at the part that says Power down. The only thing you can hear is the fans in the computer, the screen doesn't blank out, and the harddrive light remains lit.

Hmmm...I installed Redhat 8 on my WinXP system, dual boot, just like you, except that I have Linux on a seperate physical HD, and it works fine... It's been a while since I used it, but I don't believe that Linux turns the computer off, it just exits. Windows still shuts down though... I'll go check and find out for sure.

Nope, Linux didn't turn off the computer.

I Just installed RedHat 8 on the same HD on a different logical partition and both, RedHat and XP, shutdown the computer. I use KDE, and I believe there was an option in it somewhere to use Advanced Power Management... but it still didn't effect Windows XP.

I'm going to clear out RedHat 8 when I install 9 anyway, so maybe it'll fix it.

I did a clean install of Red Hat 9 and it still doesn't shut off right.