Shutdown and other problems

[sullet]

Hi everybody,

My laptop (ASUS K40IJ) has been acting strange lately. The problems are as follows:
 
1. Cannot shut down, log off or restart. Selecting these options from the start menu results in no reaction. Even pressing the power button gets no results. However, sleep still works via the normal methods. Also, the laptop does shut down if I close the lid, but only after quite a long while.

2. Pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del gets no results. However, I am still able to run the Task Manager if I look it up using the Search function.

I have:

Windows 7 Home Premium
Procesor: Celeron (R) Dual-Core CPU T3000 @ 1.80 GHz
2GB RAM
Graphics: Mobile Intel (R) 4 Series Express Chipset
283 GB Total hard disk (75 C:, 209 D:)
782MB Total available graphics memory
Display Adapter Driver Version: 8.15.10.1840
DirectX10
64-bit OS
Norton 360 antivirus

Would greatly appreciate any help. Thanks for your time.

[Allan]

Let's make sure we don't have a malware issue before looking elsewhere. Please follow the instructions in the following link and post your logs in the thread you create (NOT in this thread):
http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php/topic,46313.0.html