Dell laptop will not stay shut down

[Broni]

No, no. What I'm asking is, if you shut down from Safe Mode, will it restart by itself?

[stevejohnson1958]

After Broni's finished with you...

Just for kicks and giggles...

If you close the computer, the laptop shuts off...correct?

Close the laptop...remove the battery...and use AC power cord.

Does it still do the same thing?

[patio]

Stuck Power switch ? ?
Has anything been spilled on the keyboard recently ? ?

Ghosts ? ?

[shdw219]

Small amount of success

Unplugged wireless keyboard (tried this before). This time i rebooted after unplug, then reboot again. Was able to get to BIOS.

Unfortunately the settings seem correct
Auto On - disabled
USB wake up - disabled

[shdw219]

Another symptom?

When I chose restart instead of shut down I got a longer black screen that allowed me to get my F2 request heard.

[Broni]

We didn't know about any wireless keyboard.
With that disconnected, it still restarts?

[Broni]

Go back to BIOS. Make sure, that the boot order reads: floppy, CD, HD
Disable Boot from Network (wording is different on every machine, may say Integrated NIC, Network, PXE-xxxxxxx), if enabled.

[shdw219]

OK

In safe mode now will shut down from there

Yes, still restarts with keyboard unplugged

[Broni]

In safe mode now will shut down from there

...and won't restart by itself?

[shdw219]

To Patio

Nothing spilled.
I don't think the switch is bad because I can still use it to shut down (press + rel) and hard shut dows (press + hold). That tells me the switch is not stuck.

[shdw219]

Shut down from safe mode did not change anything. Re started on its own.

Try to re-enter BIOS now.

[stevejohnson1958]

You have a lot of people trying to help you, but try this, as well:

Disable the “restart on system failure” feature.  It could help to determine the exact cause.

Right-click on My Computer, click Properties, click the Advanced tab. Under “Startup & Recovery,” click Settings. Under “System Failure,” uncheck the box in front of “Automatically restart.”

See if this fixes the problem.

[shdw219]

There were 2 NIC entries in the boot sequence but both were disabled. I disabled the NIC itself just to try something.

[shdw219]

To Savior

Yesterday I tried shutting down without the AC cord then I tried it the other way.

[stevejohnson1958]

Did you see my previous post?