Suddenly, my Thinkpad T42 refuses - under 2007 - to switch off following selection of "Log Off/Turn Off Computer". No great sweat, but it works correctly under XP-Pro and I can't think of anything that I've changed/downloaded which may have caused the problem. Does the system keep a log of the shut-down procedure, that I could examine to investigate this a bit further? Thanks.


[moved from Software by spinynorman]

Have you checked your settings in KDE Control Centre--> KDE Components--> Session Manager--> Default Shutdown Option? Are you able to shutdown from commandline using either power off or shutdown -h now?

Sorry, the misunderstanding was my lack of accuracy . The machine starts the shut-down procedure correctly and displays (in verbose-mode) the two final statements "Halting System...." and "System halted"; previously, at this point it then actually also switched off. Now, however, it just sits there and I have to press the power-button myself. As I said, it's no great sweat to do this, I'd just like to know why the switch-off fails.
BTW, "shutdown -h now" has the same effect - procedure correct up to but excluding the actual switch-off. The OS doesn't understand "power off", however.

Probably something to do with acpi being disabled, what's the kernel boot line say from /boot/grub/menu.lst or /etc/lilo.conf (whichever one you're using).

Yup, that seems to have been it, the boot-line in /boot/grub/menu.lst contained "acpi=ht". I reinstated acpi with MCC and now it switches off, as before. Many thanks.

Great