hey.........even i have a similar problem but its not as severe..............
normally my system shuts down in 5-15 seconds but at times(very random) it takes 30 seconds......
WinXPSP2 on AthlonXP 1800+
The problem started after i started using shutdown features in softwares like DAP, VirtualDub, #1 DVD Ripper, CustomizerXP, LeechGet 2004..........
What happens is...............There r many processes running on ur system............so while shutdown some of them OR one of them does not respond while Shut down..........Windows has a default wait time set, in XP it is 20 seconds............for non responding apps. ............ so even though there is no IDE activity still itl take a long time to shutdown...
Page File size cud b one reason but usually its cos of non responding apps n processes:
How to figure that out?
Well all the time during shutdown if ur comp shows the IDE(red light) glowing/blinking...its gotta do with ur HDD n pagefile performance.........
If at some stage during shutdown for quite some time if ur IDE light is OFF it means its due to non responding processes...!!!
u can use Advanced System Optimizer to tweak ur system n change these settings (
www.systweak.com)
but wid me the prob still persists(randomly)
but::
normal = 5-15 secs
slow = 30-40 secs