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Turning off your Computer – Simple – Yes?

What could be simpler than turning off your computer? You just reach for the power button and press it, don't you?  You could, but it would not be long before you had problems. Turning off a computer that way is a brutal way of doing things. Your hard disk is actually spinning very quickly. You normally have a fan to cool the computer chip. If you just turn off the power then you effectively just stop things!

Modern computers normally shut themselves down and turn off the power. They do it gradually, giving time for matters to be adjusted for a gentle stop - much kinder. To do this you usually go to the 'Start' button to stop the computer, using one of the options you find there.

That is all well and good if your computer is behaving normally, but what if it is not? At some stage you will need to turn it off, so what can you do?

Firstly, if you have any open programmes try to shut them down. Doing this makes it easier to shut down the computer. But what happens if they won't close down? A good way is holding down 'Ctrl' and 'Alt' buttons and pressing the 'Delete' button - this should bring up the task manager. In the task manager you should find options to allow you to shut down the programmes. Having done that you can log off, and then shut down the computer. Only use the power switch as a last resort.                         

The Grapevine Computer Guru