windows does not shutdown when lid is closed

Occasionally when I close the lid of my Dell laptop, windows does not shutdown propely. I know this because when I open the lid I am given various options to proceed ie normal mode, safe mode etc.My first reaction may be that I did not close the lid properly !! Is there any other reason ?

I'm no expert but I believe there is a setting that tells what action to take when the lid in closed EG "shut down" "sleep" I think it might be in the power settings.
Check that is set to "shut down"

Agree...

There must be something in the shut-down settings that is causing the problem.

Or, are you the guy that keeps opening the 'fridge door to see if the light has gone out?

Could be a problem with drivers or other software not allowing the machine to close down properly. Likely the same problem would occur going through a normal start menu shutdown as using the shutdown on the lid closing. Personally I don't have laptops do anything on the lid closing as I will often close the lid when moving to another location and I want the choice of when a laptop shuts down or goes to sleep.

There are a number of things that can stop an orderly shut down of a laptop or PC and they are not usually directly associated with the fact it is the closing of the lid triggering the shutdown. Would recommend just googling for "PC not shutting down properly" and work through the results from that.

I have this conflict:

My laptop is configured to

• Shutdown on Power button
• Sleep on lid down

When I press the Power button it starts shutting down. But if I lower lid too early it interrupts shutdown and goes to sleep. When I reopen lid it continues shutdown.

Could it be something like this?

Do you mean it doesn't shut down or go into Standby? I have the same problem with my Dell Studio - I need to close the lid quite vigorously before it will Standby. When I've closed it, I gently press down at the front and that usually does it. You can see if it's in Standby by the lights (most computers).