Shutdown properly?

New Mac user w/ a MBP. My question is about shutting down vs. sleep.

When I put it to sleep, the display goes dark and the fan noises stop and all appears to be correct.

When I select shut down, the screen goes blue and stays that way until the timer kicks in and the backlight goes dark. At that point, the cursor (arrow) is still on the screen and if I move the cursor or hit any key, the backlight comes back on. It just stays there.

I'm hoping for an answer here, if not, I'll make an appointment and go see a Genius after work one day this week.

Tks,
Craig

Welcome to MacForums!

Thats quite odd. A typical shutdown for me involves nothing more than a dark screen and my little light going out. However, rest assured, one of the great minds here at MF will have some light to shed on the subject, or atleast point you in the right direction!

Welcome again, and keep us posted, good luck!

Reset PRAM and see whether there is any change.

Shutdown question

Thanks for the info but it didn't seem to change anything. I'm guessing that I held the right buttons in the correct order for the right period of time, the system came up and gave the start up sound and immediately shut down and started over again. When I got the sound the second time, I let the buttons go and the boot up then took several minutes instead of the quick boot up I'd normally get.

Shutting down gave the same result, it just sits at a blue screen until the powersave darkens the screen.

Any other thoughts? I'll be on the other side of the Island Wednesday night so I'll see if I can stop by the Apple Store if nothing else.

Tks,
Craig McVeay

Fixed it

I guess they call them "genius" for a reason.....

I have a USB drive on my Airport base station. Seems the system liked it a great deal and didn't want to say farewell to it. Figured it out in a couple of minutes and now I can do an actual shutdown.

Thanks,
Craig