All of a sudden my xp home will not restart using the Turn Off Computer, Restart function. It shuts down properly, the blue power light stays on, but the screen remains black and it won't reboot until I power off and press the power button to restart.

If I start in safe mode and do it, it does restart properly.

I went to restore to an earlier day, but it said there had been no changes to configuration.

I used Registry Mechanic which found lots of needed repairs. I remember doing a registry optimization with Registry Mechanic and it seemed to hang up, so I powered off. I am thinking that this is when the problem started but I'm not sure.

I live in the middle of the Pacific and have dial-up only (our download speed is anywhere from 0.7 to 2.5 kbps -- that is not a typographic error!!).

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I should proceed?

Thanks in advance.

Iam also familiar with that problem. Its BIOS problem you need to replace your Mainboard if it was in warranty.

But if this is a hardware problem, why does it restart okay from the safe mode?

Windows shutdown file have binary values which force to shutdown such as commands- r,t,f....while restarting sometimes of high buffers BIOS does not follow the restart command and lack to shutdown.