Comment 1 for bug 104868

I'm seeing exactly the same problem, on Feisty with the 2.6.20-15-generic kernel (running SMP), on a Dell Precision 620 (dual Pentium III). After a fresh Feisty install it seemed to shutdown/reboot fine about 4-5 times, but now it's freezing at the "sending all processes the KILL signal" point. I've left it in this state for hours, and it gets no further, and I eventually have to reboot or do a hard shutdown (and upon reboot my ReiserFS partitions need their journals replaying).

Prior to re-installing Feisty, my machine got progressively less reliable with these hard power-downs, to the point where I couldn't boot up without having to run fsck manually from the super user mode.

I'd be very keen to see this fixed, or at least discover a suitable workaround in the meantime. I hate having to hard power-down every time I use the machine.