yes I have
looked at
all of the log files in /var/log.

More information, on this is that I have gotten a glimpse of the error
message
and it pertains to something like "softtest" or something like that. It
goes by
so fast as to be gone. Thus my question on manually taking the system
down. I
did try that and didn't see anything on the screen.
Is there any other place that log files are stored, I wouldn't think so.