Here I am again.
I have a second server running the same sles 10 sp2 version and it does not present the shutdown problem.
I resolved to investigate the ACPI issue, compared the two servers and got this (i hope the experts tell us what to do, if this helps):

hom076 presents the problem.
dsv075 works fine. No problem. Reboots and starts up nicely.

hom076:~ # dmesg|grep -i ACPI|grep enabled
ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x00] lapic_id[0x00] enabled)
ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x08] lapic_id[0x08] enabled)
ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x02] lapic_id[0x02] enabled)
ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0a] lapic_id[0x0a] enabled)
ACPI: Interpreter enabled
dsv075:~ # dmesg|grep -i ACPI|grep enabled
ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x00] lapic_id[0x00] enabled)
ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x08] lapic_id[0x08] enabled)
ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x01] lapic_id[0x01] enabled)
ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x09] lapic_id[0x09] enabled)
ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x02] lapic_id[0x02] enabled)
ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0a] lapic_id[0x0a] enabled)
ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x03] lapic_id[0x03] enabled)
ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0b] lapic_id[0x0b] enabled)
ACPI: Interpreter enabled