Why does explorer.ex become a resource hog?
April 22, 2007 11:47 AM Subscribe
What are possible causes for explorer.exe to blowup to 70-80+ % CPU usage??
NO I do not have an trojans or viruses, my machine doesn't have any extra crap running on it in the background.
Typical things I use are Video editing applications like Sny Vegas, Sorenson Squeeze, and Photoshop - usually after opening/running a couple things - bam - task manager shows exploere.exe hogging & bogging down.
Any ideas? Should I just wipe/reinstall windows?
It could be a 3rd party toolbar or context menu entry. Try running an adware/spyware cleaner. If it's not not that, run the File Monitor program and the TCP monitor from sysinternals.com at the times it is slow. Look for any nonexistent programs it is trying to read, and any attempted network connections that are hanging (the status will be SYN_SENT instead of ESTABLISHED).
posted by ken_zoan at 12:27 PM on April 22, 2007
posted by ken_zoan at 12:27 PM on April 22, 2007
I've had explorer freak out on me when I click an avi file with a non microsoft codec. It seems to get into a mire when trying to render the preview for the sidebar. I don't think I've had the problem lately, but I don't know if it's just luck, or if its because I installed a new version of XVID or FFdshow at some point, or microsoft released an update.
posted by Good Brain at 12:28 PM on April 22, 2007
posted by Good Brain at 12:28 PM on April 22, 2007
Uh, obvious question, but is the process actually spelled "exploere.exe"?
posted by ReiToei at 12:37 PM on April 22, 2007
posted by ReiToei at 12:37 PM on April 22, 2007
Seconding the use of Filemon from Sysinternals. Put a filter on explorer.exe, and try to see if there are a large number of queries explorer is making for another exe, or file path.
(For full disclosure, I am affiliated with Sysinternals, but I doubt anybody will consider this self promotion)
posted by stovenator at 1:09 PM on April 22, 2007
(For full disclosure, I am affiliated with Sysinternals, but I doubt anybody will consider this self promotion)
posted by stovenator at 1:09 PM on April 22, 2007
Second the .avi weirdness. I had similar problems with rendering the preview (thumbnail) or the video itself of certain .avi files that would suck up all my system resources; killing and restarting explorer.exe fixed it, but I could never figure out what the problem codec was. Eventually I deleted the video and forgot about the whole thing.
posted by ZakDaddy at 2:59 PM on April 22, 2007
posted by ZakDaddy at 2:59 PM on April 22, 2007
Have you tried setting the option for different windows to be launched in different processes? If your problem is that you have too many windows open, this will spread the usage beyond just one process.
(From and explorer window) Tools -> Folder Options -> View -> Advanced Options -> Launch folder windows in a separate process.
posted by philomathoholic at 3:32 PM on April 22, 2007
(From and explorer window) Tools -> Folder Options -> View -> Advanced Options -> Launch folder windows in a separate process.
posted by philomathoholic at 3:32 PM on April 22, 2007
You could try turning off thumbnail view on any folder that contains video files, too. That might help you nail it down a bit.
posted by flabdablet at 5:50 PM on April 22, 2007
posted by flabdablet at 5:50 PM on April 22, 2007
This thread is closed to new comments.
How do you know this? Does the machine have any exposure to the Net?
posted by Malor at 12:06 PM on April 22, 2007