Explorer at 100% CPU Usage

[deadseasquirrel]

Specs:

AXP 1700+ (166*13.5)
2x 512MB Samsung pc2700
FX5900 Ultra 256MB
Win XP SP1

Every other day or so, Explorer.exe will peg CPU usage at 100% and, naturally, nothing else responds. I can END TASK in Task Manager and kill it, then rerun it, but not only do I hate doing that (lose most system tray icons, etc), but I also don't want to have to teach my wife and son how to do that (it's his computer and he's 7).

I used Sysinternals Process Explorer to keep an eye on it and was able to take this screenshot of the crash in action.

See the threads in Explorer.exe on the right? It looks like that top one is the problem (the stack is in the window below that one). So I KILLed that thread. Usage immediately went back down to 0%.

One thing I noticed, though, after I killed that thread, was that I pasted the print screen shot into Paint and saved the JPG to the desktop. It didn't show up. I had to refresh the desktop to see it. And have to keep doing that whenever I change anything on the desktop.

Anyone able to help troubleshoot why this happens? It's been happening for quite some time, but I've just now been annoyed enough to investigate further.

 

[AkumaX]

the only 100% cpu usage problem i had was because corrupt avi files were trying to be read. i had to delete the auto-load value in registry and it stopped happening. (search shmedia.dll, avi properties handler)

 

[amdskip]

You should really update to Service Pack 2 if possible. How are you on other windows updates? What about spyware? Ran a virus scan lately?

 

[deadseasquirrel]

Originally posted by: amdskip
You should really update to Service Pack 2 if possible. How are you on other windows updates? What about spyware? Ran a virus scan lately?

Yeah, I am now considering that for this machine. I've already gone to SP2 for my main rig and wanted to test to make sure all the games he plays and applications my wife uses will work under SP2 before I put it on their machine.

This definitely might help because the version of that file (shlwapi.dll) is a later version on my SP2 machine.

As for spyware/virus, I'm close to 100% positive it's clean. Not stupid enough to claim absolutely 'cuz you never know. But I use Kaspersky and all is updated, my Hijack This log is pristine, Adaware and Spybot come back with nuttin', and there are no other behavioral anomalies.

Oh, and it ALWAYS happens when the computer is idle. Usually overnight. Hop on in the morning and click a browser or email client and it will hang just like the screenshot shows.

I'm gonna throw SP2 on there today and watch it for a few days to see if it clears up.

 

[Cha0s]

get some adaware or something

 

[imported_JFG]

Try a registry cleaner. I have seen this caused by some funky enviornmental variables