"Explorer" eating up ALL spare CPU power... what gives?

[Jeff7181]

I could reboot and fix the problem I know, but I'm in the middle of something that can't be stopped and continued later.

Just wondering why this happens periodically (especially when doing LOTS of multi-tasking) and if there's a way to fix it without rebooting.

The only option I know of other than rebooting is closing down explorer and letting it restart... but then my Norton AV and ATI control panel and sound controls don't reload into the taskbar.

Anyone know of a way to remedy the situation or prevent it from happening in the future?

 

[elkinm]

Do you have any more details? What programs were you running or what files were being accessed.

 

[Jeff7181]

Norton AV, AIM, Firefox... I was downloading some average size photos from my brother when I noticed it became unresponsive when I tried to open one. So I checked the CPU usage and it was at 100%, so I checked which processes were using it, and explorer.exe was using 97-99% (as other processes took a little CPU time). It seems to also happen when I'm working with large media files... encoding divx, moving files to and from my file server. That sort of thing.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

You using the SW IDE drivers Jeff?

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
You using the SW IDE drivers Jeff?

I believe so...

 

[Schadenfroh]

try disabling indexing services
Text

 

[mikecel79]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
try disabling indexing services
Text

If it was the indexing service it would show as Explorer running the process. I believe the process name is cidaemon.exe.

You mention you are working with large media files. Do you have the preview window turned on in Explorer? I've seen if it is having trouble reading the file, either because it's corrupted, can't display it correctly, or it's on a network share that is slow, explorer will use 100% of the CPU. If you have that turned on try turning it off.

Which OS are you using?

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: mikecel79

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
try disabling indexing services
Text

If it was the indexing service it would show as Explorer running the process. I believe the process name is cidaemon.exe.

You mention you are working with large media files. Do you have the preview window turned on in Explorer? I've seen if it is having trouble reading the file, either because it's corrupted, can't display it correctly, or it's on a network share that is slow, explorer will use 100% of the CPU. If you have that turned on try turning it off.

Which OS are you using?

I already have indexing turned off... that's the very first thing I do with a clean install... 2nd thing is turn off System Restore 😀

Yes, the preview window is on... where's the option to turn it off? I'll look for it, but if I can't find it I'll be back to see your answer =)

I'm using Windows XP Pro with SP1.