Explorer.exe crashes when idle

[AC]

I boot the computer and let it sit idle (power management is disabled) for a few hours. When I come back Windows is unstable, explorer.exe has caused errors/crashes. Restart and the computer is fine again until a few hours later. I used to be able to keep the thing on for days. CPU temp is 43*C. DocMemory reports that RAM is fine. 50%+ system resources availiable. What can be causing this? Software/hardware?

Specs:
Abit KT7RAID
AMD 900
Crucial PC100 384
3 month installation of Windows ME
(see rig for other details)

 

[TonyT]

Have you tried letting the computer sit with just explorer and systray active and see if it still gives you the problem? Perhaps it's some incompatible software which is causing the problem.

 

[emjem]

For it to crash while sitting unused there would have to be something trying to run without your participation.

Screen Saver?

Otherwise do Control/Alt/Delete and see what's running in the background. Try shutting down those aps one at a time then letting your pc sit idle for the few hours while any one is shutdown -- see if you can isolate which one might be doing it.

If that doesn't work go to System Tools/System Information/SoftwareEnvir/RunningTasks and you will see an expanded list of running aps to wrestle with.

 

[emjem]

One other thought, are you connected to the internet when this happens?

 

[AC]

33 programs are executed on startup + associated vxds/dlls loaded

there had been no problems before recently

safemode works fine

so definitely software and not hardware?

LAN internet connection

 

[emjem]

Yep. Now comes the hard work. You should test every application loaded to see which one is doing it. You do that by disabling one, then letting your pc run for several hours to see if it still crashes. If not, disable another one for several hours -- and so on and so forth.

Heheh, a shortcut is to disable half of them and find out if the bad nut is in that half or the other half. And so on down the line. But try some logic first. Like you're looking for one that will activate itself for some purpose after a few hours, like maybe a screen saver, or one that checks the internet for some reason.

You said it only started recently? What program have you installed "recently"?

Don't disable Exporer or System Tray because windows can't run without those two.

Of course you could do a hdd format and start over, lol.