explorer.exe consuming 98-99% CPU activity

[Cervino]

I have win XP SP2 with the latest updates and I'm using ESET NOD32
antivirus/antipsyware sofware, and sit behind a hardware firewall. It's been
running fine for 2+ years, but recently I've noticed that after I boot up, if
I open up windows explorer and leave it running for several minutes after
opening up a windows explorer window, my computer will start running very
slowly. I normally run my computer 24/7 and my Ram is 4GB. These symptoms
have only arisen in the last two weeks.

Checking the task manager, explorer.exe will show up as consuming 98-99% of
the cpu activity. Also under Taskmanager, Commit Change has the following
statistics:
Total: 404,990 - 405,200
Limit: 4,030,016
Peak: 444,724

PMU and VM size for the six largest programs running are:
Firefox.exe 79,852 64,300
ekrn.exe 39,448 26,614
svchost.exe 33,120 17,500
Overclk.exe 15,132 8500
kodaksvc.exe 11,220 15,284
nsvcip.exe 8952 5944

All of the above are reporting essentially 0% CPU usage since explorer.exe
is reporting 98-99% usage.

I've run a full system antivirus/antispyware scan, run Microsoft's malicious
software tool in its deepest scanning mode, and nothing turned up. I
defragmented my disks and then the system ran fine for a week even with two
or
more windows explorer instance open. Then the same slowdown symptoms
reappeared. Did all the scans again, checked if disks needed defraging (they
didn't). As long as I reboot and don't start up a windows explorer window,
the computer never slows down. I tried cccleaner to get rid of a bunch of
garbage and deleted all restore points except the most recent one. To no
avail. Someone on another forum mentioned that Nero 7 Essentials can cause
these symptoms. I had put that on a couple weeks ago, so I unistalled Nero
and cleaned up what was left over from the unistall process. Again, no change
in symptoms.

Any ideas on other software or possible hardware problems that might cause
these symptoms?

Thanks for your help!

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

I would suspect 'indexing' of the drive for the search function of one of
your installed apps. Google toolbar?

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Mark L. Ferguson

..

 

[Gerry]

Answered in microsoft.public.windowsxp.general

Firefox can be problematic. This link is an interesting one:
http://www.lockergnome.com/blade/20...-usage-high-cpu-usage-whats-up-with-this-now/

Are you using Hibernation? Does Firefox ever get closed given the
computer is on 24/7?

Overclk.exe
http://www.techspot.com/startup/3600/

Overclocking is not a topic I am familiar with. Interestingly you have a
choice of loading it at start up or later. How are you using it?

kodaksvc.exe
The Spycops are trying to decide whether this file is malware. Have you
installed Kodak Easyshare?

nsvcip.exe
http://www.spyany.com/files/nsvcip_exe.html
You have two Firewalls!

Leaving your computer on 24/7 is not to be recommended.


--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Cervino]

Thanks. I don't use Goodle toolbar, but I did turn indexing off for all my
drives under the properties tab. Same behavior is cropping up, however. I
can't think of any programs I'm using that also index drives as I normally
don't use those features.

After doing some more testing, explorer.exe seems to go bonkers when I use
windows explorer to open my data drive (the other two hard drives don't seem
to be causing any problem that I can see). But not every folder on the data
drive causes a problem. There are two that contain massive amounts of data
and files and these seem to trigger the slowdown when I navigate to them in
windows explorer. I'm wondering if there is a size issue for data in folders?
Or perhaps there is some corruption in one of the files in these folders
that's causing explorer.exe to hog almost all the cpu? I'll explore further.