explorer.exe uses too much CPU time

[JRS]

I have had a problem with a USB TV device stuttering when using the PC for
something else at the same time as watching it. It is as if the PC is
underpowered to do more than one thing at once. However it is an Athlon64
with 1Gb Ram, SATA drives and an Nvidia FX5700.

Having looked at what uses the CPU it seems to be explorer.exe. Even the
action of dragging a window around takes explorer.exe usage up to around
50%.

My lowly P4 1.8 Gig Laptop with 512Mb Ram and a slow drive and mobility
radeon does not suffer in the same way and dragging a window around only
causes explorer.exe to use a maximum of 10% CPU.

Can anyone offer an insight into what the problem on the desktop might be.
It is Trojan and virus free and runs the same processes as the laptop
including Nod32 and Trojanhunter. The laptop runs XP home and SP2. The
desktop XP Pro and SP1 (SP2 fails but that's another story!)

Thanks.

Jon

 

[Rock]

I have had a problem with a USB TV device stuttering when using the PC for
something else at the same time as watching it. It is as if the PC is
underpowered to do more than one thing at once. However it is an Athlon64
with 1Gb Ram, SATA drives and an Nvidia FX5700.

Having looked at what uses the CPU it seems to be explorer.exe. Even the
action of dragging a window around takes explorer.exe usage up to around
50%.

My lowly P4 1.8 Gig Laptop with 512Mb Ram and a slow drive and mobility
radeon does not suffer in the same way and dragging a window around only
causes explorer.exe to use a maximum of 10% CPU.

Can anyone offer an insight into what the problem on the desktop might be.
It is Trojan and virus free and runs the same processes as the laptop
including Nod32 and Trojanhunter. The laptop runs XP home and SP2. The
desktop XP Pro and SP1 (SP2 fails but that's another story!)

Thanks.

Jon

Do some clean boot troubleshooting to see wha might be causing the problem.

How to Troubleshoot By Using the Msconfig Utility in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=310560

How to perform advanced clean-boot troubleshooting in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=316434