WinXP Home - Explorer Crashing

[Rick Friedman]

Recently, I've started having the following problem. Occasionally,
explorer will crash (it *may* be connected to use of menus... not sure).
I'll be doing something (surfing, word processing, etc.) when suddenly
the system stops responding. After a few seconds(typically 10 - 20
seconds or so), my desktop icons disappear and the task bar disappears.
Then, they all reappear however, icons will be missing from the system
tray (even though the processes associated with them seem to still be
running).

Has anyone else heard of this or experienced it? Any ideas on what the
problem could be?

Rick

 

[Edward]

Have you run a virus scan, Rick?

Ed

 

[Rick Friedman]

Ed,

Yes... I ran two virus scans... one with Norton AntiVirus and another
with AVG 7. Both came up negative. (And all virus definitions are up to
date).

This problem is not happening often enough to make the machine unusable.
But, it *is* happening often enough to make it annoying.

Rick

 

[Malke]

Ed,

Yes... I ran two virus scans... one with Norton AntiVirus and another
with AVG 7. Both came up negative. (And all virus definitions are up
to date).

This problem is not happening often enough to make the machine
unusable. But, it *is* happening often enough to make it annoying.

Rick

Random freezing and/or crashing is usually related to hardware failure.
First open the computer and run it open, observing all fans
(overheating will cause freezing). Then do a RAM test - I like
Memtest86 from www.memtest86.com - and if necessary, continue on to
test the hard drive and motherboard. If you can't do this yourself,
take the machine to a good local computer shop (not a CompUSA or Best
Buy store).

Malke

 

[Rick Friedman]

Malke,

Normally, I would agree that it might be hardware and/or RAM related.
And, I might yet have to test that out. But, I'm becoming more convinced
that it's a software problem of some sort.

The freezing really isn't random. It seems to happen when I try to use
menus (Start, explorer menus, etc.). It doesn't happen *everytime* I use
a menu but... when it *does* happen, I'm, invariably, using a menu.

Rick

 

[Malke]

Malke,

Normally, I would agree that it might be hardware and/or RAM related.
And, I might yet have to test that out. But, I'm becoming more
convinced that it's a software problem of some sort.

The freezing really isn't random. It seems to happen when I try to use
menus (Start, explorer menus, etc.). It doesn't happen *everytime* I
use a menu but... when it *does* happen, I'm, invariably, using a
menu.

Rick

Well, I guess the only way you're going to find out is by
troubleshooting. Try one thing at a time.

Malke

 

[Alex Nichol]

Malke,

Normally, I would agree that it might be hardware and/or RAM related.
And, I might yet have to test that out. But, I'm becoming more convinced
that it's a software problem of some sort.

One possibility that is always worth a try - it may be a result of the
mouse driver and the video driver arguing over which controls the
pointer. It is easy to check on - Control Panel - Display - Settings,
Click Advanced, and on the Troubleshoot page reduce the acceleration
slider one notch or two. If one does it, there is negligible loss of
performance: if two are needed look for updated video drivers from the
maker's site.

 

[Mark Anderson]

I had the Same type of Issue
The problem was IOMEGA Hot Burn Pro. I bought this program awhile ago.

Microsoft error reporting actually came in useful.
Normally when this error happened The error reporting never came up!
The report generated a line
<EXE NAME="AFLDLL.DLL" FILTER="GRABMI_FILTER_THISFILEONLY">
A search of my hard drive found this dll in IOMEGA HOTBURN directory.
I uninstalled hotburn and the problem went away.
Mark