My computer crashes frequently due the the process of explorer.exe. HELP!!?

Question

Every once in a while the explorer process takes up a HUGE chunck of CPU usage, about 50-80% and my computer is virtually unoperatable. Most of the programs will freeze up including the toolbar at the bottom of the screen. How do i fix this? Is this a virus? Why didn't Threatfire or Norton Antivirus see this?

Answer 1

Are you sure it is IE that's consuming your memory and causing the freeze?
Take a few minutes and run through this checklist. It looks formidable, but it's really not and it will free up RAM and increase speed.

1. Set wallpaper and screensavers to blank or none — they run continuously in the background and use memory.
-----right-click on the desktop, select Properties
-----click the screensaver tab, on the left where it says "screensaver," select none.
-----click the desktop tab, for background, select none
2. Review your start menu – remove anything you don’t need on a daily basis — load games, etc. on an as-needed basis.
-----click Start, Settings, Taskbar and Start Menu
-----click the Start Menu tab
-----select a program you do not want to load at Startup, then click remove.
-----Caution -- do not touch anything you are not sure of or you will mess up your computer royally.
3. From Internet Explorer, click Tools, Internet Options: delete cookies, delete files (offline), and clear history. (You can also set days to store history to 0.)
----- These actions will clear your computer’s cache. (For a description of cache, go to http://help.yahoo.com/l/ph/yahoo/mail/access/access-27210.html )
4. Run Disk Cleanup, Scandisk, Defrag at least every two weeks (the more frequently they are run, the less time they take).
-----These can be found in Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools.
5. Periodically, click Start, Programs, Run — then type ipconfig renew
(that’s ipconfig space renew).
6. Optional: Speed vs Goodies — in the Control Panel, System, Advanced, Performance, Settings — you can have visual effects or let Windows select the best options. I am using “Best Performance.” Your choice.
These things should increase speed and free up memory as much as possible.

Answer 2

There are those opportunities: a million. Virus (likely) 2. Hardware subject 3. undesirable not elementary disk 4. Your motherboard won't be nicely matched inclusive of your processor (like my pc suffered) 5. the potential button could be caught (rather much less probably) test your pc for viruses and delete them ASAP. If it would not artwork, and you comprehend it rather is a hardware subject, yet some new hardware. If it rather is a utility subject, or a scourge would be unable to be fastened and deleted, reformat your laptop, and then set up homestead windows lower back... It hurts you comprehend...

Answer 3

Explorer.exe is the toolbar at the bottom, actually its your entire desktop. If this process is hanging it could be caused by multiple things; virus, to many applications running simoultaneously, or not enough resources on your system. Run a virus scan and make sure you have enough memory on your system.