[pjBSOD]

So I ran my usual CCleaner like I do every week. I do not clean the registry. I only clear the temp/history/cookies/etc.

I restarted, loaded up all my stuff and got up to mix. I came to my PC for a second and went to type a song name in the start search bar, and as I was typing it said "Explorer.exe has crashed". It recovered afterwards almost immediately, but why the hell did it crash in the first place?

It has never done this. I left my computer on for like two weeks, during those two weeks I played games and everything you would normally do and it never happened. I've had my computer for almost a month and a half and it has NEVER done that. My overclock is 24/7 stable and has never crashed BSOD'd etc. My rig has never BSOD'd, etc.

Was it just one of those stupid things that sometimes happen in Windows for no apparent reason? Like I said, this is the first time it has happened.

 

[thetechfreak]

I think its Virus / Malware.
Do scan using online antivirus=

http://housecall.trendmicro.com

 

[mbudden]

Check your SMART on your HDD.
My HDD was acting funny the other day... When I checked the SMART data. It had bad sectors. I was wondering why explorer etc would crash.

 

[alienguts]

an old trick I'd use 5 years ago when all I had was 1 dying 120gb drive was to ctrl+alt+delete kill explorer.exe and then go file>run "explorer.exe". It does nothing but restart the Windows GUI. its probably a lot less harmless than leaving your computer on for 6 weeks, no offense.

 

[Coma]

Probably malware. Much more likely if you run as admin all the time. Do a System Restore if you can.

If it *is* malware, a local scan probably won't work. Try scanning with the Kaspersky boot disk.

 

[pjBSOD]

It's not malware. I also do weekly scans of MWB, never shows anything. I browse the web with Noscript, and I'd like to consider myself very smart with computers. I always check my processes to look for suspicious activity.

I'm paranoid, basically. It's not malware.
Quote:

Originally Posted by mbudden;13144906
Check your SMART on your HDD.
My HDD was acting funny the other day... When I checked the SMART data. It had bad sectors. I was wondering why explorer etc would crash.

I've actually never checked the health of a HDD before, how would I go by doing that?

 

[Tom1121]

Run command prompt as admin, type sfc /scannow.

Afterwards type chkdsk and when it says if you'd like to run it after reboot, say yes.

See if those fix anything for ya

.

 

[pjBSOD]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom1121;13145310
Run command prompt as admin, type sfc /scannow.

Afterwards type chkdsk and when it says if you'd like to run it after reboot, say yes.

See if those fix anything for ya

.

I'll do that in a few minutes, thanks

It's possible it was just a weird crash, I've never really seen that before though so I was a little concerned.

 

[mbudden]

Quote:

Originally Posted by E-Peen;13145258
I've actually never checked the health of a HDD before, how would I go by doing that?

CrystalDiskInfo

It's free and open source

 

[Thogar]

Go into Event viewer -> Windows logs -> Application, and see what it says, i would filter by date so it's easier to find it, and the level should be Error.

 

[louze001]

I have experienced explorer.exe crashing with unstable overclocks and faulty memory as well. Give it a good scan with prime95 and memtest.

 

[pjBSOD]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thogar Go into Event viewer -> Windows logs -> Application, and see what it says, i would filter by date so it's easier to find it, and the level should be Error.

Got it, not quite too sure what that means, though.

Quote:

Faulting application name: Explorer.EXE, version: 6.1.7600.16385, time stamp: 0x4a5bc9bb Faulting module name: SHELL32.dll, version: 6.1.7600.16385, time stamp: 0x4a5be054 Exception code: 0xc0000005 Fault offset: 0x000000000012fa4b Faulting process id: 0x768 Faulting application start time: 0x01cbfbbee65d601a Faulting application path: C:\\Windows\\Explorer.EXE Faulting module path: C:\\Windows\\system32\\SHELL32.dll Report Id: ec607202-67c3-11e0-8118-002683147700

Here's the results from the chkdsk and sysscan.

Quote:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600] Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. C:\\Windows\\system32>sfc /scannow Beginning system scan. This process will take some time. Beginning verification phase of system scan. Verification 100% complete. Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them. Details are included in the CBS.Log windir\\Logs\\CBS\\CBS.log. For example C:\\Windows\\Logs\\CBS\\CBS.log The system file repair changes will take effect after the next reboot. C:\\Windows\\system32>chkdsk The type of the file system is NTFS. WARNING! F parameter not specified. Running CHKDSK in read-only mode. CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)... 124416 file records processed. File verification completed. 135 large file records processed. 0 bad file records processed. 2 EA records processed. 44 reparse records processed. CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)... 166452 index entries processed. Index verification completed. 0 unindexed files scanned. 0 unindexed files recovered. CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)... 124416 file SDs/SIDs processed. Security descriptor verification completed. 21019 data files processed. CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal... 37117648 USN bytes processed. Usn Journal verification completed. Windows has checked the file system and found no problems. 966171647 KB total disk space. 106611548 KB in 80244 files. 52600 KB in 21020 indexes. 0 KB in bad sectors. 256679 KB in use by the system. 65536 KB occupied by the log file. 859250820 KB available on disk. 4096 bytes in each allocation unit. 241542911 total allocation units on disk. 214812705 allocation units available on disk. C:\\Windows\\system32>

All I know is Shell32.dll is a legitimate file and is located in the correct folder... aka Sys32.

 

[Thogar]

All i can think of is if you customized the icons within shell32.dll, and that's how it happened but i highly doubt that's the cause.

 

[pjBSOD]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thogar All i can think of is if you customized the icons within shell32.dll, and that's how it happened but i highly doubt that's the cause.

Yeah, no idea. Here's the only changes I made recently.

Moved all icons to taskbar in Windows 7
Deleted all other stuff on Desktop that were unused/unnecessary shortcuts
Made a recycle bin shortcut and added it to the taskbar
Hid icons on desktop

I doubt it'll happen again. Since it's a legit DLL I have absolutely no idea what could have caused it to crash.

 

[Thogar]

Maybe it made it angry

I've had Explorer crash because of a lot of icons on the desktop before so who knows

 

[mbudden]

What'd you HDD say?

 

[pjBSOD]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mbudden What'd you HDD say?

Posted the results a few posts up that command prompt gave as far as the chkdsk went.

aka

Quote:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600] Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. C:\\Windows\\system32>sfc /scannow Beginning system scan. This process will take some time. Beginning verification phase of system scan. Verification 100% complete. Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them. Details are included in the CBS.Log windir\\Logs\\CBS\\CBS.log. For example C:\\Windows\\Logs\\CBS\\CBS.log The system file repair changes will take effect after the next reboot. C:\\Windows\\system32>chkdsk The type of the file system is NTFS. WARNING! F parameter not specified. Running CHKDSK in read-only mode. CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)... 124416 file records processed. File verification completed. 135 large file records processed. 0 bad file records processed. 2 EA records processed. 44 reparse records processed. CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)... 166452 index entries processed. Index verification completed. 0 unindexed files scanned. 0 unindexed files recovered. CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)... 124416 file SDs/SIDs processed. Security descriptor verification completed. 21019 data files processed. CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal... 37117648 USN bytes processed. Usn Journal verification completed. Windows has checked the file system and found no problems. 966171647 KB total disk space. 106611548 KB in 80244 files. 52600 KB in 21020 indexes. 0 KB in bad sectors. 256679 KB in use by the system. 65536 KB occupied by the log file. 859250820 KB available on disk. 4096 bytes in each allocation unit. 241542911 total allocation units on disk. 214812705 allocation units available on disk. C:\\Windows\\system32>

 

[munaim1]

Just a question, do you have thumbnails preview on? I remember one time explorer.exe kept on crashing on me if I went into a particular folder. It only had a bunch of things in it like pics and songs. I later found out that it was a corrupted thumbnail/s, after clearing the thumbnail cache it was okay again. Sorry I cant link you a source on the procedure but im looking it for it

,

EDIT: lols I just remembered its under disk cleanup, that option should also be available in cccleaner

Hope that helps

 

[pjBSOD]

Quote:

Originally Posted by munaim1 Just a question, do you have thumbnails preview on? I remember one time explorer.exe kept on crashing on me if I went into a particular folder. It only had a bunch of things in it like pics and songs. I later found out that it was a corrupted thumbnail/s, after clearing the thumbnail cache it was okay again. Sorry I cant link you a source on the procedure but im looking it for it , EDIT: lols I just remembered its under disk cleanup, that option should also be available in cccleaner Hope that helps

Wow dude, that might actually be it. Just cleared the Thumbnails. Also, how would I disable Thumbnail previews, period?

 

[munaim1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by E-Peen Wow dude, that might actually be it. Just cleared the Thumbnails. Also, how would I disable Thumbnail previews, period?

nice one!! Look here for info on how to disable them: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...e-disable.html

EDIT: This is to disable caching, look here: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...e-disable.html