System problems..

[SE14man]

Hi,

On one of the laptops the desktop keeps disappearing, like every 5 seconds it will come and stay for 5 seconds then go again andi ll just be left with the background.
What is the cause of this?
Ive tried system restore, hijack this, safe mode and no luck..
Tried disabling services in msconfig on start up and still nothing...

Any ideas??

Cheers.

[aedipuss]

see what's using the cpu. control alt delete to bring up task manager. click on the processes tab and then click cpu twice to sort by highest use. that should give you a clue as to what is going on.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Seems like something is killing the explorer.exe task responsible for the desktop. Typically, if this happens, Windows launches a new instance of explorer.exe (when I have had explorer lock up and I kill it, a new desktop comes up).

It could be that is something causing it to crash or something malevolent is at play.

[SE14man]

Hi m8,

Well theres the normal processed there is explorer.exe which of course keeps disappearing which is using the most, the under is svchost which i would end task to and it would just keep doing the same thing again, all the other processes are nothing malicious or dodgy, they're all common like winlogon, lsass etc etc...

any other ideas?

[SE14man]

Here are the current processes running on it, i cant even get an anti virus installed because it wont give me long enough to get to run the setup of it lol.

[edDV]

Hi m8,

Well theres the normal processed there is explorer.exe which of course keeps disappearing which is using the most, the under is svchost which i would end task to and it would just keep doing the same thing again, all the other processes are nothing malicious or dodgy, they're all common like winlogon, lsass etc etc...

any other ideas?

I once had XP explorer.exe go into excessive CPU load and suspected a virus. Answer was to format and reinstall. Fortunately I had a disk image to restore saving a few hours.

[aedipuss]

from looking at your running processes i would start with your avg anti virus. there are parts of it missing from the running list. uninstall it and re-install, then run a complete scan just to make sure nothing a miss.

[SE14man]

Ok mate, thanks fellas for your help i iwll give it a go and keep you lot informed...

cheers.

[aedipuss]

oh and please put a check mark in the "show processes from all users" box and post the new list.

[SE14man]

Ok,

Here's the latest, the only thing that keeps disappearing/reappearing from that list is 'explorer.exe'

cheers fellas..

[aedipuss]

the avgwb.dat file showing up in the new list indicates avg is in the middle of a scan. it may have been scheduled and is running in the background. double click on the avg icon in the task bar and bring avg to the desktop and see what it's up to. if it's scanning just let it complete.

[SE14man]

it's all scanned and 0 threats found.
This is odd.
Shouldi try windows xp service pack 3 do you think?

Cheers.

[grossjamesh]

Things to try:

boot into safe mode and see that solves the problem - that means you have a piece of spyware or a virus causing the problem

Run HijackThis and post on TechSupport Guys web site for analysis - that will show if there is something running that shouldnt be.

As a last gasp - wipe the hard disk and re-install windows.

Dont install SP3 untill the system is fixed and working.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Try this:

http://eric-taylor.com/2008/01/02/the-all-famous-windows-xp-explorerexe-killer/

I found it via a Google for "explorer.exe restarting" which yields a bunch of other hits that may help.