Windows 7: Explorer.exe taking up 20%+ cpu

I would like to say that the problem has "crawled back into its hole" for the time being. >.>

Well at least the verification tool proved to be a help afterall. You may have to start looking at updating a few other things like the WiFi driver, etc. to keep it hiding in the hole once and for all!

With a fresh update going on well and seemingly solving the problem for you something else has to have brought it back up again. Been running any graphics intense games or media players since?

Of course i use the full potential of my laptop.(isnt sapposed to sound snobby lol when i read that line it does =) ) I mainly run music durning game play. Main games ive played before it happend was Spore on max graphics , League of Legends on full graphics, and minecraft. Also i have installed some more games on it.

One program that can be help as far as getting everything updated as well as point out security risks would be the Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI) That will prompt you on everything it finds however that sees something new available.

Besides tightening security the updates for various things can also help any system run smoother as well. With the cpu being tasked on and off getting a little stormy at times you might want to "batten down the hatches" a little to see if this will clear things up for you.

When looking at how much the quad core sees here the max so far with a good load comes in about 30% with a particular Steam title that saw that. The explorer.exe errors seen here recently started appearing due to the need for an overdue clean install of Windows. Between any possible registry errors and fragmented files you can run into the same thing at times.

Alright i will use it to find the updates hopefully for now this problem is long gone but we shall see within the week if it has returned. Thansk again for your time in resolving this matter

The PSI is a highly rated program and does a good job. That should be a help but let's hope it can be a solution for you as well.

Alright Same problem still. It happens after id say about 4-5 hours after startup. All i have done in this period is play Leauge of Legends and use internet explorer. it does then normal rereading that one file i checked it this time and this is what i have it reading now

A simple restart fixes this problem for the time being but this icon is next to the shutdown button

That icon needs to be looked into since it could be pointing at the need for an update or something else like a hardware problem. The 58% mark is far too high to start with. Sounds like something is hanging on you once you start running the League of Legends game by tying up IE!

I think you find a hidden process is the culprit behind all of this however. You should note what new ones are seen once the game has been run and still remain running once the game is exited.

You might want a good security sweep while you are at just in the site there placed something else on your machine you were unaware of!

I dont get this part. What else should i do besides run my antivirus

The list of items seen when idle would need to be compared one by one to those seen once you run the game for a bit. Once you end a gaming session you start the comparison to see what remains active. That will be what is tasking the cpu on you besides being in the gaming session itself.

There are a long list of security programs to choose from while having a good firewall running can help with any bogus unexplained processes that are not part of any program. A good look at the additional items the game installer may have put on would be another thing.

The av program here includes web filtering and intrusion prevention as well as seeing an effective firewall put inplace which keeps the crud away. The only other thing besides Windows and the av program requiring internet access would be for the present Steam account.

The problem there however while not ruling out any hidden malwares would simply suggest a hidden process left running. The item you highlighted points to an unspecified registry entry keeping something running in the background. The restart simply ends all processes and why that disappears while you still need to find out just what that is.