Multiple explorer.exe in task manager hogging most of ram help please?

wordstl · 15 Dec 2013

whs said:

1. First order of the day is to save your user files. The live Ubuntu disc is good for that.

2. It is not unlikely that you have a HDD problem. To check that you should run a chkdsk /f from command prompt at startup.

Command Prompt at Startup

3. If the disk checks out OK, we can persue fixing your system. But let's first see that. No need to jump thru a lot of hoops if you need a new HDD.

It says windows checked the file system and found no errors.

scr · 15 Dec 2013

From OP's first Post:

I then thought maybe my hard drive was going bad but I did hard drive scans and all the scan can out good.

ReedRichards · 10 Aug 2014

I have just removed the boot sector virus cidox.b from a computer running Windows 7. Prior to removal the computer was showing many of the symptoms described in this thread. There were two instances of explorer.exe running as seen by Task Manager and two instances of iexplore.exe (although nothing was visible and I had not started Internet Explorer). These were consuming a lot of CPU so making the computer sluggish. These processes were launched after a burst of cftmon instances as reported by the OP (in reply #14).

I used the free utility TDSSKiller TDSSKiller Free Download | Rootkit Remova | Kaspersky Lab US to detect and remove the boot sector virus. It had not been detected by other antimalware programs I tried. I had also used the Factory Reset option but the boot sector virus had survived unscathed.

lehnerus2000 · 11 Aug 2014

ReedRichards said:

I have just removed the boot sector virus cidox.b from a computer running Windows 7. Prior to removal the computer was showing many of the symptoms described in this thread. There were two instances of explorer.exe running as seen by Task Manager and two instances of iexplore.exe (although nothing was visible and I had not started Internet Explorer). These were consuming a lot of CPU so making the computer sluggish. These processes were launched after a burst of cftmon instances as reported by the OP (in reply #14).

I used the free utility TDSSKiller TDSSKiller Free Download | Rootkit Remova | Kaspersky Lab US to detect and remove the boot sector virus. It had not been detected by other antimalware programs I tried. I had also used the Factory Reset option but the boot sector virus had survived unscathed.

Thanks for that info. :)