explorer.exe crashes

[nonparity]

I have been fighting this for about a week now on a brand new system. explorer.exe just crashes(it seems to do it more often when I lock the system but it has done it once or twice while I was working on it)

I downloaded shellexec and disabled all non ms items and that didnt help.

I went into the registry to setup the dumplog but when explorer.exe goes unresponsive it doesnt seem to log anything.

The program explorer.exe version 6.1.7601.17567 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Action Center control panel.
Process ID: 2bb4
Start Time: 01ccf53bb121fb8a
Termination Time: 0
Application Path: C:\Windows\explorer.exe
Report Id: 4cbbbf47-6170-11e1-aaa3-5404a62af8df

action center doesnt show anything except I dont have my batter backup software installed. I am going to do that now but I dont see that causing this error.

I am just running out of ideas on this one. Any help would be great.

Thanks!

 

[nonparity]

Just to note this is on a Core i7 970 with 24gb ram running windows 7 Ultimate 64.

 

[Ztruker]

How is your RAM installed? 2 modules or 4 modules?

Try removing 1/2 and see what happens.

 

[nonparity]

They are 6 modules , 4gb each. I took out four of them. Powered on and I even restarted windows before I tried this just to make sure it was a clean boot. Locked it and came back five minutes later. Explorer.exe was unresponsive again. Watched a tv show and came back (without locking it, just let it screen saver/lock it and same thing happened again. I will go ahead and swap the memory out tomorrow(off to bed now) and see what it does.

 

[nonparity]

Who needs sleep. I decided to go ahead and swap the memory now. Booted up and locked the system again. Waited a couple of minutes and logged in. It was already unresponsive.

This thing is really driving me crazy...not sure what to try next with it.

 

[Ztruker]

What do you have for video? Have you installed the latest driver?

What about drivers for any other hardware?

What happens if you Clean Boot? Does the problem still happen?

 

[nonparity]

The drivers are current. I checked for any updates and it is the same version. I tried a cleanboot yesterday and explorer.exe just went unresponsive again.

My video card is a AMD Radeon HD 6700.

Thanks

 

[Ztruker]

Run chkdsk against the hard drive, see if that fixes any file system errors.

Windows key + R to open the Run box.
Type chkdsk /r and press Enter.

You will get the following:

The type of the file system is NTFS.
Cannot lock current drive.

Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another
process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be
checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)

Enter Y then reboot.

chkdsk will start. This can take an hour or more depending on the size of the hard drive, so let chkdsk run to completion. See if that helps.

 

[nonparity]

I ran a chkdsk /r and it came up clean after the reboot.
I did manage to get an error log dump now though.
I uploaded the error report to skydrive. If you want to take a look and see if you notice anything that would be great. thanks!
https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx? cid=27d3c07d406aa84f&resid=27D3C07D406AA84F!108&parid=27D3C07D406AA84F! 105&authkey=!AMnRLlxV8Mfa_ZE

 

[cluberti]

// Exception record:
0:002> .ecxr
rax=0000000000000000 rbx=0000000002c6f750 rcx=0000000000000000
rdx=0000000000000000 rsi=000000000000002f rdi=0000000000000001
rip=00000000770ef44a rsp=0000000002c6f5b8 rbp=0000000000000002
 r8=0000000000000000  r9=0000000000000000 r10=0000000000000000
r11=0000000000000000 r12=0000000002c6f750 r13=0000000000000000
r14=000000000000002f r15=0000000000000000
iopl=0         nv up ei ng nz na pe nc
cs=0033  ss=002b  ds=002b  es=002b  fs=0053  gs=002b             efl=00000282
user32!NtUserSystemParametersInfo+0xa:
00000000`770ef44a c3              ret

// Thread at the time of the crash:
0:002> kn
  *** Stack trace for last set context - .thread/.cxr resets it
 # Child-SP          RetAddr           Call Site
00 00000000`02c6f5b8 00000000`770ef4d3 user32!NtUserSystemParametersInfo+0xa
01 00000000`02c6f5c0 000007fe`fc378bcd user32!RealSystemParametersInfoW+0x3a1
02 00000000`02c6f640 000007fe`fc378c87 uxtheme!ClassicSystemParametersInfoW+0x35
03 00000000`02c6f670 000007fe`fc378d37 uxtheme!_InternalSystemParametersInfo+0x2f
04 00000000`02c6f6a0 00000000`770ef5a4 uxtheme!ThemeSystemParametersInfoW+0x6f
05 00000000`02c6f6f0 00000000`ffcdc804 user32!SystemParametersInfoW+0xb3
06 00000000`02c6f730 00000000`770f5c04 explorer!CTray::MonitorEnumProc+0x42
07 00000000`02c6f770 00000000`776f1225 user32!_ClientMonitorEnumProc+0x24
08 00000000`02c6f7c0 00000000`770f5c3a ntdll!KiUserCallbackDispatcherContinue
09 00000000`02c6f848 00000000`ffcb94c1 user32!ZwUserEnumDisplayMonitors+0xa
0a 00000000`02c6f850 00000000`ffc812b0 explorer!CTray::v_WndProc+0x1bbe
0b 00000000`02c6fbe0 00000000`770f9bd1 explorer!CImpWndProc::s_WndProc+0x91
0c 00000000`02c6fc20 00000000`770f98da user32!UserCallWinProcCheckWow+0x1ad
0d 00000000`02c6fce0 00000000`ffc81177 user32!DispatchMessageWorker+0x3b5
0e 00000000`02c6fd60 00000000`ffca30e9 explorer!CTray::_MessageLoop+0x446
0f 00000000`02c6fdf0 000007fe`fdfbc71e explorer!CTray::MainThreadProc+0x8a
10 00000000`02c6fe20 00000000`76fd652d shlwapi!WrapperThreadProc+0x19b
11 00000000`02c6ff20 00000000`776cc521 kernel32!BaseThreadInitThunk+0xd
12 00000000`02c6ff50 00000000`00000000 ntdll!RtlUserThreadStart+0x1d

It's trying to extract information from the registry about something with the current theme in use - does this reproduce if you use the stock Windows 7 Aero theme, or Windows Basic or Windows Classic?

 

[alishathomaz]

I would suspect some corrupt system file. SFC might fix that. Resetting Internet Explorer may help. At worst, I think you will fix it with a reinstall, or 'inplace upgrade' of Win 7 from the setup DVD.

To determine whether the issue that you are experiencing is caused by one or more system files that are used by Windows, run the System File Checker tool. The System File Checker tool scans system files and replaces incorrect versions of the system files by using the correct versions.
To run the System File Checker tool, follow these steps:
1.Click Start, and then type cmd in the Start Search box.
2. Right-click cmd in the Programs list, and then click Run as administrator.
3.If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type your password or click Continue
4.At the command prompt, type the following line, and then press ENTER: sfc /scannow
When the scan is complete, test to see whether the issue that you are experiencing is resolved.

Hope the problem you faced is solved.

 

[nonparity]

The theme it was using was just called an unsaved theme but it appears to be the windows 7 aero theme. I switched it to the aero landscapes and will see if it still does it. If it does i'll try a non aero to test it with.

Thanks!

 

[nonparity]

I just wanted to update this that the theme seemed to be causing the issue. I am surprised since it was the default win7 one but maybe something modified it during setup or something. Just glad its working.

Thanks everyone for your help!