Windows explorer freezing and weird behavior, as well as other issues

[apav]

Hello everyone,

These problems started happening maybe several months ago. I don't really use this laptop that often, so I have no idea what could of caused this. I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. Here are a list of the problems that are occuring.


1. If I press computer in the start menu, it “freezes.” It continually searches for drives but the blue wheel keeps spinning and nothing shows up even after 10 minutes. So far I've only noticed this with Computer, I can just press Documents from the start menu, and it instantly loads, and then click on the drive and go to where I want to go.

2. Sometimes a window will freeze for no reason. If I right click a file or folder in that window, it will always freeze that window. I have tried to right click a folder in 5 separate windows and it froze every one of them. Doesn't matter where the file location is, it can happen to any window. By freeze I mean the same spinning blue wheel, and the window cannot be moved or won’t respond ever again (I've left the window for hours and it never unfreezes).The only way to fix this is to end explorer.exe in the task manager and restart it, but that doesn't prevent it from happening again.

3. Some icons like text documents will look like a blank page with its upper right corner folded. Resetting the icon cache fixed this. On my desktop, currently my text documents and VLC player are missing their normal icons, replaced by this blank page.

4. In the column in the far left of the explorer window (the one that lists your library, and your drives), when I right click one of the libraries (like Documents or Pictures) the window will freeze. If I right click one of my drives (like C: ), the right click menu will come up, but when I click properties, the properties window won't come up ever.

5. Probably unrelated, but I just wanted to post this anyway. I'm also having an issue with Chrome. If I open a new Chrome window or a new tab and search something in the omnibox, sometimes the tab will never load. It’s just not that website. Anything I type into the particular tab will not load. Some tabs will load, others will not load (the circle in the tab will keep spinning and the page will be forever blank). So for instance, if I open 3 tabs and make them all go to the same site (for instance youtube.com) usually one of them will not load YouTube while the other load the site right away. If I go to the tab that isn't load YouTube, and type another site or search in the omnibox, it won't load that either. I know this isn’t an issue with my network because the same thing happens sometimes if I try to open settings or extensions in a new tab (which doesn't require internet to open). I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled Chrome twice and the issue persists.


Thanks for the help!

 

[apav]

A friend told me to check in my Event Viewer, and there are a few errors and warnings today. Got a few under System and Application:

Level: Source: Description

Error: Application error: Faulting application name: DllHost.exe, version: 6.1.7600.16385, time stamp: 0x4a5bc6b7
Faulting module name: RPCRT4.dll, version: 6.1.7601.18205, time stamp: 0x51db9710
Exception code: 0xc0020043
Fault offset: 0x0005cf69
Faulting process id: 0x1fa0
Faulting application start time: 0x01cf0b27b1a53987
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\DllHost.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\syswow64\RPCRT4.dll
Report Id: f08835bb-771a-11e3-a4ff-b888e370089f

Error: volsnap: The shadow copies of volume C: were aborted because the shadow copy storage could not grow due to a user imposed limit.

Error: disk: The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk3\DR4. Repeats 5 times in event viewer.

Warning: Disk: An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk3\DR6 during a paging operation. Repeats 30+ times in event viewer.

Warning: Ntfs: The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur. Repeats twice in event viewer.

Warning: Gatherer: The content source <csc://{S-1-5-21-4101250725-296594027-3050616062-1000}/> cannot be accessed. Context: Application, SystemIndex Catalog Details: The object was not found. (HRESULT : 0x80041201) (0x80041201). Repeats twice in event viewer.

Don't know what the drive errors are about. I have a Crucial m4 mSATA as my OS drive, a 2nd OCZ Vertex 4 SSD and a 750GB WD Scorpio Black drive. I don't know what the first error means, I don't have any shadow copies. I was going to start up HDTune Pro to check for any errors on my HDD disk and check its health, but when I open the program it tells me "No disks found." Very strange.

EDIT:
I went to Disk management and noticed that I don't have a Disk 3. C: is Disk 0, and Disks 1 and 2 are my Vertex 4 and WD Scorpio drives. Then I rememberd I plugged in my external to a usb 3.0 port today. I just plugged it in, and it shows up as disk 3.

If that's the case, then it's a USB controller error? Don't see how an external hard drive error could be affecting Windows Explorer. I was told I may have a bad motherboard if it's a controller issue, but I'm not 100% sure if that's the case. My Windows installation may be corrupt. That DLLHost.exe application error looks pretty ominous.

 

[apav]

Apologies for the triple post, but I thought I'd just record my progress of getting to the bottom of this, and for when someone sees this.

Well, unfortunately I have to report that I haven't had my external drive plugged in since yesterday, and I've been using my computer today without it. Just now though, explorer froze again when I clicked Computer (just the wheel spinning and not listing the drives). Also right click is freezing again. The only drive error that was recorded in the event viewer was for my external drive. But it isn't even plugged in and I'm still having issues with explorer. So I don't think that it's a faulty drive controller that's causing this anymore.

The only two errors I got today were:

The server {995C996E-D918-4A8C-A302-45719A6F4EA7} did not register with DCOM within the required timeout.

and this warning:

The content source <csc://{S-1-5-21-4101250725-296594027-3050616062-1000}/> cannot be accessed.

Context: Application, SystemIndex Catalog

Details:
The object was not found. (HRESULT : 0x80041201) (0x80041201)

A restart will temporarily fix this issue with explorer, but I still don't know what is causing it. The only drive error that was recorded in the event viewer was for my external drive. So I don't think that it's a faulty drive controller that's causing this anymore. So, this is possibly related. Someone told me to look at the Raw Read Error Rate and the Ultra DMA CRC Error Rate on my drives. My mSATA and my HDD all report raw values of 000000000000, but my Vertex 4 SSD reports this:

Don't know what that 000000000006 means for a drives Raw Read Error Rate. Also, the Vertex 4 is missing a lot of readings and even it's temperature compared to another one of my drives:

I know that it doesn't have a sensor so that's why it can't read temps, but not sure why it has so little readings too. Despite what it says, I have never run into a problem with my Vertex 4. I have games and some non-vital programs on the drive, and I haven't ever had the slightest hiccup.

Now that my first guess has been proven false, I'm not really sure where to go with this. Any ideas? Thank you!

 

[AddRAM]

Time for a fresh install, unplug all drives except the 1 you want to install windows on.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html

 

[prettysheep]

Did you figure out a fix for this at all? I'm having the same problem..