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remove virus causing explorer.exe to use 100% CPU

Tags:
  • Virus
  • Explorer
  • Windows 7
  • CPUs
Last response: in Windows 7
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January 21, 2014 10:05:03 AM

My explorer.exe keeps multiplying and using 100% of my CPU. I used malwarebytes in safe mode and got rid of everything it found. I used hijackthis and removed the bad studd. I used Kaspersky rescue10, booting up from my CD and cleaned my hard drive from 1 virus. I used AVG antivirus which told me my drive was clean. Yet something is causing my explorer.exe file to go crazy. Help, anyone.....

More about : remove virus causing explorer exe 100 cpu

a b $ Windows 7
a c 619 à CPUs
January 21, 2014 6:51:33 PM

In safe mode, try going to the Command Prompt as administrator and run system file check > at the command prompt type SFC /SCANNOW and hit enter, if will check the Windows files and replace any that are corrupt or changed from what they should be
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January 24, 2014 1:09:43 PM

Tradesman1 said:
In safe mode, try going to the Command Prompt as administrator and run system file check > at the command prompt type SFC /SCANNOW and hit enter, if will check the Windows files and replace any that are corrupt or changed from what they should be


I have now had 2 computers with the same issue at work. action taken were a virus scan in safe mode. The computers were in fact infected and then cleaned as well as all temp files other than what windows advises to skip. Upon reboot, the explorer.exe will have multiple instances running and eating up close to 100 of the cpu, and at times using more than 2gb of ram. If took the computers off the network,(aka no internet) and rebooted the issue wouldn't happen. I might have 2 explorer.exe running with no more than 2 percent cpu usage. If I put it back on the network and internet and rebooted, boom, within minutes 4 or more explorer.exe would be running in the task manager, and cpu and memory usage was through the roof. I am still searching for a solution or fix.
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a b $ Windows 7
a c 619 à CPUs
January 24, 2014 5:36:13 PM

Might be malware, try going into safemode and run MalWareBytes - they have a free version
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January 27, 2014 5:29:25 AM

Done, twice in fact. The first cleaned out infected files, and the second confirmed that it was now clean. I found this link helpful. http://netwanlan.com/2012/03/27/explorer-exe-corrupted-... I actually found a iexplorer.exe regestry key where it shouldn't have been. but this issue is still ongoing.
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March 18, 2014 5:26:58 PM

Darkhorse, I had the same exact problem which took me hours to finally find the solution. Try running kaspersky anti virus, even just the trial version. It should take care of the problem. I tried maybe 4-5 different anti-virus programs and none of them worked except kaspersky
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a b $ Windows 7
March 19, 2014 9:16:15 AM

Is your Windows up-to-date?
Check your Windows Startup in msconfig or use CCleaner.

Check your registry, Start > Run and type regedit and navigate to the following hive
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.avi\shellex\PropertyHandler

Also, try others virus/adware removal tools:
Adware-Removal-Tool 3.8 http://www.techsupportall.com/tools/
AdwCleaner, Rkill, TDSSKiller
HitmanPro
spybot-2.2
AVAST
SUPERAntiSpyware


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a b $ Windows 7
a c 619 à CPUs
March 19, 2014 3:12:51 PM

If simply corrupt, might run system file check,, go to the command prompt as administrator, and run the command SFC /SCANNOW
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April 17, 2014 12:59:09 AM

jpattdc said:
My explorer.exe keeps multiplying and using 100% of my CPU. I used malwarebytes in safe mode and got rid of everything it found. I used hijackthis and removed the bad studd. I used Kaspersky rescue10, booting up from my CD and cleaned my hard drive from 1 virus. I used AVG antivirus which told me my drive was clean. Yet something is causing my explorer.exe file to go crazy. Help, anyone.....


Here's how you fix it....i'd get over 50 explorer.exe's rear their ugly heads on occasion....and my c.p.u would be at 100%..it sounded like my computer was going to blow up!!out of frustration i went to regedit and typed in the 'find' search box found in the 'edit' drop down menu,and started deleted whichever one popped up and BAM!! AFTER ABOUT THE 6TH SEARCH the c.p.u went to 99% to the good and my once, slow computer,(a dell inspriron 530 desktop), runs as efficient as can be. I know what someone is going to say.."That i had a virus"..nope i ran the bought and paid for version of malwarebytes, then deleted it and ran windows defender and nothing came up on either.It did take a whileto delete the explorers because i had to open each entry and change permissions for every sub-entry,(and i went ahead even after things were better and deleted every instance of explorer.exe and iexplore.exe,i also typed both in the find search box without the ".exe" to make sure everything with the explorer name got deleted.sure they say its risky messing with your regeditor ut sometimes a little gamble has a big payoff!!!...DANGER-RUSS
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April 17, 2014 4:39:46 PM

DANGERRUSS said:
12497944,0,1557470 said:
i went to regedit and typed in the 'find' search box found in the 'edit' drop down menu,and started deleted whichever one popped up and BAM!!
said:


What did you search for? I have this happening on a workstation now, and am desparate to fix this issue. I plan to run Kaspersky (5th virus scan at this point) to see if that does anything.
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April 17, 2014 9:50:11 PM

ragecram97 said:
DANGERRUSS said:
12497944,0,1557470 said:
i went to regedit and typed in the 'find' search box found in the 'edit' drop down menu,and started deleted whichever one popped up and BAM!!
said:


What did you search for? I have this happening on a workstation now, and am desparate to fix this issue. I plan to run Kaspersky (5th virus scan at this point) to see if that does anything.
said:

I went into my reg edit and typed in the "find" search box (located on e edit drop dowm menu),explorer.exe and deleted each entry as they were found.After the sixth entry that I deleted bam,just like that system idle in task manger ran at 99 to 97%....but just 30 minutes ago all the sudden I couldn't open any program on chrome or ie ran malwarebytes and sure enough it quarentined a Trojan in explorer.exe....I had it deleted from my computer and am now doing a start up repair from the f-8 key after booting...DANGER-RUSS
.
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April 17, 2014 9:50:14 PM

ragecram97 said:
DANGERRUSS said:
12497944,0,1557470 said:
i went to regedit and typed in the 'find' search box found in the 'edit' drop down menu,and started deleted whichever one popped up and BAM!!
said:


What did you search for? I have this happening on a workstation now, and am desparate to fix this issue. I plan to run Kaspersky (5th virus scan at this point) to see if that does anything.
said:

I went into my reg edit and typed in the "find" search box (located on e edit drop dowm menu),explorer.exe and deleted each entry as they were found.After the sixth entry that I deleted bam,just like that system idle in task manger ran at 99 to 97%....but just 30 minutes ago all the sudden I couldn't open any program on chrome or ie ran malwarebytes and sure enough it quarentined a Trojan in explorer.exe....I had it deleted from my computer and am now doing a start up repair from the f-8 key after booting...DANGER-RUSS
.
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April 28, 2014 9:06:06 AM

I have the same issue, I did the malwarebytes fix in safemode and it did not fix the problem. This is most definitely a virus. I know this because I moved two image files into drop box and within minutes my other laptop jumped to 100% memory use also.
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May 2, 2014 7:14:28 AM

Run TDSSKiller , it will remove malware that blocks other anti-malware softwares.Then Reboot your computer. This worked for me.
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June 8, 2014 4:52:24 PM

samtt said:
Run TDSSKiller , it will remove malware that blocks other anti-malware softwares.Then Reboot your computer. This worked for me.

This worked for me, thanks Samtt. TDSSkiller was a quick final solution. I had tried many other options, scans, virus detections including AVG and Malware Bytes. My wife's computer was running 5+ iexplorer.exe (then explorer.exe when I deleted all ie files/folders) tasks and using as much memory and cpu as available. But only when connected to the internet.

It seems like this may not be the one solution for everyone, as various forums and threads seemed to have similar symptoms with different solutions.
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July 21, 2014 10:22:30 PM

joeldb said:
samtt said:
Run TDSSKiller , it will remove malware that blocks other anti-malware softwares.Then Reboot your computer. This worked for me.

This worked for me, thanks Samtt. TDSSkiller was a quick final solution. I had tried many other options, scans, virus detections including AVG and Malware Bytes. My wife's computer was running 5+ iexplorer.exe (then explorer.exe when I deleted all ie files/folders) tasks and using as much memory and cpu as available. But only when connected to the internet.

It seems like this may not be the one solution for everyone, as various forums and threads seemed to have similar symptoms with different solutions.


Thank you. I had to try it 5 times, because it kept crashing, but eventually TDSSkiller found the virus.
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August 20, 2014 11:15:23 AM

TDSS Killer worked for me as well. Tried many many different virus scanners offline and regular that did not find and kill it. The infection turned out to be Rootkit.Boot.Cidox.b
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October 13, 2014 7:37:48 AM

super7g said:
Darkhorse, I had the same exact problem which took me hours to finally find the solution. Try running kaspersky anti virus, even just the trial version. It should take care of the problem. I tried maybe 4-5 different anti-virus programs and none of them worked except kaspersky


Sorry I haven't gotten back in a while, but this solution was spot on. It did find one more thing that the other scans missed or didn't get.. TDsskiller worked.
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2 minutes ago

Tdsskiller worked for me! Thanks guys!
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!