Weird Vista Explorer CPU max-out

[Island_Boy_77]

Hi All

I've noticed recently that in some circumstances Windows Explorer is maxing out when I'm trying to access flash drives. Typically, I insert a flash drive, open my shared folder (which has full access for everyone), then try copying the data I want from the PC to the flash drive. What happens is that as soon as I plug the flash drive in, CPU usage jumps to 89% or more (depending on what other bits of the system want), and getting anything on / off the flash drive is literally like using an old 486.

My thought on what might be causing it is the WSUS updater program. Since the WSUS folder is also stored in the Shared Documents folder, and the WSUS folder is pretty big, I'm wondering if the reason for the slow-down in flash drive access is due to WSUS somehow messing up Explorer's "concetration" due to heavy access to the shared folder, or something similar. Note that the max-out happens when WSUS is running / downloading updated data at the same time as I try to copy data from a different sub-folder, but in the same shared folder, to a flash drive. What do you think?

I've only just started noticing this annoying problem, which means 1 of 3 things:
1) Its something to do with the new flash drive
2) Its something to do with the shared folder
3) I've not been transferring files from the shared folder to the flash drive at the same time as running WSUS up until now and so its all just coincidental with a certain usage pattern

The flash drive is a brand new 32GB Kingston r500, which is a very fast drive (the whole reason for getting it in the first place). I use my shared folder a lot for storing all manner of programs for the computers I fix / work on - contains about 15GB at the moment. I don't know enough about the vagaries of Vista or shared folders to know what sort of issues can be created by trying to be too clever in terms of storing massive amounts of shared programs in a shared folder. Can anyone shed light on this? Or point me to somewhere on the web that might discuss this intelligently?

Thanks
Peter

[BSkiLLs]

list whats running & the percents. Also what system your using & the stats for it please.

Also if the FlashD is full & lots on it will take a few to use & also run high since it's reading it all. It will slow it down some. How full & what size is the flash and/or SDCard >>???

[Island_Boy_77]

The only thing maxing is Explorer - eveything else is 1-2% if anything. System is Intel Dual Core 3GHz, 4GB DDR2 800MHz RAM, Radeon HD5770 1GB Video, WD 320GB main drive, WD 160GB 2ndary drive (for Windows / Photoshop swap files), MS Security Essentials for AV. Flash Drive is Kingston R500 32GB (one of the fastest USB 2.0 flash drives available in NZ), about half full, but doesn't matter if it's empty when problem shows up. There's usually plenty of free RAM - at least 1-2GB, as I don't do transfers when playing games or using photoshop.

[BSkiLLs]

1st, have you updated system and also that drive & the flash drive ?? If not please do soo... What exactly are you doing when it maxs out ??

[Island_Boy_77]

How do you mean updated the system? Vista has all its Windows / office updates, and the general motherboard drivers were updated about a year ago. The problem has only just surfaced, so its not likely to be driver-related. I found the problem occurred on a different flash drive today (a good quality 16GB A-Data drive) - I wasn't doing anything in particular - I just opened both the shared folder and the flash drive, and the Explorer window controlling the flash drive jumped from 20MB to 100MB almost instantly with CPU usage maxing straight away. Closing programs didn't help. What DID help was ejecting the drive, forcing the MS AV off-line (disabling real-time protection), and re-inserting the drive. I noted also that the annoying problem of not being able to delete one out of a bunch of files on the drive came back and wouldn't let me eject the drive at first - I had to format the drive before I could eject it.

As I mentioned in my initial post, the problem occurs when I have my shared folder open, and a flash drive folder open, and I drag n drop from the shared folder to the flash drive. Next time I do this operation I will try disabling the MS AV before I insert the flash drive to see if that makes a difference. Before I swapped from Avast to MS, I would regularly disable Avast especially if I was doing anything with flash drives or shared folders, as the Avast engine is too slow with that type of scanning to make it usable in those circumstances (plus scanning every file I move around - either to another computer via the shared folder or on / off flash drives - is just annoying). However although Avast slowed things down, I don't recall it ever causing an Explorer max-out.