Strange recurring error in Windows Explorer...

peckerhead

OK, this has me beat — can anyone help?

Dell Dimension 4600, running under XP home. As of about a week ago, any time I right-click on a file in Windows Explorer (for example to delete it, or scan it for virusses, or 'send' it somewhere, or even just check its properties), Explorer crashes and I get this error message:



Same thing happens if I just select a file and press 'delete', but for some reason not if I put it inside a folder first...

I've de-fragged and scanned for errors, I've checked for spy/malware and virusses, I've even done a system restore, and it keeps happening... :mad:

Could this be an early sign of impending HDD failure? ('cause the yoke is still just about under warranty, and I'll move fast, if that's the case!)

Thanks in advance...

Redisle

It could be a problem with your ram... download memtest from here and burn the iso to a cd using something like nero or poweriso, boot the pc with that and let it test your memory for around 20mins, if it gets errors it means something is wrong with the memory. If not then thats not the problem. Also if you feel confident enough you could open up the pc and reseat everything (ie) remove memory,graphics card, other cards and out them back in and check all the cables.

peckerhead

Cheers, ab_cork. As it happens, Santy is currently bringing me a 1GB upgrade kit (2 x 512MB dual channel 400MHz), because even without running tests I know that the standard Dell-supplied 2 x 256MB is not cutting the mustard. I can hear it! :eek:

Is there any fear that running that memtest thingy could 'stress' the poor, creaky little darling further? Might I be better off just waiting for the new RAM to arrive?

daywalker

peckerhead wrote:

Cheers, ab_cork. As it happens, Santy is currently bringing me a 1GB upgrade kit (2 x 512MB dual channel 400MHz), because even without running tests I know that the standard Dell-supplied 2 x 256MB is not cutting the mustard. I can hear it! :eek:

Is there any fear that running that memtest thingy could 'stress' the poor, creaky little darling further? Might I be better off just waiting for the new RAM to arrive?

Memtest is not a benchmark program, it doesnt stress test anything all it does is insert data into the ram in a certain way and then check what outputs it gets, if wrong output then memtest shows error messages, and you shouldnt be able to hear the ram, its most likely your hard drive grinding away as it attempts to make up for either the lack of ram or faulty ram.

zod

Have you recently added new codecs to the PC ?

I had this issue when I had conflicting codecs on PC ... explorer was trying to prerender a image for divx and xvid movies .. had to unregister a DLL to fix it in the end.

Anti

You can hear the ram ?!?

uberpixie

anti wrote:

You can hear the ram ?!?

No but i'm sure he can hear his hard drive getting trashed when he runs out of ram and windows starts using virtual memory!:D