Mouse won't click to open files

[yungman]

Thanks Ogg. I backed up a lot of my stuffs already. I don't have a hard drive, it's a SSD. I ran all the tests on power up by hitting F12 and do every single test. At this point, it is pretty much pointing to the Window Explorer hung or not responding. If I go task manager to end the WE, everything goes back to normal.

I am starting to suspect the Chrome together with the Norton safe search is causing the problem.

 

[yungman]

I can't open the folder just now right after I open the Chrome and closed it. I kind of suspect it might be the Chrome. Every time I open the Chrome, something just feel funny. A few weeks ago, Norton kept popping up and said Chrome is not protected and want me to install the safe search or something. I did. It just doesn't behave right. Maybe I should uninstall the Chrome and reinstall it without installing the Norton safe search.

Anyway, when I cannot open the folder, I went to WhatIsHang, nothing shows up. It showed ShellExView. I hit F9, no report show up. I hit again, it try to open a window explorer, but it hung. I went to task manager and end the Window exp. Everything goes back to normal.

Thanks

 

[yungman]

It did it again. I already reinstalled Chrome and not using Norton safe search.

I check WhatIsHang, it did not show anything even though it was obviously hung in the Window Explorer. I checked ShellExView, nothing new stood out.

I use task manager to end window explorer and everything goes back to normal.

Is it time to contact Lenovo warranty?

 

[meBigGuy]

Contacting Lenovo would be a good thing. They will probably have you do a factory reset and reinstall everything. But, maybe they have seen this before and have a solution.

 

[yungman]

Contacting Lenovo would be a good thing. They will probably have you do a factory reset and reinstall everything. But, maybe they have seen this before and have a solution.

You mean recover the whole system and start from the beginning? You thing I should just back up everything and do it myself? I am pretty much backup everything already, just waste a day reinstall all the programs.

I kind of thinking about this as the window explorer might be corrupted. Is there anyway to reinstall the Window explorer along without wiping everything?

Thanks

 

[Mark44]

I kind of thinking about this as the window explorer might be corrupted. Is there anyway to reinstall the Window explorer along without wiping everything?

To the best of my knowledge, Windows Explorer is an integral part of Windows -- I don't believe you can reinstall just this part of Windows.

 

[yungman]

Thanks

The question is whether it's the next logical step to recover the whole laptop?

 

[meBigGuy]

You can copy explorer.exe from another computer. (I've read of people doing it). Seems unlikely it is corrupted though.

I'd make a pass through lenovo support. Maybe they have a history with this.

 

[yungman]

For whatever reason, it did not happen for two days. I want to wait until it fail one more time.

The difference is I was too busy to be on the web yesterday other than regular email, Amazon and some safe sites. Usually I do more blogging on the Yahoo political articles. But I thought that is supposed to be safe. I don't go surfing around.

 

[yungman]

I don't know what I did right, it is still working. I have been on the web on all three browsers.

 

[yungman]

Hi,

It's been a while. But the problem still cannot be solved. I took it to the IT people in the company and they cannot resolve it either. The only way to get out is go to task manager and end the explorer.exe, then restart the explorer.exe. They are convinced that it's not hardware either.

They could not make it fail, I think it's due to they don't open the web. I have IE, Firefox and Chrome all open and I put comments on the news on Yahoo front page. Seems like when I get on the web, it will fail.

Any fresh idea, nothing in these 5 pages work so far, the IT people ran malware and virus scan also, update everything they think it's important like we did here. So they are up in arms.

 

[StevieTNZ]

Maybe backup your work and do a clean install of Windows?

 

[meBigGuy]

A clean install of windows would give you a good reference point. If it still happens, then it is either some really weird SSD hardware issue, or a driver compatibility problem.

I hate resorting to "reinstall and see what happens", but that's about all that is left.

 

[yungman]

I think I am going to recover the laptop. I already backed up the files onto the flash drive. How do I recover the laptop? the laptop does not come with a recovery disk. Also, this laptop comes with Win7 but it also has Win8 which I absolutely do not want. How do I make sure I recover to Win7?

Thanks

 

[meBigGuy]

Go to the lenovo site, or contact their support. I can be of no help beyond suggesting that.

 

[StevieTNZ]

I think I am going to recover the laptop. I already backed up the files onto the flash drive. How do I recover the laptop? the laptop does not come with a recovery disk. Also, this laptop comes with Win7 but it also has Win8 which I absolutely do not want. How do I make sure I recover to Win7?

Thanks

Is there a recovery partition on the hard drive?

 

[Tosh5457]

Try scanning with Malware Bytes, explorer.exe might have been tampered with. After scanning, try running explorer.exe as Administrator. If it doesn't work, make a new partition and install another copy of Windows 7/8/10 there, that should do it.

 

[meBigGuy]

Try scanning with Malware Bytes, explorer.exe might have been tampered with. After scanning, try running explorer.exe as Administrator. If it doesn't work, make a new partition and install another copy of Windows 7/8/10 there, that should do it.

LOL -- obviously have not read this thread. Just a random reply.

 

[StevieTNZ]

LOL -- obviously have not read this thread. Just a random reply.

What brand and version laptop do you have? I'll see if I can pull up some information on how to do a recovery.

 

[meBigGuy]

It is Lenovo Thinkpad T440 20B7S1KJ00 i5-4300U Dual Core 1.9GHz with 2.9GHz Max Turbo 8GB DDR3L-1600 128GB SSD 14" HD 1366x768 Display 3-Cell + 3-Cell Battery Intel N-7260 Win 7 Pro 64bit. The laptop is only 4 to 5 months old, never have a problem until now. It comes with SSD drive, no hard drive.

 

[StevieTNZ]

You might be best to ring Lenovo support to ask if there is a recovery partition on the SSD, or how you can restore the laptop to factory settings.

 

[Tosh5457]

LOL -- obviously have not read this thread. Just a random reply.

I have a life, and just trying to help, not contesting your pool of wisdom ;)

 

[yungman]

Hi guys

I have not recover the computer yet. First it is so easy to unstuck the computer, just stop the explorer.exe and restart it again can cure the problem. I did back up everything. I was just doing different things to see whether it will stop the problem. I found a sure way to avoid the problem...Don't go onto the internet. For over 4 days, I use the computer all the time, BUT I have another laptop side by side, I use the other laptop to do all the internet work and just use the one with problem only for schematic, layout, simulation and all the stuffs that does not involve internet. It never fail.

I am going to try using one browser at a time to see which one cause the problem. I'll wait for another day to make sure it's not failing. Then I am going to use IE first to check my home email. Then the Firefox for work email, then Chrome to scream at the people on politics

Does that open other doors? I don't think it's malware, we did it all here, I gave it to the IT in the company and they ran the malware programs and they checked all the updates also. I am a little torn whether I should recover the computer as it's easy to work around, only 20 seconds to do the stop and restart of the explorer.exe.

Thanks

 

[yungman]

Another question. I have SSD drive that is only 128G. I checked the usage, just the OS and my own stuff uses close to 75G, I don't exactly have a whole world of room. Could that be a problem?

When I use internet, I have all three browser open and particular with Firefox, I have like 4 sub-browser open all the time. 2 in IE also. Usually one in Chrome. Could that use too much of the small SSD?

 

[meBigGuy]

Based on the above, I have little confidence that a restore will change anything.
Using multiple browsers that way is pretty unorthodox.
The SSD size has little to do with anything assuming you don't have an unrealistic amount of virtual memory.
The SSD drivers could be having issues with virtual memory paging.

How much virtual memory do you have (I'm too lazy to go back and find what you said previously)? You can look at task manager to see how much you are using.

Having multiple browsers open will consume lots of memory.

I have no idea how the operation of explorer.exe is becoming affected by too many browsers unless it is some strange virtual memory glitch.

 

[yungman]

Thanks for your reply. I opened all the normal browser. I opened the Task Manager/Resource Monitor/Disk, activity says about 900K/sec total.

I go to the Resource/Memory only 4G being used and 3.6G on standby. I take that I am not even close to using up RAM.

One think I have to say, the Adobe Flash player kept crashing and the web slow down. Often the message pops up that the flash player crashed and ask me whether I want to stop the scrip. Stopping it will make it faster. I can hear the fan going stronger when the flash player crash. This happens more often with Firefox, but it happens with the other two. It happens with two of my other computers, so I never mentioned this because it seems like the adobe flash player always have problems no matter what. Any way to fix it. It kept asking me to update and I did!

Thanks

Alan

 

[meBigGuy]

So, I am puzzled. Not using up ram (which you have said before), not using CPU, yet explorer.exe is hanging. Flash is a likely suspect, since it is a buggy resource hog. It could be that multiple browsers trying to run multiple flash instances could cause something weird since they probably all share dll functions,but may have subtle implementation differences at the browser level. But, I'm only guessing.

 

[yungman]

I closed the IE and Chrome and just let the Firefox with 4 sub browser going. I am just going to see whether it fail. The Adobe Flash is working, it'll fail, just matter of time. When I fails, I'll look at the Resource again and report back.

I guess it's no hurry, just something keep telling me I should hold off in wiping the computer just yet.

Thanks

Alan

 

[yungman]

I had the Firefox open with 4 sub browser. Only took 5 hours before it failed. I was not even using the computer, I walked away when it was working, less than an hour later I came back, it failed by itself.

Both SSD flash and RAM usage are very low.

 

[Borg]

One think I have to say, the Adobe Flash player kept crashing and the web slow down. Often the message pops up that the flash player crashed and ask me whether I want to stop the scrip. Stopping it will make it faster. I can hear the fan going stronger when the flash player crash. This happens more often with Firefox, but it happens with the other two. It happens with two of my other computers, so I never mentioned this because it seems like the adobe flash player always have problems no matter what. Any way to fix it. It kept asking me to update and I did!

I had a lot of problems with Flash pushing the fan to its limits and crashing - mostly for ads. You can configure it to not run automatically using the following steps:
In a new browser tab, type about:config.
Accept the warning if you haven't been there before.
Seach for plugin.state.flash - it is probably set to 2.
The acceptable values are:
plugin.state.flash = 0 --> never activate
plugin.state.flash = 1 --> ask to activate
plugin.state.flash = 2 --> always activate
Double click the setting and set it to 1.

You can check it by selecting the Tools->Add Ons option in Firefox. Flash should be set to "Ask To Activate". This will keep web pages from automatically running flash unless you OK it. For most web pages that I visit, the only thing using Flash are advertisements so I rarely have to activate it.