explorer using 50% CPU??

I was downloading a torrent(to be specific, AMV hell 4), when all of the sudden, utorrent reported that it couldn't access the file anymore, because it was beign used by another process.

I checked Task Manager, and found explorer.exe using 50% of my CPU. My fan just started working, so I know it started that instant, and I wasn't doing anything else at the time.

I tried disabling utorrent, and restarting, but no good.

Anyone have any ideas on how to start troubleshooting this?

 

I know this is gonna be an obvious question but...do you have updated antivirus protection installed? Have you tried running a scan??

After all, you are running a torrent program.... and the fact that IE is not world-renowned for its security/safety features doesn't make things better... so...


edit: oh, just realized you said explorer, not internet explorer... my bad. well, I don't know if you use IE or Firefox but I guess if you use IE that could be another reason to think twice about the possibility of a virus or something like that.

 

EDIT: Solved

The problem was the file that I was downloading. I tried erasing it, but then explorer would jump to 100% CPU usage, and do nothing. So I had to terminate explorer, and delete the file using the command prompt.

Good lord, deleting a file should be a no brainer, thumbs down to MS for that.

I think the reason for the 50% CPU usage was that windows was trying to index the file, but it couldn't.

 

Next time if you come across a similar situation, then simply move or copy the downloaded files to a new directory (to get rid of any locks other programs might have on them), then open the torrent as a new download, but give the new folder as the save location; that will cause uTorrent to resume.

 

Actually, when I noticed I couldn't delete it, I moved it to a new directory in my C drive. Still couldn't delete it. Tried to move it to another drive, Windows didn't allow me to. I probably could have moved it to the other drive using cmd, with explorer disabled, but it doesn't matter, I'm redownloading it right now, and it's 97% complete(last time it locked at about 40%)