Explorer hangs for a second when right clicking empty space

[Warrgarbl]

Recently, I've bought a Clevo P641 barebone (14”, HM175 Chipset, i7-7700HQ, GTX1050Ti + 2x 8GB DDR4-2400, m.2 512GB 960 Pro, SATA 1TB 950 Evo, AC-7265 WIFI). Whilst the system is very fast I have the strange problem that, whenever I right click empty space in the explorer, the mouse will freeze for 1 second. If I right click on a file or folder this does not happen, and it is exclusive to Windows since Linux does not show the same behavior.

So far, I’ve tried to clean up the context menu, installed the Samsung SSD driver, tried my memory’s various XMP profiles, reinstalled USB drivers, messed with power settings and other things, but I am at a loss as to what could be the cause here. My company also had a second device with similar hardware that showed the same symptoms.

Personally, I start to believe that there is either a driver issue here, or a general incompatibility between this barebone and the RAM. But maybe you guys have an idea as to what else I could try? It’s not a serious problem since the system overall runs very fast, but I’d love to solve it.

 

[Sasqui]

Are you talking windows explorer or internet explorer?

First thought, some sort of timeout problem. Explorer is trying to connect to something that isn't there or not responding.

Edit: I just saw this... so windows explorer:

If I right click on a file or folder

I've seen similar behavior in Excel when a network printer (that was the default) wasn't available, Excel would hang for a second on just about every click. Solution was to change the default printer to PDF or something local. I'm only saying that because something analogous could be happening in your case.

Edit2:

Read this: http://www.winhelponline.com/xp/slowrightclick.htm

 

[Warrgarbl]

It's about the Windows explorer. No idea whether the IE does that or not since it's not something I use. As for a timeout - yes, that was my initial idea. Either a context menu entry that has access problems, a problem with accessing the RAM / SSD, or a driver that does not respond quickly. I've been through various divers for the SSD, the touchpad, my mouse and USB, emptied my context menu as much as I could for a test, to no avail.

The Windows event log is unspecific, just the usual bs that Windows always shows - CLSID access problems which I've solved by giving the appropriate rights and assigning them, processor firmware nonsense and schannel errors (usually Outlook autoconfig related). Sadly, my BIOS does not allow for much, so there's no way for me to selectively disable some hardware component or something...

 

[jboydgolfer]

I've had something similar in windows explorer ,and although I'm not certain if I recall correctly I changed performance settings over appearance to fix it I think but it's been a long time. I think it was some kind of appearance settings in windows advanced appearance options

 

[Sasqui]

This may help... I edited my post above

Read this: http://www.winhelponline.com/xp/slowrightclick.htm

 

[Warrgarbl]

Just tried the performance settings - disabled them all to no avail. Besides, this system is quite beastly, so it would kind of surprise me if that is the cause...

EDIT: The point is that this only happens if I DON'T click on a file or folder, but into empty space... I should also add that all drivers are straight from the manufacturer, I've disabled the forced Windows Update driver updates.

I suppose something gets called when I click on nothing, and that something is the cause...

 

[natr0n]

This pc/my computer right click your drive/properties/tools optimize

 

[Warrgarbl]

This is done on a weekly basis anyway if you don't intervene, and the last run was 5 days ago. Also, on a crazy fast 960 Pro NVMe SSD that is not very full there shouldn't be any such issues.

EDIT: Oh, I've also enabled and disabled write cache to no avail.

Hey, it looks like I found it... of course, when I create a thread here I somehow find the solution to something that has been bugging me for weeks in mere minutes...

Went to the registry, backed up the entire ContextMenuHandlers, deleted all of them - and the issue was gone. Reimported the deleted keys, started deleting one by one, and then found out that the culprit was "igfxDTCM", the entry that contains the Intel Display Settings context menu entry when clicking the desktop. The interesting part is that I had all of them disabled through various means, but that did not seem to have any effect. Only straight deletion seems to work here. After deleting it, I've reinstated the system tray icon, and when I click that it opens after the same delay. So it seems that something's up with Intel's control center.

Precise registry path to the keys in question: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\background\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers

Thank you for the suggestions, though - I hope this will help someone else with the same problem some day

 

[Sasqui]

Hey, it looks like I found it... of course, when I create a thread here I somehow find the solution to something that has been bugging me for weeks in mere minutes...

Went to the registry, backed up the entire ContextMenuHandlers, deleted all of them - and the issue was gone. Reimported the deleted keys, started deleting one by one, and then found out that the culprit was "igfxDTCM", the entry that contains the Intel Display Settings context menu entry when clicking the desktop. The interesting part is that I had all of them disabled through various means, but that did not seem to have any effect. Only straight deletion seems to work here. After deleting it, I've reinstated the system tray icon, and when I click that it opens after the same delay. So it seems that something's up with Intel's control center.

Precise registry path to the keys in question: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\background\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers

Thank you for the suggestions, though - I hope this will help someone else with the same problem some day

Cool. It is somewhat related to the article link I posted, that was specifically related to poorly written context menu shell commands, albeit dated.

 

[RejZoR]

It's about the Windows explorer. No idea whether the IE does that or not since it's not something I use. As for a timeout - yes, that was my initial idea. Either a context menu entry that has access problems, a problem with accessing the RAM / SSD, or a driver that does not respond quickly. I've been through various divers for the SSD, the touchpad, my mouse and USB, emptied my context menu as much as I could for a test, to no avail.

The Windows event log is unspecific, just the usual bs that Windows always shows - CLSID access problems which I've solved by giving the appropriate rights and assigning them, processor firmware nonsense and schannel errors (usually Outlook autoconfig related). Sadly, my BIOS does not allow for much, so there's no way for me to selectively disable some hardware component or something...

The CLSID thing seems to be exclusive to Fall Creators update. My logs are absolutely riddled with this stuff lately on all my systems. On the outside I don't see any massive issues or errors as such but from my experience, having tons of errors in Event Viewer is never a good thing. An fixing it seems to be impossible as you don't even have the rights to access and modify the access rights of the DCOM component. Which is bizarre.

Oh, I forgot to ask, are you using any kind of antivirus and does this happen in all folders or just specific ones? I've noticed that if folder is set to "Pictures" type, it takes freaking forever for files to be listed and their data shown. Which might contribute to this stall (though I don't think it should be a reason).

 

[jboydgolfer]

issue seems solved.

Thank you for the suggestions,

looks like I found it

 

[RejZoR]

Missed that part...

igfxDTCM is an Intel component (they always use "igfx" in the names). Updating Intel integrated graphics drivers should solve the issue. Or manually removing the shell component...