Blue circle spinning when I right click my desktop

Has it been occurring for a while or only recently?

If recently, the quickest and easiest fix is to restore your PC to an earlier time (recommended method: boot up your PC to safe mode with command prompt and type rstrui.exe to restore by choosing a restore point).

my first thought is an installed application that has a context menu that is causing a delay

If an application is causing this, try  the clean boot process to identify the culprit.

How to perform a clean boot?: < "http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135 >

Also check first if it happens in the safe mode also.

In addition to the above suggestion, try taking a look at your Task Manager to see if any one particular task is using more resources than it should.

Seth2740 had a good thought about something contained within the context menu possibly causing a delay.

The fastest way to access the Task Manager is right-click on your task bar at the bottom of your screen, choose "Start Task Manager" and click on the "Processes" tab.  Sort by CPU and/or Memory usage by clicking at the top of the column.  Clicking again will sort in the opposite order.

Please let us know how all of these suggestions work for you.

I will be trying these suggestions shortly.  My response will be posted after.  Thank you for your help.

I have an nvidia card in here.  I reinstalled the driver last night and it seemed to go away, but after a restart the issue was back again.

ok...out of curiosity, if you uninstall the driver and reboot without reinstalling, does the issue still occur?

also, do you have the latest driver installed?  nvidia releases driver updates fairly regularly

To piggyback onto what seth2740 is asking, are you attempting to use beta drivers?  This may cause an issue as well.  Try using the WHQL certified drivers and see if that fixes the issue as well.

Also, if you use NVidia as I do I highly recommend installing and using Geforce Experience which will automate driver checks and installations for you.

http://www.geforce.com/geforce-experience

It mentions gaming, but you can just ignore that aspect of it.

The driver I installed was the latest, as of yesterday.  It was not the beta driver, it was the WHQL driver.  Is there a tool I can run as I right click the desktop, which will tell me what is using too many resources?

When I have task manager open as I right click the desktop, system idle process seems to have about 90% of the CPU under the Processes tab.

can it be malware?  if so, run these, after a scan with your updated AV :
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php                         MBAM
http://majorgeeks.com/RogueKiller_d6983.html                  Roguekiller

You have one of those unique situations where it could be almost anything. I would go with Seth's previous suggestion and completely remove your video drivers or enter safe mode to see if the problem goes away.

Here is an update.  I uninstalled the Nvidia driver and rebooted the PC.  Once it loaded without the driver, the issue went away.  However, after reinstalling the most recent driver, the issue is back.

I have an EVGA GTX 650 Ti, 2gb ram.  I just installed driver 332.21.  in the meantime, I will try using GeForce Experience.

JFrusci,

I found this website that may help you.  Try going back to the previous WHQL certified driver to see if that fixes the issue.  v331.82 looks to be it.

Also, make sure I chose the right options for your setup.  Wasn't sure if it was 32-bit or 64-bit Windows 7.

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us

note that it can be caused by bad sectors on disk, or bad ram  (hardware ) also
it's a good idea to run a diag on them, to be sure.
i use the UBCD for diags :
Hardware diagnostic CD    UBCD

go to the download page, scroll down to the mirror section, and  click on a mirror to start the download
Download the UBCD and make the cd   <<==on a WORKING PC, and boot the problem PC from it
Here 2 links, one to the general site, and a direct link to the download

since the downloaded file is an ISO file, eg ubcd527.iso - so you need to use an ISO burning tool
if you don't have that software, install cdburnerXP : http://cdburnerxp.se/

If you want also the Ram tested - run memtest86+ at least 1 full pass,  - you should have NO errors!
 
For disk Diagnostics run the disk diag for your disk brand (eg seagate diag for seagate drive)  from the HDD section -  long or advanced diag !  (runs at least for30 minutes)

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/                        ultimate boot cd
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html             download page

I've noticed that when it was working just after the driver installation, Nvidia control panel would show up in the drop down.  I've now noticed that when it is takes forever for the drop down do open when I right click the desktop, Nvidia control panel is no longer listed in the menu.  Also, when I go to my control panel and click on the Nvidia control panel, it does not open at all.  I think this may be the culprit.

maybe you have a failing card?  can you test with another one?
you can always install speedfan, to monitor the temperatures : http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

JFrusci,

Any luck with Geforce Experience?  Remember to choose "Clean Installation" checkbox to ensure that it removes all previous files from your computer.

Also have you tried rolling back to a previous version of the drivers to see if that works as well?  While it may be hardware related, your indications that it was there, but now it's not makes me believe that the drivers themselves are having issues.

-Chris

Chris,

GeForce experience did the trick.  It must have been a backlog of a whole bunch of files from previous driver updates.  I rebooted a few times and the issue seems to be gone.  I never thought it was a hardware issue, as a user previously mentioned.  The card performs very well and there was no indication of a hardware issue.  Thanks Chris!

Any time, that's what we're all here for.  Glad you were able to correct the issue!

Cheers,
Chris