Windows 7 Very Intransigent Problems even in Safe Mode

[Justsmilin]

Hi, Folks,

I have an odd one here, I think.

• I am running an ASUS notebook, U52F.
• I am running Win7 Home Premium and auto update is on.
• I run Avast! Free and Windows Firewall. Both report they are working properly.
• I run Advanced System Care Pro and do regular scans.
• I use Firefox, Windows Live Mail and Thunderbird.
• This computer has been running well for 5 years.

That says to me that whatever is giving me trouble is deeply embedded in Windows. And maybe the Mozilla stuff I was experiencing was just secondary.



Today it upped the ante by shutting down my wifi access. I have a Kindle, and it is getting wifi just fine. I rebooted my router and it didn’t fix the problem.



I went back to Safe Mode and ran Recovery. The end message said that it didn’t complete, but when I restarted, I can connect to my wifi.



Here are my results…..

• Avast rescue disk found nothing.
• TDSSKiller found nothing.
• Kaspersky found that I had autorun enabled and a few timeouts not set right.
• Malwarebytes found nothing.
• Superspyware found 740 tracking cookies. It wouldn’t delete them , though.
• · I tried to do it manually, I think I got them…..
• Microsoft Safety Scanner found nothing.
• Windows Defender says there is no malware and Windows is running properly.
• Spybot found 150 items, none in Thunderbird and Firefox.
• Adaware got rid of dozens of registry entries.

If you want to see the 122 pages of stuff What’s Running came up with, I will send it to you.



Thoughts?



John

 

[crustycrab]

Download Eset Online Scanner, once down....boot up into safe mode and run the eset online scanner and let's see what it finds.

Free Virus Scan | ESET Online Scanner | ESET

 

[Justsmilin]

Well, Crusty,
It found another 27 items. Program loaders and such. And I had it delete them. Some of them came from Adaware, but I'd guess all of those things bring along presents, not?

The sad thing is that it hasn't fixed the problem.

Now, when I go to Task Manager, all I get is the applications running. I can't get to the processes.

When I opened the email to reply, a find on page popup came on that I couldn't shut down. I had to go to Task Manager and stop LiveMail to get out of the damned thing.

When I went to Thunderbird, it was jumping like mad.


Any other thoughts?

Thanks again,
John

 

[Neemobeer]

If you're having issues even in safe mode, then it's more likely that your Windows install is corrupt or that you have a hardware problem. You can use a live boot tool like the Hiren Boot Disc to test the hard drive (Seagate seatools) and memory (memtest) to verify you don't have any hardware issues. An over heating CPU can also cause unusual behavior and you can run something like speed fan to check CPU temperatures.

There is also the small chance of what is known as a boot kit malware. They boot before Windows and can't be detected by anything in Windows. In these cases you basically need to format the drive and re-install Windows.

 

[Justsmilin]

Thanks, Neemobeer,
Once upon a time, I would have had a Ghost image and I would take the drive down and use Active Killdisk to get rid of everything on the drive and start over. But, I don't have that anymore. I haven't had trouble for 5 years, and I let it expire.

I might just copy all the data and do that. But I don't want to lose my Office 2010. I bought a 3 computer license, but I've only installed it on this computer. Yet, I don't have the disks, and I don't want to lose it. Pretty much everything else I have I have the disks for, and I can reinstall.

Since this is random, I don't think it is CPU overheat, is it?

Thanks, I'll try to test hardware.

John

 

[Justsmilin]

BTW, anybody know how to read What's Running reports? There must be some way to sort through 120 pages of report.

Thanks,
John

 

[Justsmilin]

There's something here I don't understand. Neemobeer, you talked about a boot kit that loads before Windows and can't be found by Windows. That makes sense.

But, I used the Avast! Rescue Disk. Doesn't that mount the drive in Linux? And wouldn't that find stuff that loads before Windows?


While I'm at it. I have a drive enclosure and a clean computer. Could I take the drive out and connect it as an external drive to the clean computer and test it that way? The clean computer is Win 10. And the drive is Win 7.

Would that put my clean computer at risk?

John

 

[Neemobeer]

A live malware scanning disc or usb would potentially be able to detect a boot kit, provided it has a signature for it. I was merely throwing it out there as a possibility. Boot kit malware is pretty rare. Your problem is more likely hardware or OS corruption.