Hello everyone!
I’m at my wits end here, this infection on my computer is driving me insane.
I noticed it when my system started to slow down. I thought that was impossible because this laptop is kind of new and it has tons of free memory space. I decided to look at my C drive and bam! It was up half full! I ran a multitude of anti-virus programs (Spybot, malawarebytes, superantispyware, etc.,) but they kept getting stuck. The only program to successfully scan through my computer was Superantispyware and that literally took 15+ hours. I was wondering why it took so long, and decide to monitor the other anti-virus programs while they scanned. They ALL seemed to get stuck on C:<Username>\Appdata\local\microsoft\windows\Temporary internet files because there’s thousands of these files that I’ve never seen before. I went to go check that folder myself but all the files are some how invisible (Even after tinkering with the “View” options to see invisible files/folders), so I couldn’t identify these anomalies.
I did some research and some of it pointed me in the direction of a program called CCleaner which promised results of emptying those pesky internet temp files. I ran CCleaner through safemode just in case over night. Next morning, I go to check the progress of CCleaner and the “Progress bar” hasn’t moved a centimeter. It was completely STUCK on that same folder the antivirus programs were stuck on! I checked to see how much space the CCleaner cleared in my C drive… and guess what? My C drive is not 3/4 full!
There’s over 300gb of these temporary internet files. The antivirus programs I used get stuck or frozen and don’t even manage to detect anything wrong with that Temporary Internet files folder. Except for one that is. Avast was able to detect over 70 infections in that folder. It’s been on for about 13 hours now… STUCK scanning that temp folder. It seems like if any program scans or deletes through this folder, the infection multiplies in a accelerating rate.
Some of my research suggested that it could be a broken index file… or some kind of issue with internet explorer. I use Chrome and I never touch IE explorer. I would absolutely love some help on this issue. I don’t know what’s making this internet temp file folder so fat, but whatever it is, I have a dedicated heart of passion to put its lights out.
Hi!
Thanks for the reply, I got into it immediately. Ran TFC and… it sort of just froze after saying “Temp folder emptied: 53736373 bytes.” (Not responding state)
I’ll wait for it to respond just in case the program is still working on deleting files. I’ll also work on that OTL log afterwards, check back soon-
If it is that large it may take a while for it to remove them all, during that time it may appear unresponsive. Also the next boot will take a bit longer whilst it tidies up the remainder
TFC is putting up a good fight, but it looks like the virus is winning. It slowed down the growth rate by just a little, so instead of growing 15gb every few hours- it’s growing 7 gb every dozen hours.
Oh and hi essexboy!
Yeah! I figured that was the case of TFC not responding. I currently have Internet Explorer 9.
I feel like what’s happening here is that TFC is deleting Temporary Internet files at a alarming rate, but the virus or whatever it is, is multiplying twice as fast. TFC has been going at it for more than 16 hours. Avast is still searching the same folder, constantly detecting infections. Should I stop Avast and let TFC run in safemode?
Oh! I also caught a glimpse of some of the files in the Temp folder while avast was scanning it. Some of them say widgets, playlists, ads, beacon and some others- Avast is scanning them in a pattern. Most of them are ending in extensions .js or .swf.
Also, all these files are being generated in some OTHER folder called Content.IE5
It doesn’t say unless I stop the scan. Avast is halfway through the amount of GB’s on my hardrive (But for some reason says it’s at 0% still in the progress bar) and it took it approximately 29 hours to get that far. In order for me to see the detected files, I’d have to stop it completely. Should I?
[*]Click the Run Scan button. Do not change any settings unless otherwise told to do so. The scan wont take long.
[*]When the scan completes, it will open two notepad windows. OTL.Txt and Extras.Txt. These are saved in the same location as OTL.
[*]Post both logs