Virus or ???

Viruses and worms
1

My WinXP SP3 PC with Avast Free 5 has a problem but I’m not sure if it is a virus or malware or something else.

This problem began on a specific day about a week ago after I had been surfing the web for several hours. Prior to this the problem had NEVER occurred.

Whenever I try to open a major program, as that program begins to load CPU goes to 100 percent and stays there preventing the program from completing its start up. No matter how long I wait, the program will never load. The PC is not actually locked up-- its just slowed down and unable to finish the program load. If I right-click the Avast taskbar icon and disable the shields, the Avast Component Stop dialog window comes up and immediately the program that would not load now loads even before I click on the YES button in the Avast Component Stop dialog window. Once loaded, the program works normally and CPU returns to a low level.

This does not occur when I load a web browser or small ‘applets’ such as Notepad. It does occur with any major application that uses a lot of resources.

Here is a strange aspect-- up until two days ago I was using MS Security Essentials. The same thing occurred when MSE was on the system-- beginning on the day when this problem first appeared. I decided to uninstall MSE and install Avast. At first all seemed fine but soon the same thing was occurring again but with Avast installed instead of MSE. (BTW I much prefer Avast 5 to MSE!)

I have done many scans with Avast (and MSE beforehand). I have tested RAM with Microsoft Windows Memory Diagnostic showing no errors.

Someone suggested that Malwarebytes may be able to find something. Can I install and run Malwarebytes with Avast 5 being on my system?

I would appreciate any help or perhaps direct me to any previous discussion if this has been covered before.

Thanks

2

welcome to the forum

yes you can use malwarebytes alongside avast. in fact is highly recomended on the forum to use those two.

i suggest you install malwarebytes and do a scan with and see what coming up. don’t forget to update before you scan.

then post the result here.

it sound like you have been hit by malware. but could be becose of the chancing of antivirus.

how do you uninstall MSE? sometimes it can leaves thinks behind that could conflict with other antivirus program.
you could run the uninstall tool for MSE and see if it finds any left over files.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2435760

and the link to get malwarebytes: http://filehippo.com/download_malwarebytes_anti_malware/

good luck and let us know how it goes or if you need more support.

3

in fact is highly recomended on the forum to use those two>>>

I guess I would have known that if I had read the stickies! :slight_smile: I should have read more before posting.

Thanks so much for the instructions. It will take me a while to work through all of the steps.

4

your welcome and take your time.

5

This took a long time to solve. It turned out to not be a virus or malware at all. It was bad RAM. Even though (as I stated before) the RAM tested OK, and it had been working OK previously, it just would not work correctly. I was suspicious because it was new RAM that I had installed several weeks earlier. Apparently it worked fine for a while, then quit working correctly even though it still tested OK and would still bootup and run windows (sort of). I replaced with known good RAM and all was fine.

I hope this might help others with a similar odd problem-- just because software tests may show RAM as good, the only 100 percent sure test is to try known good RAM as a test.