Is my PC finished or can it be saved?

[Resung]

I'm working on my laptop now as my pc seems to have been infected with something. A couple of weeks back i noticed it wasn't turning off no matter how long i left it to shutdown and had to a hard shut down. I made a mental note to look at it and carried on. Shortly after it stopped opening some programs (although my browser still worked), so i tried to run malwarebytes and comodo and neither worked, just sat there with the rotating symbol in front of them going round and round and saying they were opening. So i turned it off (again had to be a hard shut down) and decided to leave it alone until i had a better idea where to start. Started it up the other day to retrieve some work off of it and even windows explorer wouldn't work, just sat there 'opening' for eternity. I tried a system restore which timed out, and turned it off again. How bad is this and where do i go from here??

[garth]

I had similar issues when my machine was overheating due to the heat sink paste on the CPU drying out over time. There could be many reasons why your machine is misbehaving obviously, just throwing that out as one possibility.

g

[Remah]

I agree with garth, there are many possible reasons for this sort of problem and I would consider them before blaming malware:

• CPU problem seems most likely
• other system board problem
• faulty memory
• corrupted or faulty disk - can be caused by the others

Your options for resolving this are affected by which version of Windows you are running.

First, I'd check the condition of files on your disk and try to get a backup of your documents and data files. If Windows is corrupted then you have a difficult job.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...e-checker.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...isk-check.html

[Resung]

Thanks. I took off the cover to have a look inside and it was pretty gunky with dust and hair (we have cats) so i cleaned it up a lot, put it back together, and restarted it. It now runs smoother and i can actually open programs, but for some reason have lost wireless, and shutting down/restarting still just results in an endless shutting down page. I think my next step will be to take your advice and save what i can, then run those tests you've linked and see what they show up.

[Remah]

If it is primarily overheating then you should be on the right path by repairing any problems found.

As well as checking the disk state I suggest that you try starting in Safe mode and shutting down to see if you can get a stable shutdown. When you have stable startup and shutdown you're well on the way to resolving the issues.
Start in safe mode
Advanced startup options provides more information if you need it.

[Anupam]

Resung, you have posted threads about PC infection it the past in the forum:

http://www.techsupportalert.com/free...-virus-es.html

http://www.techsupportalert.com/free...rebooting.html

Both times, suggestions were offered to you. You did not offer proper feedback in both the threads.

From your past threads, it seems like your computer is heavily infected, and therefore, you need expert help. I will advise you to please post here in Bleeping Computer forums where security experts will guide you in removing malware from your PC.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/foru...-what-do-i-do/

Please note that you have to provide proper feedback to them in order for them to be able to help you.

If you do not provide feedback, no people on any forum can help you.

[Resung]

Originally Posted by Anupam

Resung, you have posted threads about PC infection it the past in the forum:

http://www.techsupportalert.com/free...-virus-es.html

http://www.techsupportalert.com/free...rebooting.html

Both times, suggestions were offered to you. You did not offer proper feedback in both the threads.

From your past threads, it seems like your computer is heavily infected, and therefore, you need expert help. I will advise you to please post here in Bleeping Computer forums where security experts will guide you in removing malware from your PC.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/foru...-what-do-i-do/

Please note that you have to provide proper feedback to them in order for them to be able to help you.

If you do not provide feedback, no people on any forum can help you.

Looking back, that was the swansong of my old computer. Between salvaging what i could off of it, and buying a new computer - at least partially from the fact that the old one had pretty poor specs - i guess i forgot to give the feedback where it was needed, so apologies for that.

I've been away for a few days, spent most of this evening backing up my files, and am now running the checks advised above, i'll report back soon. Hopefully with good news.

[Resung]

Right, the scan now and disk check came back fine. I started the computer and things seemed to be working fine, i ran a Malwarebytes scan and a Comodo scan and they came back fine as well. I even turned it off and on a few times without it freezing. So i moved on to getting it back online - it was still not recognising the dongle i was using. However i moved it to another USB socket and it started working again for some reason. After going online i updated Comodo and did another scan, which again was fine. I then tried to update Malwarebytes but the program wouldn't open, just popped up in my systray and stayed there doing nothing. I checked my task manager and and Malwarebytes wasn't appearing on my applications tab, but was running in my programs tab, but even from there i couldn't close it with 'end process'. I tried shutting down the computer at this point and again it just stayed on the shutting down page until i eventually did a hard shut down, which puts me almost exactly back where i was at the beginning.

[Anupam]

Please provide proper details first.

Is it a PC or a laptop?

Which version of Windows is on the computer?

You say this is a new computer in your earlier post. Please provide the configuration of the computer.. CPU, RAM, hard drive.

If the computer is new, Windows and programs installed must be fairly fresh and new? Who installed Windows and programs?

Was this problem occurring since beginning, or it started occurring recently?

Do you remember installing anything particular, or doing something, after which the problem might have started.

When you say you tried to open MBAM... for how much time did you wait, after starting the program, before proceeding to kill it via Task Manager?

After the hard shutdown, did you perform a restart, and try to see if the computer behaved fine, or if other programs were able to open and run... before posting here that it's back to beginning?

Comodo, which you mention is the resident antivirus, or something else? Which version?

[Resung]

Originally Posted by Anupam

Please provide proper details first.

Is it a PC or a laptop?

Which version of Windows is on the computer?

You say this is a new computer in your earlier post. Please provide the configuration of the computer.. CPU, RAM, hard drive.

If the computer is new, Windows and programs installed must be fairly fresh and new? Who installed Windows and programs?

Was this problem occurring since beginning, or it started occurring recently?

Do you remember installing anything particular, or doing something, after which the problem might have started.

When you say you tried to open MBAM... for how much time did you wait, after starting the program, before proceeding to kill it via Task Manager?

After the hard shutdown, did you perform a restart, and try to see if the computer behaved fine, or if other programs were able to open and run... before posting here that it's back to beginning?

Comodo, which you mention is the resident antivirus, or something else? Which version?

It's a PC, windows 7 home premium (64 bit) OS.

I said i got a new computer after my old one died, so it's about 4-5 years old and came with the OS ready installed. I don't remember doing anything to it just before it started acting up, but i try out new programs on both my PC and my laptop periodically and it's possible i may have downloaded/installed something.

Off the top of my head i don't remember all the specs so i ran speccy on it and came back with:

CPU - Intel core iS 760 @ 2.8 GHz
RAM - 6 GB dual channel DDR3 @ 665 MHz
Hard Drive - for this one speccy just comes up with "analysing" and has been saying that for the last 10 minutes...

I waited for about 15 mins before trying to kill with task manager, but even then task manager never actually killed it. Chrome, my WPS suite, C cleaner, and Comodo all open and close fine, though i haven't actually done any serious work on it since it started having trouble.

Comodo is the firewall and ant-virus, version 7.0317799.4142