Help requested with unidentified malware / PC slowdown issue

Hi folks,

OK, this is my first post on this forum, and surprise surprise, I'm looking for some help with PC performance and possible malware. Recently, my wife's PC (running XP2) has been getting slower and slower. So, I took it upon myself to clean some stuff up.

I went through your suggestions for "basic computer maintenance everyone should do" first, and removed some startup entries that I didn't need - that should help. However, there were a few entries in that list that looked suspiciously like a malware/trojan I dealt with on my PC fairly recently, so I wanted to run it by you folks.

I run AVG as my antivirus, but it's not picking up any problems. I run ZoneAlarm for firewall, and AdAware occasionally for spyware removal.

Next, I went through your Housecleaning steps. I enabled viewing of hidden files, and then went through your XP cleaning procedures.

I have attached the combofix and MGtools.zip files. However, despite setting the AVG antispyware settings as you indicated, no report was generated. (I confirmed the settings afterwards, and it definitely was set to "automatically generate each time". The AVG antispyware found just one entry, which was deleted. (It was deleted, not quarantined.) Unfortunately, I don't have the specific information, as I expected to be able to get at the report. I can certainly run the process again if necessary.


So, please find the files attached.

Incidentally, some of the symptoms we've been seeing include:

-iexplorer runs with high CPU %, even when IE isn't being used
-PC inexplicably slow at times
-cmd.exe in the HijackThis log makes me nervous

These symptoms started within the past month or so, but unfortunately, my wife can't recall anything in particular that changed during that time...

Anyway, let me know if you see anything strange!

Thanks very much!

Steve

 

Sorry, didn't want to bump, but apparently you can't edit your posts here.

I was able to get the AVG Spyware to save the report, attached here.

Thanks!

 

OK, thanks very much for your help! Will get on the Java Runtime stuff.