Lots of very strange issues.

New to the forums but been downloading stuff from the site for a while now.

Been trying to fix a relatives PC. She has a habbit of downloading anything that looks nice and intresting, kind of the internet equivelant of a magpie. Anyway a year or so ago she managed to get her PC highjacked by some browser software. Managed to clean this up, got rid of the software she installed, Pandasoft and some cheap version of Mcafee and installed Commodo and AVG along with Firefox 2.

Things have been okay until recently.

The PC has become quite unstable. It does a disc check every time it boots, resolved this doing a DOS run of chkdsk /r from the XP recovery console. This was ultimately pointless because while it fixed that issue the PC still boots, locks up and refuses to shut down. The CPU is also at 50% ALL of the time. I've done a search through the processes and none of them seem to be showing up any issues, I even installed an extended process explorer to try and id any hidden ones, with no joy.

I've run Spybopy S and D which only found tracking cookies. I've id'd and killed any processes that are un required and id'd and killed any services that don't really need to be there, all with very little success, right now the CPU is still at 50%.

I've done a hijack this run and had a look through. I've not spotted anything that leaps out at me, a check with process library seems to confirm most of the stuff is geniune.

So this leaves me with two courses of action.

1). Let you guys have a look at the log file and spot anything that I may have missed, which may be quite a lot

2). Assume that the nature and frequency of the failures is a possible indication of a hard drive that may be on it's last legs. (The HD isn't getting thrashed by constant access though)

So here goes.

Acer Aspire SA80
P4
1Gig
Windows Xp Sp2 Home Edition

Hijack this log attached

 

Forget it man, this computer has gotten to the stage were I really can't be bothered. I got to step one in that topic you linked. Downloaded Superantispyware. Installed, updated ran it, said it found some stuff selected it to repair said stuff. It then asked me to shut down and reboot, which the computer refuses to, it just hangs and does nothing, can't even get task manager to come up.

I did a hard reset, push the power button until it turns off, it rebooted and now it just hangs shortly after loading the desktop. Five times I've rebooted using various options of checking and not checking the disk for errors and every single time it just hangs at desktop. Safe mode hangs at some file called mup.sys so even that doesn't work.

Just as a side note the things it found were Vundo, sitting in the registry and Downloader zcrew sitting in some files.

I am sick of this machine, I've spent all 3 day plus three days a year ago trying to get this bloody thing sorted and it's even worse than it was. I've found out I can use my OEM XP install from my gaming system combined with the XP Home edition COA printed on the duff computer. I wasn't sure I could do this as all I got with the PC was one of those rubbish recovery discs, had I known sooner I would have wiped this thing long ago.

So I've ordered a new larger HD for the system and I am gonna scrap it and start over. It'll be a heck of a lot quicker than messing about trying to find out what's causing this recalcitrant piece of garbage to keep hanging.

Any files from the duff machine can be pulled by plugging it in to my gaming rig and pulling the files from there. (Don't worry it is considerable better protected than the duff machine was) All she wants is her downloaded I tune songs recovered.

Thanks for the time and I am sorry it was wasted.

 

No problem Laughing Man
If you need anything further, just post again.
Best of luck to you.
abri

 

Just thought I'd update you, since you were willing to help. Used my Gaming system XP install disc plus the busted PCs COA. Added a new 250Gig drive, up from 160Gig. Installed updated and all is working very nicely. The feel of a fresh OS is always great. No lock ups, no issues, nice!

 

Hey LaughingMan!
That is good news! If you want some good tips for good protection that's light-weight on the resources, visit How to Protect Yourself from Malware
All the best to you.
abri