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Computer Problems (updated)
Terrendos
Decorative MonocleRegistered User regular
Decorative MonocleRegistered User regular
Hey folks,
I wasn't sure if this should go here or in the Technology forum, but I figure since I could use some Help and or Advice it fits better here.
My computer is an XP machine (SP 3) that I built myself 6 years ago and have updated piecemeal. Last night I came home and turned on my computer to find some very bizarre problems:
1. The taskbar and windows, previously the XP blue, changed to look like the old ones from '98 or whatever.
2. The Windows Security Alerts are telling me that my firewall is turned off and my CA Antivirus is out of date. I'm pretty sure the CA is in fact up to date, and when I try to turn the firewall back on, it says "the Security Center could not turn on Windows Firewall." It suggests an alternate means of turning it on, but that doesn't work either.
3. I appear unable to connect to my LAN; I get stuck on the step where it tries to get me an IP address. When I open up the connection, it says I've sent some 600 billion packets but received none.
I figured it was some sort of worm/virus/trojan so I disconnected from the network immediately to prevent the risk of spreading on the offchance that it was messing with my internet connection and lying to me. I ran CA Antivirus (turned up nothing) and Malwarebyte's Antimalware (turned up nothing).
I rebooted into safe mode and ran both programs again. This time Malwarebytes turned up some 11 infections which I removed (CA still found nothing). I continued the process of rebooting and running both until both came up clean, then I rebooted back into normal mode. It's still there.
I've tried System Restores, but those didn't work. Considering the symptoms, my gut is telling me it's some kind of malware. I searched through Microsoft Knowledge Base and couldn't find anything similar to my current problems. Also, I tried running Malwarebytes in non-safe mode a few hours back and an hour ago my computer spontaneously rebooted, telling me that it's recovered from a serious error and would I like to tell Microsoft about it.
And so I come before you. Help me, oh mighty internet peoples! Tell me if there's something I can do, something else I can try before I wipe the drives and reinstall everything.
I wasn't sure if this should go here or in the Technology forum, but I figure since I could use some Help and or Advice it fits better here.
My computer is an XP machine (SP 3) that I built myself 6 years ago and have updated piecemeal. Last night I came home and turned on my computer to find some very bizarre problems:
1. The taskbar and windows, previously the XP blue, changed to look like the old ones from '98 or whatever.
2. The Windows Security Alerts are telling me that my firewall is turned off and my CA Antivirus is out of date. I'm pretty sure the CA is in fact up to date, and when I try to turn the firewall back on, it says "the Security Center could not turn on Windows Firewall." It suggests an alternate means of turning it on, but that doesn't work either.
3. I appear unable to connect to my LAN; I get stuck on the step where it tries to get me an IP address. When I open up the connection, it says I've sent some 600 billion packets but received none.
I figured it was some sort of worm/virus/trojan so I disconnected from the network immediately to prevent the risk of spreading on the offchance that it was messing with my internet connection and lying to me. I ran CA Antivirus (turned up nothing) and Malwarebyte's Antimalware (turned up nothing).
I rebooted into safe mode and ran both programs again. This time Malwarebytes turned up some 11 infections which I removed (CA still found nothing). I continued the process of rebooting and running both until both came up clean, then I rebooted back into normal mode. It's still there.
I've tried System Restores, but those didn't work. Considering the symptoms, my gut is telling me it's some kind of malware. I searched through Microsoft Knowledge Base and couldn't find anything similar to my current problems. Also, I tried running Malwarebytes in non-safe mode a few hours back and an hour ago my computer spontaneously rebooted, telling me that it's recovered from a serious error and would I like to tell Microsoft about it.
And so I come before you. Help me, oh mighty internet peoples! Tell me if there's something I can do, something else I can try before I wipe the drives and reinstall everything.
Terrendos on
0
Posts
The whole WinXP theme thing is odd too. What of you turn it back on? Wouldn't surprise me if it was a memory problem. Have you installed any new hardware recently?
Also the log off/turn off computer buttons are discolored, kind of like what happens when you try to change to 256 color mode or something.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "turning the firewall on from the network control panel." I can go to the Control Panel but when I click on Windows Firewall it says "Windows Firewall settings cannot be displayed because the associated service is not running. Do you want to start the Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) service?" If I click Yes it says "Windows cannot star the Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) service."
I haven't tried using a static IP. I don't know what that even means, really. I can't access the router; do I need to access the router to do that?
Backup what you want on some sort of removable media, nuke it from orbit and reinstall. Make sure you do all the windows updates and install some kind of AV before plugging in the backup because malware can infect flash drives and other portable devices. We might be able fix the internet problem but obviously something is messing with the services and you've already done the usual malware removal methods (safemode scan, malwarebytes, etc..) If you are infected with something it's going to take a lot of work to remove it completely, if at all.
The discoloration also sounds like a hardware problem however.
One of the byproducts of my piecemeal upgrade process is that I have a C and an F drive. The C drive is a 1tb raid array I installed a year ago, the F drive is a 160gb one from 6 years back. I can boot to either one, and when I boot to the F drive everything shows up fine. It's only when I boot to my C drive that I get these problems.
EDIT: That said, if I can't think of anything in the next day or so I'll probably just do a complete wipe.
About the only other thing I could suggest is disabling your System Restore, then running MBAM again.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
XP is quite outdated now and vulnerable to all sorts of junk. If you're a student (or know one) grab a student deal on Windows 7 upgrade, you can find them for like $40.
Just to be clear, you probably COULD fix this by running a lot of anti-cirus software and whatnot, but it'll be faster to nuke and reinstall, and less of a headache. Plus, new OS.
nuke from orbit.. its the only way to be sure
first off, you can try the quick fix which is to do a search for CMD in the start menu and then right click on the ICON and run as an administrator. once you get to a prompt type 'sfc /scannow' and it will run a full system scan which will fix some errors in your system files that the virus you had probably gave you.
restart and see if that clears it up.
if not, go to the control panel and then administrative tools and finaly the event viewer. once that loads, look for any errors that occured around the time that you logged on. most likely it'll be a missing DLL or unable to connect to some service. look it up online and download (from a reputable source) the missing or corrupted files.
if that still doesn't work, disconnect from the internet and uninstall your antivirus software, if that clears up the problem, reinstall it and see if it restores some of the corrupted files. if you can't reinstall without the problem resurfacing, find a new antivirus software. I suggest AVG free.
hang on a sec.
http://www.dlldump.com/download-dll-files_new.php/dllfiles/C/crypt32.dll/5.131.2600.2180/download.html
http://www.dlldump.com/download-dll-files_new.php/dllfiles/U/userenv.dll/5.1.2600.2180/download.html
edit: as far as where they go, look in the event viewerr for the path.
That's it, I'm done trying. I'm going to do what I should have done already. Complete wipe, clean install of Windows XP, then upgrade to 7.
I guess you can lock this thread now. Thanks for trying, Dunadan.
I'm trying to install it right now, but it keeps giving me an error: "windows could not update the computer's boot configuration. Installation cannot proceed."
I tried the solution here and it didn't work. I think it might be because my RAID drivers are for XP. I'm using an aging Asus P4P800 Deluxe (it's really the limiting reagent on this computer I think) and I can't find any Windows 7 or Vista drivers for it. The Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor seems to think I'm okay though. It says my graphics adapter won't support the Aero interface but I think that's just because I haven't installed my graphics drivers yet.
Before I go about reconfiguring my RAID 0 back into 2 drives and reinstall XP again and download 7 again and try to install, do you guys have any advice?