Slow computer....antivirus no help

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I have read up on antivirus and looked at some forums from malwarebytes and other sites. My daughters W7 computer is s-l-o-w. My antivirus, avast, thinks all is good. There seems to be a dll.exe program embedding itself within the processes. Learned that this is not a program required with W7 but just not savy enough to remove the whole thing. Read also that even if you do get some sort of antivirus program, some of the viruses already embedded could block itself from being found. Great. So, found out that if you start in safe mode with networking, get a online scanner like eset and then scan for viruses. What I'm wondering, would malwarebytes, if I buy it or free trail version, work without having to start in safe mode? Or will it too be detected and bypass existing viruses? Why I'm asking is that I don't want to have to keep paying for antivirus programs if I can get one to work. Could I use malwarebytes on all my computers, or you pay for just one computer. What I think it is a dll.exe program, I'll end the processes manually, and all is good, but reloads itself within 5 minutes.
 
malwarebytes isnt even an antivirus, and its not nearly as good as it was years ago.

Find deals on ESET or kaspersky and it will be less than 5$ a year.

To start with, restart in safe mode, use the free ESET online scanner.. make sure you check the box for PUP(potentially unwanted programs)
http://www.eset.com/us/online-scanner/


both paid programs block incoming malware very good.
I have not seen free programs yet that do as good a job. at least once a month there is a FAR(free after rebate) type deal on kaspersky or eset.


Many times you will get bad stuff in a driveby type attack. Where a hacker has injected malware into a banner ad.. which then gets shown on your favorite forum etc... without a good AV you will be infected and never know how. With a good AV it will throw up a window and block it.
 
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Why not restore to a restore date prior to computer getting slow? I find that works the best.
 
I would do that, but God only knows what all my daughter has on that thing....games mostly and I'm sure that's where the malware came from.
 
Run MSCONFIG and select startup. Turn everything off you do not run all the time. Leave on the antivirus type things but most other stuff turn off.

Re boot then run the malware program/s and reboot.

See what that does.
 
One thing I usually do is install CCleaner and go to the Tools -> Startup section to see what actually runs when the operating system loads. There's very often lots of junk that you don't really need. You can significantly speed both load times and general speed by disabling many of the non-essential toys. I generally don't delete any entries here, in case I want to enable them again later, but disabling them turns them off.
 
If you get ccleaner make sure you do custom install and uncheck the PUP it installs (toolbar)
 
I came across that last night when running CC, I'll try the tools startup suggestion. Appreciate ya'lls help.
 
Malwarebytes is pretty good. D/L it on ANOTHER COMPUTER and burn it to CD/rom or put it in a USB stick then run it on the affected one.

MWB will (often) notify you of issues even if it can't totally remove them. IOW it'll clean them but they can come back on the next boot.

Having a name for a virus/malware is a start to figuring out how to clear it off. If google search is weird and corrupted on the affected computer, it won't help you clear that virus, and will only bring its friends in.
 
That think you said about viruses preventing themselves from being found? What happens is - Windows has code that basically looks at what's happening on your computer. What files are there? What programs are running? Etc.

Some viruses will hijack these. What files are there? Well, we'll tell them about all the files EXCEPT the virus files. What programs are running? We'll tell them about all the programs EXCEPT the virus.

To get around this, you need to boot the computer from anther OS that's not infected. That OS can scan the hard drive and actually see the virus files, and get rid of them.

I like Kaspersky Rescue Disk for this. You can get it here: http://support.kaspersky.com/us/4162

You'll get an ISO you can burn to CD (if you need a program to burn ISO's, CD Burner XP is a good one, and free). Once it's burned, boot the infected PC from the CD. Once it loads, update the definitions, then run it. I've had great luck with it
 
Avast has a boot time scanner built into its standard anti-virus which worked well for me about two months ago to remove 9 instances of a virus from my wife's W7 netbook.

You can download the free version of Avast and install it on the machine, then check the boot time scan option and reboot. Before Windows starts it will do a full system scan from the command line that should take about an hour to complete. Each time it finds a virus it will stop and give you 9 or so options of what to do. Two of the options will make it quarantine or delete each virus automatically so you don't have to intervene more than once. It will generate a log file which can be accessed once Windows is running if you want to know which viruses were found and what was done with them.
 
Go to www.bleepingcomputer.com
Download two programs, rkill and combofix.
Put both programs on your desktop. Disable your antivirus and run the rkill program first. This will kill any malicious processes that are running and thus allow them to be deleted. Once rkill is done run combofix or mbytes immediately after.
Your computer will be cleaned in about 5-10 minutes. Just follow the instructions to the letter.
You can run another program like malwarebytes after rkill instead of combofix if you want, it is a superior malware remover, Just make sure you run it right after rkill has finished.
Once all clean turn your av back on.
Forgot to add that you run the rkill program and combofix in normal mode(not safe mode) on your computer....

Cheers.
 
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A few years back I was given two Dell LT's that were used by his young-teen daughters. Both ran XP. One took 2.5min to crawl (boot). The other would just hang.

I ended up erasing the HD and reinstalling XP. Problem solved. You may have to resort to this unfortunately.
 
I hope I don't have to do that sleddriver...but it has about the same symptoms you've described.
Card....I'm actually using avast....I'll check that out first. thanks.
 
I'd do the ESET on-line scan first (definitely remember to check the "detect potentially unwanted programs" box BTW) to see if it finds anything. It is quick and easy.

If it involves further digging, there are other avenues as many others have touched on.
 
Used the boot time scan option from avast last night and Holy Cow Batman...it worked!!!! I choose to scan every single thing and it took about 4 hours. Oh my gosh was there all kind of viruses on that thing....torrents, drp, trojans, and pup files out the wahzoo. Running SO much better, it's almost like a new computer. I think most of them came from her playing Minecraft on-line. Another problem I ran into when trying to do a Microsoft update, I got an error message, looked it up, and the time/date stamp on the laptop was not in sync with Microsoft. Sure enough, it was the right time but the date was 1/3/2011. Got that fixed and updates galore came pouring in. Got me to thinking, could one of the viruses purposely do that? I mean, if your computer is set to check updates regularly or on some sort of automated schedule, but the dates are way off so that Microsoft can't update its software, they effectively won't be updated and there would be no way that software could delete the virus? Pretty slick if your not really anal about updating.
 
Originally Posted By: Schmoe
I think most of them came from her playing Minecraft on-line.


Do some Minecraft servers run ads? I've had malware problems from compromised ad servers playing Team Fortress 2
 
I haven't seen any ads pop up on Minecraft, but she's been on it the most. There are so many different servers to tap into with that game. Wonder if Microsoft will fix that as they just bought it recently.
 
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