I will kill my PC

Awais Yaqub · January 15, 2008

:hotfood anyone want lunch of PC ?

Task Manager Disappears in less then second
Internet explorer or Mozzila reinstalled but few websites closes down automatically.
Hidden files not showing
Same for dialog boxes of MS office

I am tired of searching internet on top off all i cannot install antivirus and AVG won't hunt down these problems though it is updated

:huh :scratch

gus · January 15, 2008

Sorry to hear mate but it was this sort of thing that made me go to mac. I have had some teething problems with it , more brought on by my total lack of understanding but seriously mate...the next time you update..buy a mac. You will wonder why it took so long to change over.

SloYerRoll · January 15, 2008

Macs are pretty good for boys and girls that *can't* keep their machines out of the crud

gus · January 15, 2008

SloYerRoll wrote:

Macs are pretty good for boys and girls that keep their machines out of the crud

Seriously Slo if i had Richards or Niks head then i could cope with a PC again but im a stumbler...i fall into everything, i need simple & safe.

Having stood back & seen the light.. i am flabergasted (always wanted to use that word) that macs are so rare in Australia. You can see them around uni's & art type business's but i have never seen one in a home.

Anyway this isnt helping Awais. Or maybe it is

SloYerRoll · January 15, 2008

gus wrote:

i need simple & safe.

It's not bad to not be a techy. If everyone were a techy. The techy's would have pretty low paying jobs!

These posts are probably helping. Seems from Awais's posts that he's entering the mainstream w/ gear. Maybe he can talk Apple into a sponsorship!?

Awais Yaqub · January 15, 2008

O comon i am not entering mainstream DSLR was just a luck going little wild

Andy · January 15, 2008

SloYerRoll wrote:

Macs are pretty good for boys and girls that *can't* keep their machines out of the crud

That's the point

I'm reasonably tech-savvy... but the reason I switched all my studio and office and family machines to Mac was because PeeCees sucked my time and will to live

I've gained soooo much time and sanity back since making the switch.

SloYerRoll · January 15, 2008

I agree w/ you Andy. If my pockets would allow it. I'd be on a MacPro.
Since I'm on the other team at this point. I'll keep my allegiance w/ them

.

Hopefully Macs will be coming down in price soon enough due to them switching over to intel based processors among other things.

Richard · January 15, 2008

I doubt that Awais is about to buy a Mac immediately, so perhaps it will be more useful to him if we talk about what could be causing his problems. The symptoms aren't normal PC behavior at all. I would suggest first running hardware diagnostics to see if perhaps something is wrong with the machine. If that does not uncover anything, the next step would be to re-install the operating system. Another option is to contact the dealer and see if they can do something to help, though that might mean waiting longer for a solution.

Awais: these problems can be hard to track down on any computer, so you will need to be patient. Please feel free to contact me by PM and I'll help if I can.

Cheers,

Awais Yaqub · January 15, 2008

I love Mac but my pocket don't

Anyway i think reinstalling windows is best solution what i havn't done since 1 year lots of corrupted and deleted files .

Awais Yaqub · January 16, 2008

Formated the C partition.
Installed Windows again.
Still no Change
Now the problem is
As Task manager disappears suddenly same was the case with installation windows. Now i cannot install anything

Nikolai · January 16, 2008

Awais Yaqub wrote:

Formated the C partition.
Installed Windows again.
Still no Change
Now the problem is
As Task manager disappears suddenly same was the case with installation windows. Now i cannot install anything

Awais,
sorry to hear about your troubles.
It is *possible* that you simply have a faulty keyboard (e.g. ESC key stuck or smth like this). Try another one.
If this is not the case I would assume some other hardware is misbehaving. Unfortunately, it's hard to diagnose those problems without being in front of your machine (and it would be hard eve if one was:-).
HTH

Justiceiro · January 16, 2008

Andy wrote:

That's the point
I'm reasonably tech-savvy... but the reason I switched all my studio and office and family machines to Mac was because PeeCees sucked my time and will to live

I've gained soooo much time and sanity back since making the switch.

the ten minutes I don't have to stre at my computer waiting for it to stop turning on and start working saves me, on average, an hour of work time per week.

jww · January 16, 2008

Awais Yaqub wrote:

Formated the C partition.
Installed Windows again.
Still no Change
Now the problem is
As Task manager disappears suddenly same was the case with installation windows. Now i cannot install anything

Hmmm.. just a thought..

You might try seeing what kind of messages you might have in your system event logs... It might at least give you a clue if there were errors in there as it would hopefully point to the hardware or the software that is blowing up.

Good luck!

jww · January 16, 2008

Andy wrote:

I've gained soooo much time and sanity back since making the switch.

..see that is just it, nobody would notice the difference if I gained in sanity... or is it if I gained insanity?

Richard · January 16, 2008

Nikolai wrote:

Awais,
sorry to hear about your troubles.
It is *possible* that you simply have a faulty keyboard (e.g. ESC key stuck or smth like this). Try another one.
If this is not the case I would assume some other hardware is misbehaving. Unfortunately, it's hard to diagnose those problems without being in front of your machine (and it would be hard eve if one was:-).
HTH

I agree with Nik that this is sounding like a hardware issue. Your machine probably came with a hardware diagnostics program on the manufacturer's distribution disk. I strongly suggest running that program (if you can). JWW's suggestion about looking in the system event log is also a good one. In XP you get to it from Start Menu->Administrative Tools->Event Viewer, then choose System and look for red Error signs.

Newsy · January 16, 2008

Awais,

Tell us a little more about your system.

Is this a new system? How old?

OS... WinXP Home? Pro? Vista? Home 32bit? Ultimate 64bit?

Hardware....
- Memory? How much? PC3200? 2x1GB sticks? in what slots? When was the last time you touched them? Tried reseating them (ground yourself first on the chassis)?
- Checked that the CPU cooler is positionned properly on the CPU?
- CPU Fan runs?
- Thermal grease between CPU and cooler has not dried up?
- Motherboard?
- Power Supply Make and size?
- # drives? HD + CD/DVD
- Video card? is its fan running?
- blown the dust out of all the fans and coolers recently?

Bad memory or a failing power supply will play havoc with the OS regardless of brand. A recent power surge could have fried something.

Heat is also an issue and can make a system flakey - again this is not brand related.

It is possible you have some kind of malware which is not getting removed even with the reformat - rootkit related perhaps.

Some people have had success with this rootkit detection utility...
http://antirootkit.com/blog/2007/04/02/panda-antirootkit-officially-released/

Recent versions of AVG are not up to par with the leaders of the AV detection industry.
http://www.av-comparatives.org/seiten/ergebnisse/report16.pdf

Tried booting up in Safe mode with no drivers loaded?

If you have a spare drive lying around you may want to try installing a fresh copy of the OS and using it to boot.

.

Awais Yaqub · January 16, 2008

Hi thanks all for support It was a Spyware which was removed after scaning with updated spyware version.
But hidden file problem still exists that is not an issue
but the 1st one was realy pain in head

PC i still hate you

SloYerRoll · January 16, 2008

Don't tell your PC you hate it too much. It may just stop working for you.
As much as you hate it. You still need it.

Awais Yaqub · January 16, 2008

SloYerRoll wrote:

Don't tell your PC you hate it too much. It may just stop working for you.
As much as you hate it. You still need it.

Yeah

Foochar · January 16, 2008

Awais Yaqub wrote:

Hi thanks all for support It was a Spyware which was removed after scaning with updated spyware version.
But hidden file problem still exists that is not an issue
but the 1st one was realy pain in head

PC i still hate you

Glad you found the problem with the spyware/malware. I was about to post about it being spyware when Newsy posted the bit about it possibly being malware. I've seen the behaviour with closing down task manager and IE and other browsers from those kinds of infections many times, they are built to do that to make it harder for you to kill them, if you can't get to "Task Manager" it is pretty hard to end task, and if you can't get a browser to start than it is pretty hard to download an update.

With regard to the hidden files, have you checked the "folder options" for the folder you are trying to see them in, if you did a true reinstall of windows than you are probably back to the default settings which do not show hidden files. Also, if the files are also "system" files than you will need to uncheck the box that says "Hide protected operating system files".

Pupator · January 16, 2008

But what this reveals is that you didn't do a format/reinstall like you thought you did. You probably just did a "recovery" from the windows disc that was non-destructive. Otherwise there's no* reason why you'd have the same spyware problem after the format/reinstall.

* "No reason" isn't exactly right. If there's an infected floppy in the drive, if he visited the website that infected him right away after the reinstall, or if there's a drone computer on his network spewing out virii and spyware it could happen - but I doubt it. I've seen too many people think that the windows restore disc does a format/reinstall by default and it doesn't. The format option is under the "advanced" options.

Awais Yaqub · January 16, 2008

I've seen the behaviour with closing down task manager and IE and other browsers from those kinds of infections many times, they are built to do that to make it harder for you to kill them, if you can't get to "Task Manager" it is pretty hard to end task, and if you can't get a browser to start than it is pretty hard to download an update.

Exactly and it is back again

SloYerRoll · January 16, 2008

Awais. Please read what pupator said.

Then please tell us exactly how you "formatted" your "C" drive. Also if you have any other partitions on this physycal hard drive as well.

Let's start w/ that, then we can move onto the next step in troublehooting.

So what we need to know is:
1. Exactly how you formatted your drive in detail.
2. Do you have any other partitions on that hard drive.
3. Have you recently opened your machine and visually inspected it's contents?

Let's start out with the big easy questions. I promise, between all of us. We will get your machine back up and running. Just please be patient.

Cheers,
-Jon

Awais Yaqub · January 16, 2008

Ok here is what i did.

Installed window about 8 months ago or little more.
No i havn't oppened the machine.
And have 1 hard disk with 4 partitions. C,D,E,F
C always contain windows softwares etc.

How i formated it

Boot from Windows CD
And formated the Partition from there while installing windows.
Where these is options
"Format using NTFS.....<quick>
Format using NTFS i used slower one

SloYerRoll · January 16, 2008

There are allot more technically minded people in here in regards to this process especially when dealing w/ multiple partitions and formatting. So I'll just say my piece.

I'd make a recommendations of starting to back up all your images/files onto CD/DVD/external hard drive (whatever). After you have a fresh start on your machine. You can scan all these files w/ anti virus before you place them back on your computer.

Most adware and spyware apps miss apps. I read a while back on CNET.com that a test machine was purposely infected w/ all kinds of nastyness and they ran all the major (both free & pay version) adware/spyware apps on this machine. NONE OF THEM got everything.

So a clean wipe is necessary. When you did the quick format boot from CD thing. You didn't wipe your drive clean. You just shoved the dust under the rug in the guest bedroom. Make sense?

Now I'll step down and let someone that knows much more than me step in and help

kini62 · January 16, 2008

Could be the spyware is in BIOS, in which case you'd need to flash the BIOS or get a new chip put in or new MB.

Good luck.

Gene

DavidTO · January 16, 2008

kini62 wrote:

Could be the spyware is in BIOS, in which case you'd need to flash the BIOS or get a new chip put in or new MB.

Good luck.

Gene

Wow. Now that's evil.

Richard · January 16, 2008

kini62 wrote:

Could be the spyware is in BIOS, in which case you'd need to flash the BIOS or get a new chip put in or new MB.

Good luck.

Gene

I have never heard of that one. How does it get there?

Nikolai · January 16, 2008

rsinmadrid wrote:

I have never heard of that one. How does it get there?

I guess some AL Qaeda guys can theoretically put it there...

Pupator · January 16, 2008

It's not spyware in the BIOS.

Depending on your level of skill there are a few different paths you can take.

1) Download Adaware SE and the free trial of Webroot Spy Sweeper - install them both. Go to disk cleanup (built in to windows) and run it on all drives, making sure to check the boxes for temporary files and installer files. Then reboot your computer in safe mode (google if you don't know how to get to it). Run full scans of all hard drives with each of the two programs, plus your antivirus program if you have one. Reboot and see if things are any better.

2) As suggested above - back up important files from each partition to CD or external hard drive. Then format the entire drive (not just the C partition) and reinstall Windows.

I will kill my PC

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