Windows 7 Issues

It sounds as if you may need to clean install Windows 7. I wouldn't add any more antivirus other than MS's own security essentials.

I would add 4 more GB of ram too. 

run malwarebytes

click here don't download from anywhere else - no other software comes close at catching nasties

A couple of questions for you.

1.  Were these antivirus programs downloaded onto your computer AFTER you began to see the weirdness?  If so, they may have been compromised by viruses.  Whichever program you choose to use MUST be downloaded on a different computer and put onto either a rescue disk or a flash drive.

2.  When you rename an item on your desktop, I am quite confused on how this could happen, as when you are in the rename process itself you are literally typing in the text box for the item you are renaming.  Can you please explain this a bit more?

Perhaps if you have no other options, backup all and do a clean install of Win 7, and then re-install the world.  Make sure you apply patches after the install, such as any released service packs and such.  There will be a bunch of security fixes.  As the patches are applied in layers, you will have a lot of cycling through the check for updates - install updates process.

Bob Bone


Bob Bone

It is not Sonar. I base this on the fact that other programs are freezing too. In addition to this it is locking up on shut down. This sounds like a system issue. Sonar has nothing to do with this. 

If it is not a virus then it could be a bloated registry or a configuration problem. Or you have to many things running in the background and you don't have enough ram. This causes the computer to use the hard drive to simulate ram, otherwise known as virtual ram.

So as you can see it can be anything. I agree with John. Maybe a clean OS install will take care of the problem. When is the last time you did a clean install? If your system is locking up it can be a number of things. 

CakeAlexS


bitdefender is an excellent paid product and well worth the money. Please ignore advice to use other virus scanners, thats just flag waving (and no I dont use bitdefender but see no reason why I shouldn't, it has a great reputation). Do you have more than one virus scanner or malware scanner installed? If so remove all and reinstall bitdefender. Running more than one antivirus can cause conflicts giving the sort of symptoms you describe.

I agree bitdefender is an excellent anti virus program but I wasn't advocating adding another anti virus program - I was suggesting a malware removal tool which will very often detect stuff that your anti virus software has let through :)


As others have said, sometimes a clean install is the best solution if only to rule the O/S out of the equation - faulty RAM could cause this, a bad driver, an overheating graphics card etc. The list is endless and without being sat at the machine reading crash dumps and error logs we are all speculating :)

aka

robert_e_bone


It sounds like you have a bunch of viruses on the computer, and if you wait until AFTER you suspect they are there to download antivirus software, it will also be affected by the viruses.

It used to be that if you bought anti-virus software from the store, that you could boot from it and scrub your ailing drive of any viruses.  I have gone soooo long without viruses that I do not remember how one would create a similar boot disc to do the same

Avast seems to sell one for like $10.  Here is one from Kapersky that seems to be free: http://support.kaspersky.com/4162

You definitely want to download and create the disc from a separate computer, and THEN boot up your computer to let it scrub.  If you have trouble booting to the CD drive, you can start hitting F12 during start up to display the boot menu, or you can alter your BIOS boot priority settings to make your CD/DVD the first bootable device.  Look for the 'hit any key to boot from DVD' message and hit enter - or some other key.

Anyways, I hope that helps.

When I remove viruses from people's computers I take their physical drive and plug it into my computer, which then sees it as a data drive, which means that any viruses on it will not boot up into my memory.  I then use MY Avast antivirus software to scrub their drive.

At any rate, you have some things to check into and decide.  I DO think that weird behavior like that is an indication that you have some 'critters' in your computer.

Bob Bone

Sorry Bob but most of that just isn't true

Downloading an exe file for antivirus software cannot be corrupted by a by a virus that already exists, it just can't


Removing their drive and plugging into your computer carries many risks


You don't need to download to a separate computer. Many virus infections will block the well known sites anyway. The safest way is to start the machine in 'safe mode with networking' thus bypassing all of the startup files which can harbour potential infections




oh and to the OP - (once again) run Malwarebytes

You are correct on your first point - I actually to type it as download/install, rather than just download.  The check sum validation on the download should take care of the download - installing it on the machine that is already virus-laden can infect programs getting installed, as the viruses are already in memory, (and who knows were on the hard drive).


I have HAD a virus install get infected, and it does happen.  All bets are off when there are viruses loaded into memory and on the hard drive of an infected computer.

Please understand I am not beating my chest with this part of my post - I am explaining my understanding in a moment, and if that understanding is not correct then please do enlighten me.  There's LOTS I do not know about computer, despite my work background.

I do not understand the risks you refer to in my plugging in a hard drive from another computer into my system.

1.  It is seen on my system as a 'data' disc.  Nothing on that drive will do anything unless I cause something to access that drive.  The first thing I do is run a boot-scan of my entire system, that drive included - to get the rest of the infected files off of the other drive.  I just let it run, keeping an eye on infected files and counts.

2.  As far as I understand it, my exposure window to viruses from the infected drive is any that are created/altered/unleashed in between the last virus update (happens several times a day on my system), and the time of the boot-scan and cleanse of the hard drive.  That's a pretty small window.  I also take complete images of my computer at least once a week on a regular basis, and do so too prior to loading an infected drive as a a data drive on my system.  I can restore my computer from the image in the unlikely event a virus got through.

So, again, just laying out my understanding of this aspect of it all, 

Bob Bone

Can't speak on the "funny acting" part, but I can say that I was having, seemingly random, system freezes, from time to time. My first reaction was to blame it in my new X2 install, but somehow in the back of my mind, I knew this wasn't the case.
 
Turns out the problem was my "quiet PC" that I built...being maybe just a little too quiet. I have a Noctua heatsink w/ dual fans blowing down on my CPU and memory, but only had one stock exhaust fan pulling air out the back of the case. Then, while installing my new FW800 card, after removing one side of the case, I noticed it seemed a little warm in there! So I then added two more Noctua low-RPM intake fans in the front, and replaced my graphics card with a new NVidia card with a fan on it.
 
It makes a little more noise now, but its still very quiet. I haven't had a system freeze since and Sonar X2a is running smooth and stable. I'm using CPUID Hardware Monitor to monitor the internal temperatures and fan speeds.
 
This probably isn't what you are experiencing, but nevertheless, don't overlook the possibility of things running a little too warm in there.
 
 
 

stokedboss


Well instead of troubleshooting an ageing system forever, I decided to build a new DAW. Hopefully my new i7 machine won't have any issues!

A FABULOUS choice!  Good call,


Bob Bone

great call. Time for an SSD system drive and win 8 :)