Double trouble with my Vista

Hi everyone, im new here.

I have a Dell XPS M1710 notebook and just yesterday it started throwing bad fits at me. First of all, if I start my computer without an external monitor, the screen just blurrs completely and I have to shut it down. With the monitor, nothing happens, but I dont think its a laptop any more if it does this thing.

That partially fixed, I too have the SVCHOST problem. I used the svchost analyzer and Security Task Manager, but all they show me is that I have around 7 Svchost processes and they only use 10-15% of CPU. Its very peculiar because I NEVER had this before and I have my laptop for around 3 years.

Checked all instances, every svchost is in the Windows System folder, so I ruled out a svchost virus. However, even when I shut down almost everything else, still 90-100% CPU. I just cant understand it.


Specs

DELL XPS M1710
2.0 GHZ Dual Core Intel
256mb nVidia 7900GS (ForceWare edition 192 from Laptop2Go)
4GB DDR2 RAM
250GB HDD
Windows Vista 64 bit Ultimate

If you could give me any help that could fix this damn problem, that would be great.

Thank you!

Oh yeah one last thing to add - the display issue happened a lot lately because my computer overheated. Urgh.

And also theres one peculiar thing with the svchost - I added three people on my MSN Messenger but quickly removed them, got a message from one but DID NOT click the link, but by that time it was still quite unresponsive.

Hello RocketBoost, welcome to Vista Forums!



To really rule out malware, download and install then run a scan with the free version from the link below; please be sure to post back to keep us informed.

Malwarebytes

Welcome,

Sounds very much like a virus. Follow bare foots sage advice and make this free online scan, too. We have to be sure. After these two scans plus your own, we can be sure.
Free Virus Protection, Free Virus Scan | FreeScan | McAfee

Thanks guys for the warm welcome.

I ran a Spybot, still running atm, giving Malwarebytes a try right now. Coming back soon.

Keep us posted, there is more to try if you come back virus free.

I ran Malwarebytes and its still scanning after one hour without any objects infected, so I think its fairly safe to assume that its virus free. After all, I used AVG and TrendMicro along with Ad Aware and Spybot SD.

Spybot SD I updated once every three days and I made a check each month, along with constant immunization after each update.

I deactivated some services from the SVChost, particularly the one with the UPnP protocol and that somewhat helped, bring down the usage at some points to 30 40 % before it spiked up again.

Its very peculiar. First time that it happens, I cant believe it.
I even made a System Restore from one week ago, nothing changed.

Go to the event viewer by typing that phase in search.

Go to device manager look for any warnings for any of the cards.

Make sure that drivers are up to date.

Turn off the computer. Boot it. During boot you may hear a number of beeps, tell me exactly what you hear. One beep, two. one long, one short. 3 long etc. Make sure you listen carefully and give me correct information. Get back with infomation on all of the above. Take care.

RocketBoost said:

I ran Malwarebytes and its still scanning after one hour without any objects infected, so I think its fairly safe to assume that its virus free. After all, I used AVG and TrendMicro along with Ad Aware and Spybot SD.

Spybot SD I updated once every three days and I made a check each month, along with constant immunization after each update.

I deactivated some services from the SVChost, particularly the one with the UPnP protocol and that somewhat helped, bring down the usage at some points to 30 40 % before it spiked up again.

Its very peculiar. First time that it happens, I cant believe it.
I even made a System Restore from one week ago, nothing changed.

Click to expand...

It isnt a good idea to have trendmicro and avg, ad aware, spybot all running at the same time as they can conflict. Malwarebytes is ok, because i know that it is only a scanner, not a live protection, but trendmicro and avg are both online on live protection, so try not having 2 antiviruses at the same time. I usualy got with avast! 5, malwarebytes, and iobit security (i contacted iobit and they said that the avast was compatible).

Katokato said:

RocketBoost said:

I ran Malwarebytes and its still scanning after one hour without any objects infected, so I think its fairly safe to assume that its virus free. After all, I used AVG and TrendMicro along with Ad Aware and Spybot SD.

Spybot SD I updated once every three days and I made a check each month, along with constant immunization after each update.

I deactivated some services from the SVChost, particularly the one with the UPnP protocol and that somewhat helped, bring down the usage at some points to 30 40 % before it spiked up again.

Its very peculiar. First time that it happens, I cant believe it.
I even made a System Restore from one week ago, nothing changed.

Click to expand...

It isnt a good idea to have trendmicro and avg, ad aware, spybot all running at the same time as they can conflict. Malwarebytes is ok, because i know that it is only a scanner, not a live protection, but trendmicro and avg are both online on live protection, so try not having 2 antiviruses at the same time. I usualy got with avast! 5, malwarebytes, and iobit security (i contacted iobit and they said that the avast was compatible).

Click to expand...

I won the paid version of Malwarbytes and it is a live protection and it conflicts. I had to disable the live portion, so in reality I have a little more than the free version.

So your advice is excellent, too many A/V will do more harm than good.

run an elevated command prompt and type in sfc /scannow to see if any windows core files are corrupt.

I make sure everything is always running perfectly. Every time I activate MB to run real time, I have problems, disable and I am fine. I am very happy with what I have now. I have my A/V which has malware protection, my firewall ,and Malware to run weekly scans. Thanks.

richc46 said:

Go to the event viewer by typing that phase in search.

Go to device manager look for any warnings for any of the cards.

Make sure that drivers are up to date.

Turn off the computer. Boot it. During boot you may hear a number of beeps, tell me exactly what you hear. One beep, two. one long, one short. 3 long etc. Make sure you listen carefully and give me correct information. Get back with infomation on all of the above. Take care.

Click to expand...

Event Viewer

Kernel Power Critical - 0 in the past hour, 1 in the past 24 hours, 1 in the past 7 days
Error - 11 in the past hour, 253 in the past 24 hours, 300 in the past 7 days


Device Manager - all seems fine. No problems.

Drivers - updating my video card drivers.

No sounds coming out of my laptop when booting. None whatsoever.

I cut Trend Micro and Ad Aware from my startup, the laptop runs better now. Still, there is a significant lag and the 100% power isn't 58 minutes out of 60 any more. I do have many spikes though left. And these words I'm typing them from my computer, so its recovered a bit.

Follow the advice of katokato, I think that it was meant for you. See if you run in safe mode.
No beeps is very good. Beeps are a problem with the hardware.

I'm running the scan. Slowly, slowly, its coming back to life but there's still significant lag spikes. Will come back with the results.

Katokato said:

run an elevated command prompt and type in sfc /scannow to see if any windows core files are corrupt.

Click to expand...

Thanks mate.



Here is the tutorial on this subject, at the link below.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/66978-system-files-sfc-command.html?ltr=S

Damn this SFC is long. I started it around 4 hours ago and right now it's still at 85%!

Presuming there are no corrupt files, what is there to do?
I took out some files, CPU power varies now greatly, but my physical memory is still at 40-45%, so I still have huge lag.

Would a format of the drive solve the issues? I wouldn't want to do it because I'm one month away from finishing my exams and I need all of my documents, but if this has to be done, then so be it.
I backed up all of my important stuff, but still it's a pain.

I do not know. When I check, does not take 4 hours. Hope it turns out ok.

What we will do depends on the results of SFC. Hate to say it, but, the ususal procedure is if errors are found, we do it 3 times, but, that is in cases where it does not take 5 hours.
It can fix only one file at a time.

Goes really slow because of the fact that my CPU is running at 100%.

When it didn't lag, I tried finding out about the real cause of the CPU spikes using Process Explorer. Turns out, it's a couple of small ones sometimes going over 40-50% but the svchost is always at least 10% and using at least 200K of memory, sometimes even 300. And it's only one single process with numerous services, the one that includes the WLAN config.

Picked up speed, 95% should be over soon.

Take your time. We will be here for you.