Silas_Parrish
Beta member
- Messages
- 5
Okay, ladies and gents, I am at the end of my rope, and am seeking help from any who might give it. Here's the deal. I recently had to deal with the XP Security Tool 2010 rogue software. After going ten rounds with the program in question, I finally managed to get rid of it. Hopefully for good. I haven't seen it again in months. But now I've got another problem. When browsing (I use FireFox, by the way. I don't remember the build...whichever was the newest one last week when I updated my machine) sometimes new tabs will open randomly whil I'm browsing, usually showcasing some clearly untrustworthy web pages. Other times, IE will attempt to run on its own and open tabs containing the same sort of pages.
Also, I get about four error messages every time I boot up, always telling me that winlogon.exe or svchost.exe has stopped working. I have found a process labeled sCvhost, not svchost, running a lot of the time, and sucking up most of my processing power. I don't know what it does, but it looks like bad news. Also, audio ads occasionally will play in my speakers for no apparent reason, even when I'm not browsing. And then there's the targeted ads all over every page I visit. I'm sure I don't have to tell you about those. Finally, sometimes Windows will randomly shut down in the middle of my browsing, or I'll get a BSoD with a fatal system error message. The next time it happens, I'll take note of the whole stop message.
Anyhoo, I'm wondering if all this things are connected in some way. Have any of you encountered these things? I must admit regretfully that I'm relatively new to this (by "this" I mean building, upgrading, and customizing computers as a hobby.) I'm 90% sure that these things aren't caused by a hardware issue. I have twin HDDs, one loaded with Windows XP SP3, the other loaded with Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid. None of the above mentioned problems happen when I'm using the Linux HDD. In fact, I rarely ever have a problem when using Linux. But I keep Windows anyway around for my gaming. Whew. Sorry to be so long winded, but I felt it necessary to explain in detail.
Here's my hardware and specs, if they'll tell you anything at all:
AMD Athlon Dual-Core , 2.7 GHz
2x SATA WD Caviar Blue, 500GB
2x OCZ Gold ddr2 RAM, 2GB each. (though windows only makes use of 3GB, rather than 4, for some reason)
Asus DVD-RW drive, also SATA interface.
Asus M2N68-AM mobo
Nvidia 9500 GT GPU
Thermaltake 650W power supply (I'm afraid I don't remember the model number, and I'm too lazy to open my case to look for it.)
Zonet Wireless Adapter (I had never heard of this brand before, but it was well within my financial means while I was building my machine, so I bought it.)
A dinky no-name brand USB multi-card reader (Once again, I had very little money to throw around, so I skipped out on the big names for some parts.)
And finally, I have a cheap USB Playstation/Gamecube/Xbox controller adapter, with a Pelican PS2 controller plugged in for my gaming.
Like I said, I've got a dual-boot setup, with XP SP3 and Ubuntu 10.04.
I've hit the hard drive with eveything I've got in the way of anti-malware, but to no avail. So far I've used SUPERantispyware, MBAM, Ad-Aware, A-Sqaured, and Microsoft's own free virus protection.
So there we go. Most of that list may be totally irrelevant, but I wrote it just in case it helps.
Any advice or assistance from the good people of this forum would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
-- Silas P.
Also, I get about four error messages every time I boot up, always telling me that winlogon.exe or svchost.exe has stopped working. I have found a process labeled sCvhost, not svchost, running a lot of the time, and sucking up most of my processing power. I don't know what it does, but it looks like bad news. Also, audio ads occasionally will play in my speakers for no apparent reason, even when I'm not browsing. And then there's the targeted ads all over every page I visit. I'm sure I don't have to tell you about those. Finally, sometimes Windows will randomly shut down in the middle of my browsing, or I'll get a BSoD with a fatal system error message. The next time it happens, I'll take note of the whole stop message.
Anyhoo, I'm wondering if all this things are connected in some way. Have any of you encountered these things? I must admit regretfully that I'm relatively new to this (by "this" I mean building, upgrading, and customizing computers as a hobby.) I'm 90% sure that these things aren't caused by a hardware issue. I have twin HDDs, one loaded with Windows XP SP3, the other loaded with Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid. None of the above mentioned problems happen when I'm using the Linux HDD. In fact, I rarely ever have a problem when using Linux. But I keep Windows anyway around for my gaming. Whew. Sorry to be so long winded, but I felt it necessary to explain in detail.
Here's my hardware and specs, if they'll tell you anything at all:
AMD Athlon Dual-Core , 2.7 GHz
2x SATA WD Caviar Blue, 500GB
2x OCZ Gold ddr2 RAM, 2GB each. (though windows only makes use of 3GB, rather than 4, for some reason)
Asus DVD-RW drive, also SATA interface.
Asus M2N68-AM mobo
Nvidia 9500 GT GPU
Thermaltake 650W power supply (I'm afraid I don't remember the model number, and I'm too lazy to open my case to look for it.)
Zonet Wireless Adapter (I had never heard of this brand before, but it was well within my financial means while I was building my machine, so I bought it.)
A dinky no-name brand USB multi-card reader (Once again, I had very little money to throw around, so I skipped out on the big names for some parts.)
And finally, I have a cheap USB Playstation/Gamecube/Xbox controller adapter, with a Pelican PS2 controller plugged in for my gaming.
Like I said, I've got a dual-boot setup, with XP SP3 and Ubuntu 10.04.
I've hit the hard drive with eveything I've got in the way of anti-malware, but to no avail. So far I've used SUPERantispyware, MBAM, Ad-Aware, A-Sqaured, and Microsoft's own free virus protection.
So there we go. Most of that list may be totally irrelevant, but I wrote it just in case it helps.
Any advice or assistance from the good people of this forum would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
-- Silas P.
