My new i5 Win7 system was assembled in November 2011 and has been stable since then.
Windows Security Essentials was installed and worked normally.
It has two identical HDD in RAID 0 mirror volume (intel RST systray applet), cached onto 120 GB SSD using Intel Smart Response Technology (SRT)
A few days ago, my system started having intermittent lockups and freezes.
Most commonly, the Start menu would become unresponsive – the buttons would no longer highlight under the mouse pointer, clicking produces ‘ding!’ sound.
Windows + E would produce an RPC error message
Task Manager shows multiple consent.exe threads, no accompanying confirmation dialog
When the system locks up, only a hardware reset would enable a restart.
On reset, the cache rebuilds and the system halts after the RAID BIOS screen. After a second reset, Windows loads and on login, intel RST verifies RAID data integrity. Both cache rebuild and RAID verification are successful.
I have scanned the system with Malwarebytes Anti-malware (1 trojan found and removed) and Norton Internet Security (100 tracking cookies, threat assessment: “mild”, removed). I have also run sfc /scannow in a cmd.exe window with admin privileges.
I suspect that C:\Windows\system32\consent.exe (112,000 bytes) on my system is malware: For instance, Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt (right-click) Run as administrator will start another consent.exe, the start menu stops working, and the command prompt window does not appear.
I think the genuine consent.exe is more like ~87,000 bytes, can’t remember exactly.
Any advice on how to fix this without wiping everything and starting from scratch would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You for reading! ^_^
Windows Security Essentials was installed and worked normally.
It has two identical HDD in RAID 0 mirror volume (intel RST systray applet), cached onto 120 GB SSD using Intel Smart Response Technology (SRT)
A few days ago, my system started having intermittent lockups and freezes.
Most commonly, the Start menu would become unresponsive – the buttons would no longer highlight under the mouse pointer, clicking produces ‘ding!’ sound.
Windows + E would produce an RPC error message
Task Manager shows multiple consent.exe threads, no accompanying confirmation dialog
When the system locks up, only a hardware reset would enable a restart.
On reset, the cache rebuilds and the system halts after the RAID BIOS screen. After a second reset, Windows loads and on login, intel RST verifies RAID data integrity. Both cache rebuild and RAID verification are successful.
I have scanned the system with Malwarebytes Anti-malware (1 trojan found and removed) and Norton Internet Security (100 tracking cookies, threat assessment: “mild”, removed). I have also run sfc /scannow in a cmd.exe window with admin privileges.
I suspect that C:\Windows\system32\consent.exe (112,000 bytes) on my system is malware: For instance, Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt (right-click) Run as administrator will start another consent.exe, the start menu stops working, and the command prompt window does not appear.
I think the genuine consent.exe is more like ~87,000 bytes, can’t remember exactly.
Any advice on how to fix this without wiping everything and starting from scratch would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You for reading! ^_^
My Computer
At a glance
Windos 7 Home Premium 64-bit
- OS
- Windos 7 Home Premium 64-bit
