Repeated BSOD on reboot (before login) 0xD6 portcls.sys (audiodg.exe)

Hello,

I had a Norton 360 popup that it had detected a threat and blocked it. I ran a full scan with Malware bytes, Norton, and a few things were cleaned up. Then I started getting some random BSODs. I then activated Driver Verifier, and the BSODs now occur without fail on reboot prior to he login. I am running Win7 Ult x64 with 8gb RAM. I started anaylzying the minidumps and have attached the results here. I suspected that whatever triggered the Norton alert and then got cleaned up probably had messed up something. I ran SFC /scannow but it checked out OK. I ran memtest86 for 12 hours and it found 1 error bit on one slot that it indicated was ECC correctable. I swap SDRAM strips around (and in and out) anyways, but BSOD was always the same at reboot! Runs fine in Safe Mode(s). I did chkdsk /R c: - all OK. I updated all drivers on my Gigabyte P55-UD4P (latest bios). I disabled the onboard Intel HD audio, still BSOD. I ran Avast boottime full scan and it found some things and cleaned but still the same BSOD at bootup. Could be hardware, but I kind of doubt it. I also reset all BIOS setting to factory defaults. I did not try to reseat/swap the CMOS battery. I did remove all USB and audio cable attachments. I also ran Startup Repair and it found no problems.

The WinDbg results attached are labelled by the minidump dates. The ones on 09/18 are BEFORE Driver Verifier was turned up on ALL drivers. The two from 09/22 are with Driver Verifier which pointed me to portcls.sys (called in audiodg.exe) with the "attempting to access memory beyond the end of the allocation" on the BSOD.

Any thoughts before I wipe and reinstall??? I am stumped. I might also try booting Fedora or Knoppix Linux LiveCD and see if it has any problems (which would then imply faulty hardware).

Many thanks in advance!!

Mark

I forgot to upload my attachments before submitting the first time. Oops.

A couple more things that might be useful. In Safe Mode with Networking, Microsoft Security Essentials will NOT update. Also, when I tried to do a System Restore, ALL of my restore points had vanished.

I did happen to just notice that the driver for Virtual Audio Cable (vrtaucbl.sys) was showing up in the WinDbg outputs with Driver Verifier turned on (though no symbols were loading) but that it was NOT on the WinDbg outputs without Driver Verifier. I had seen it in the most recent crash dump analyze, but thought it was only complaining about no symbols. But what occurred to me just now is that it was showing up in the the crash dump at all.

On a whim, I uninstalled Virtual Audio Cable and the system booted past the 0XD6 on portcls.sys (but *VERY* long time to login). I have had VAC loaded for quite some time, but if it does not BSOD now, I am going to suspect the cleanup of whatever had infected the system must have left something that VAC touched unstable.

No BSOD yet, so, this my original post may have been premature. But may be too soon to tell.

Well, the system did BSOD again but different STOP code and module. Searching around, it seems that this may not be a friendly file. Norton 360's performance monitor popped up once about Malwarebytes' real time protector and once about Microsoft's antimalware consuming very high disk I/O (and no scan was running). I then decided it was time to try rkill+combofix. Rkill did stop a few things (see attached) but combofix WOULD NOT RUN (bad sign)! Also attached is the windbg on the 0xC4 crash with procexp113.sys.