Solved PC freezing, shutting down etc

[Win7andWinVista]

I have a Dell Inspiron 1545 running Windows 7 64 bit with 2.16 GHZ of processor and 3 GB ram, it has been very slow recently and now every minute or so the screen blinks out flashes a few times (no error message) and turns back on except that the areo effects are off for a minute or so, I am able to simulate the effect by shutting down the most memory hogging svchost.exe process which is on average using 87k to 200k.

The same thing is happening to my Inspiron E1505 which is running Vista X86 that has a 1.6 GHZ or so processor and 2 GB of ram, it is slightly more extreme on that one (lasts longer, completely shuts down the screen for a minute, much slower...)

I have used a few malware, adware and virus scanners and nothing came up, neither of them can run sfc in the command prompt. (they shut down or completely freeze up till I shut them down cold)

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[johnnya]

Hello Win7andWinVista and welcome to the forum. A couple of questions.
1. Did this problem start on both machines at the same time?
2. What malware programs have you tried so far. Have you tried Malwarebytes program yet? See link below.
3. Have you tried running SFC in an elevated command prompt.
This is a start. Since the same problem is occuring on both machines, for now I would rule out hardware issues.
If you have not already ran Malwarebytes, download/install it, hit the UPDATE TAB and update to latest definitions,
then hit the SCAN TAB and run a FULL scan.
let us know how you make out.
Download Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.50.1 - FileHippo.com

Regards
JohnnyA

 

[essenbe]

If you havent already, download and run a full scan with Malwarebytes.

 

[Win7andWinVista]

The problem started on the Vista PC first then the Windows 7 machine, I have tried McAfee, Spyware Doctor and SpyBot Search and Destroy (which has worked on everything so far) and I am going to do MalwareBytes, SFC only runs in elevated command prompt so yes I did.

Thank you for your help.

 

[essenbe]

Can you try a restore point to before the problem started?

 

[Win7andWinVista]

I would rather not do a restore yet because this is a heavily used computer and is changed very often, I am leaving that as a last resort.

MalwareBytes is running now and I will give the results soon.

Once again thank you.

 

[essenbe]

No problem.

 

[Win7andWinVista]

Nothing significant on MalwareBytes I removed the adware it found.
All drivers that I know of are up to date so...

 

[essenbe]

Maybe try running checkdisk on the drive.

 

[MacGyvr]

Again, System Restore is going to be your best bet. You say the computer is changed a lot...what do you mean? This very well could be the source of the problems.

 

[Win7andWinVista]

Again, System Restore is going to be your best bet. You say the computer is changed a lot...what do you mean? This very well could be the source of the problems.

There are 9 computer users on the same user account, so files and email are always going in and out.
If I restored it a week (this problem has been going on for a couple of days) then a lot would be lost.
I am running checkdisk now.

 

[MacGyvr]

Again, System Restore is going to be your best bet. You say the computer is changed a lot...what do you mean? This very well could be the source of the problems.

There are 9 computer users on the same user account, so files and email are always going in and out.
If I restored it a week (this problem has been going on for a couple of days) then a lot would be lost.
I am running checkdisk now.

Files and emails are in no way affected by System Restore. Only SYSTEM files, such as software installs are affected.

Also, there can be no logical reason for each user not having their own account. To have 9 people using one account is, quite literally, nuts.

 

[Win7andWinVista]

I am getting:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>chkdsk c: /f /r
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Cannot lock current drive.

Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another
process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be
checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N) n

Windows is installed on c, am I getting anything wrong?
Thank you again for all of your time.

 

[MacGyvr]

You can only chkdsk C: at a reboot....answer Yes and restart the machine...chkdsk will run.

 

[essenbe]

You can also back up user files and email. I have to agree about 9 users on 1 account.

 

[essenbe]

Put y and restart the computer. Take a break it will take awhile.

 

[essenbe]

Macgyvr, your fingers are faster than mine.

 

[Win7andWinVista]

Again, System Restore is going to be your best bet. You say the computer is changed a lot...what do you mean? This very well could be the source of the problems.

There are 9 computer users on the same user account, so files and email are always going in and out.
If I restored it a week (this problem has been going on for a couple of days) then a lot would be lost.
I am running checkdisk now.

Files and emails are in no way affected by System Restore. Only SYSTEM files, such as software installs are affected.

Also, there can be no logical reason for each user not having their own account. To have 9 people using one account is, quite literally, nuts.

Sorry for being so ignorant , we are a family, so we use the same user account.

I think it is Giraffic video accelerator or Veoh web player but I have never had any problems with Veoh and have never heard of Giraffic.

I uninstalled Giraffic and it appears to be fixed.

The weird thing is that thinking back this started when dollar store headphones where plugged in

Thank you all for your help and have a great day!

 

[Win7andWinVista]

I will mark this as solved soon...
I am repping all of you for your assistance.

 

[essenbe]

Glad you got it fixed.