Sudden onset of issues

[sirtamathon]

I've had Windows 7 installed since the RTM has been available and I've had no issues until last night. While browsing the internet last night windows explorer crashed and recovered about 3 times, then I'd see random copies of windows open and quickly close on the taskbar. Shortly after, bluescreen. When I rebooted I went to play some Left 4 Dead and roughly every 5 clicks I'd see my desktop flash up. After that I noticed some other things, if I try and click on a drop down box the entire program will appear to open and close (it vanishes for a moment and reappears on the taskbar) and if I drag a window slowly across the screen the entire screen goes white along with the taskbar apart from a few programs.(screencapped this)
For troubleshooting I've tried the following:
Switching from Aero to classic
Running Windows update
Updating graphics drivers
Reseating graphics card
Creating a new user account (All problems gone on this user account, so I'm sure there's something wrong with my user account itself.)
So, can anyone think what's going on here?

 

[harpua]

Maybe scan for malware with your AV and Malwarebytes . . . but perhaps not if only affecting one account.

Also, another instance where system restore might provide a quick and easy fix if you have a recent restore point available from before this problem started occurring.

 

[sirtamathon]

I'll download Malwarebytes now and give it a try..
Not sure I have a recent restore point.

 

[harpua]

Well it's easy to check your restore points. Just start system restore up from start, all programs, accessories, system tools, system restore and click next when system restore starts and you'll see a list of your available restore points with date and time.

And if you don't have system restore enabled for your system partition, it would be a good idea, imo, (although there are some that dis it), to enable it. You can control how much disk space it is allowed to use. 3 GB is probably sufficient, although I think I allocate about 10GB, but I have a fairly large HD (for a laptop). But this is the kind of thing that system restore is frequently (but not always, of course) great at fixing in a couple of minutes, without having to go to the trouble of restoring a backup or swapping in a clone, or doing a lot of trouble shooting.

P.S. Don't forget to update MB's definitions before running a scan.

 

[sirtamathon]

Heh yeah, I meant I'd never checked them, I just did and well I only have one that was created just now when I started it :/
Running Malwarebytes now, will probably take a while though.

 

[sirtamathon]

Yeah I updated it, this scan will take a long while, I'll report back when it's done. Thanks for the help so far! repped.

 

[harpua]

Thanks, much appreciated. Hope it helps.

Anyway, at least you have System Restore on for the future and it's a good idea to have the free version of MB on your system for doing on demand scans every now and then. MB is better than most AV apps at cleaning malware. I have successfully deloused several infested computers (not mine) with it.

 

[sirtamathon]

Okay scan is done and there were no infections detected (aside from a false detection)
Problem still persists

 

[harpua]

Maybe try running the system file checker: From an administrative command prompt type: "sfc /scannow" without the quotes (note there is a space between sfc and /scannow) and let that process complete which takes a few minutes. When it's done it will tell you if it found and repaired any corrupt system files.

Another thing you could try would be to create a new user account and from within the new account, copy over your entire old account (all the folders below your user name) to the new account. Of course, that might just result in importing your current issue to the new account, but you never know. If it doesn't work, you can just delete the new account. If it does result in a fix, then once you are sure all your data etc is in the new account, you could delete the account with the problems.

Finally, you could try doing a repair install of Win 7. This leaves your programs, settings and data intact. But if the problem is being caused by one of your applications, then none of these suggestions are likely to resolve the issue. You would need to start troubleshooting to determine which application or driver might be causing the trouble.

If when creating a new user account, the new account really functions normally, I suppose another approach would be to create a new account and start installing your apps one by one and copying over your data and just setting everything up again. If problems start suddenly again after installing something, then that last installation is probably the culprit.

 

[sirtamathon]

SFC found no issues, I'll try creating a new account later, running low on space currently to be able to do that Thanks again.

 

[Snufffed]

If your running out of space. you might try.
clean your history.
open my computer --> select HDD --> properties --> clean disk.
read carefully and select all options... that you feel needed.

instantly after REBOOT.

now see if your getting many pages open

make sure you run Windefender and it is updated.
seems that your infected with TROJAN.

 

[sirtamathon]

Oh no the reason I'm running out of space is due to me filling it up.
Anyway, I'm currently copying over the stuff and we'll see what happens

 

[sirtamathon]

Cloned it into another user.. works perfect. Still not sure what's going on here.

 

[harpua]

I don't know but glad one of the suggestions worked for you. Good job fixing it.

 

[sirtamathon]

Yeah it's good to be able to use it again heh. Still a bit miffed that I don't really understood what went on, but eh can't have everything. Thanks again.

 

[harpua]

You could look in Event Viewer and check application logs to see what kind of errors occurred around the time/date you started experiencing problems. Perhaps that might provide some clues as to what was causing the problems.

Control panel, performance information & tools, advanced tools, view performance details in event log, windows logs, application. Or just type "event viewer" in the start, search field and hit return and then expand windows logs, application in the left side navigation pane of the window that comes up.

Btw, if you want to add a shortcut "link" to the event viewer, among other things (like task manager, device manager, add remove programs, windows update, services, etc., etc.) in the Computer right click context menu (see screen shot below for what the Computer right context menu would look like if all potential items were added to it, this page has the instructions for how to do it (easy).

 

[sirtamathon]

I actually forgot to mention I'd been through event viewer.. nothing special to report there either though.

Thanks for that link though, looks useful