Jump to content

AverageJoe

Members
  • Posts

    19
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by AverageJoe

  1. Yes, all four of the real-time protection settings including ransomware and web are enabled.
  2. I've noticed improved boot time as well. I have an SSD so it was always "fast" to boot up, relatively speaking, but since the new update, it has shaved off roughly 3 seconds from my welcome/login screen to desktop; quite impressive.
  3. I turned automatic updates back on and forced an update to the 1.0.527 components package this morning and have been running MBAM Premium with all real-time protections fully enabled for several hours now with zero freezes. This is a huge improvement from before where I couldn't go 30 minutes, sometimes even 10 minutes, without a freeze. I will leave it on for the remainder of the day to ensure all is well. There doesn't appear to be any impact to my PC; all programs are running as expected like before the freezing.
  4. For the past week or so, I had just outright disabled MBAM on my PC upon startup waiting to see if a fix would be provided. Since the issue seems to be on-going for quite a while and I'm getting back into the swing of things with my employer and needing to browse the web again, earlier today I went ahead and rolled back to the previous component package outlined in workaround #2 of the pinned thread. I am now running licensed MBAM version 3.6.1.2711 with component package 1.0.482 and update package 1.0.8834 with all real-time protections fully enabled and so far no freezes. Have been able to play Battle.net games and download large internet traffic via streaming (Netflix, YouTube, etc.) as normal. This was the PC where the freezing was aggressive, within a few minutes of startup.
  5. All these posts about people spending days, if not weeks, tearing apart their desktops and checking RAM, video cards, CPUs, motherboards, power supplies, etc. and even buying entirely new hardware to replace the old terrifies me. I can't imagine someone spending so much time going to such great lengths to troubleshoot a problem of this nature, being unable to find out the cause, chalk it up to faulty hardware, replace nearly everything, if not outright upgrade to an entirely new machine, and go to reinstall all their programs and find the freezing problem STILL occurring. I was about to go down that exact same road and was dreading it. Guess I'm extremely lucky I only spent 48 hours looking into it before I started turning to forums for help. I started with Steam and Battle.net since they are my two most used applications and there were a couple forum posts on Battle.net about system freezes during game updates. One Blizzard employee suggested uninstalling all antivirus and anti-malware to let Battle.net install and upgrade as needed and then reinstall the antivirus and anti-malware once finished. The post mentioned MBAM which I too used and found it strange to have to uninstall MBAM to allow a legit application to update, so I wandered on over here for more info and found this thread along with the pinned one. I feel bad for the non-tech savvy users encountering this problem who don't know support forums like this exist and are just googling the problem which yields thousands of different unrelated solutions, or worse, taking their entire desktop/laptop down to the local computer repair shops or Best Buy Geek Squad and flushing hundreds of dollars down the toilet.
  6. When did the freeze first start occurring? January 7th. I had not used my PC near the end of 2018 and the first week of January due to being on vacation for the holidays. What were you doing on the computer immediately prior to the latest freeze? Nothing; was letting it idle and complete all startup apps. Did you notice anything significant occur around the time of the latest freeze (e.g. AV notification, application crash, etc)? My Blizzard Battle.net software had initiated a download for a game update. I had Windows Task Manager opened to the Processes tab just before it froze and it showed "AgentUpdater.exe" was the top running process at the time the freeze occurred. Has a freeze occurred when the computer is idle? Yes. Have you noticed a correlation between high network traffic and the computer freezing? Not really; I don't do much on my computer that consumes large network traffic; most of my freezes have been when idle, thought it could be downloading data in the background. How often does the computer freeze? Almost guaranteed to freeze every time from boot up to the desktop within 5 to 15 minutes. Are you able to reproduce the freeze on-demand? If the answer is yes, what are the steps? I can't reproduce the freeze using a specific application (That I'm aware of yet), but I can "reproduce" it simply by leaving my computer on and idle, it will simply freeze on its own. How old is the computer? Was built in 2014 using parts maybe a year or so older. Was the computer upgraded from XP/Vista to Windows 7? No; clean install of Windows 7 Home Premium. Is the computer fully up-to-date with Windows Updates? Which updates have been installed after the first freeze occurred? Computer was up-to-date prior to the first freeze on January 7th. More updates have been installed since then; see attached screenshot below for full list of updates completed post January 7th freeze. Does the computer have multiple network adapters? If it does, what happens when you disable the adapter currently in use and switch to a different adapter? No, just a single wired network adapter.
  7. I'll try to help out if possible; premium MBAM end-user with a custom built PC. My PC's been freezing since Jan 7th, not a blue screen crash, just hangs on the desktop or whatever application I have open and all inputs become unresponsive. Only way to resolve is a hard reboot. The freezing I've been encountering seems to be aggressive, one time it froze less than five minutes after boot up to the desktop. A couple of other times it's been roughly 10 to 20 minutes into normal use (Web browsing, playing games, opening applications, etc.). Spent a whole day in safe mode toggling programs on and off one by one trying to isolate who was the culprit without any success and it was driving me insane. Various google searches yielded the problem was likely hardware-related and I dreaded having to tear apart my PC to begin troubleshooting for reasons I won't go into. Started checking the official forums of all the software I routinely use and ended up here. Good thing I came across this thread before I started removing RAM, video cards, heatsinks/fans, and dozens of other parts. For now I've just outright exited Malwarebytes immediately after startup (Right-click the notification area icon > "Quit Malwarebytes") and waited a few hours to see what happens; so far so good, no freezes. Might try launching it again later and disabling both the Web Protection and Ransomware Protection like suggested in the workaround. Attached zip file with logs as instructed from pinned thread. Brief overview provided below; I don't have multiple network adapters so I cannot test step #5. OS: Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 x64 CPU: Intel Core i5 4570 @ 3.20GHz RAM: 16GB DDR3 Motherboard: MSI Z87-G45 Network Adapter: Killer E2200 Gigabit Ethernet Controller Storage: 500GB Samsung SSD 850 EVO, two 1TB Seagate ST1000DM003, 3TB Seagate ST3000DM001 Some common programs I use frequently on this PC include Steam and Blizzard Battle.net (Both digital game distribution platforms), Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Security Essentials (Antivirus), Spybot Search & Destroy, Malwarebytes, Adobe Acrobat, Nvidia GeForce Experience, Notepad++, VideoLAN/VLC Media Player, Microsoft Office 2013, and Microsoft Visual Studio 2013. mbst-grab-results.zip
  8. Yes, I hadn't thought about it scanning the registry earlier than the GUI indicated. Thanks.
  9. Does the "Scan Registry" part of Malwarebytes threat scanner do anything? Reason I ask is every time I run a scan (Threat or custom, doesn't matter), the process seems to skip over the Scan Registry process really fast. Every other process (Scan Memory, Scan Startup Files, etc.) takes anywhere from a few seconds to a minute or so, but Scan Registry finishes in what seems like 0.001 seconds. Not sure if it's actually doing anything.
  10. Excellent, glad to hear it. I really appreciate you taking the time to help me and provide expert assistance. I haven't used my PayPal account in years but once I get it running again, I'll be sure to send you a donation for your time and effort. Thanks again!
  11. Thanks for all your help. Is there a way you can tell from the log files if my Chrome is truly clean and shouldn't have any problems going forward or will I have to monitor its behavior over the next week or so and see if any problems return or persist? The original problem I had is I would remove the undesired extensions and ads from my Chrome and everything would seem fine for about two to three days; I didn't see any obvious signs of malware, browser hijacking or redirects, or ads. Then after about three or four days, the problem would return, all of a sudden I'd get web page redirects and sometimes ads would start appearing.
  12. Downloaded and ran Delfix tool. Attached Delfix.txt to this post. Is it okay at this point to resume using my PC as normal and re-enabling my Microsoft Security Essentials anti-virus or is there more to do? DelFix.txt
  13. Downloaded your fixlist.txt and saved it to the desktop. Ran Farbar Recovery Scan Tool as administrator and clicked "Fix." The process completed and put a fixlog.txt on my desktop. It did prompt for a system reboot and the message also said I wouldn't receive any further notifications. I allowed the system to fully reboot. Once finished rebooting, I launched Chrome and returned here to attach the fixlog.txt to my post. Fixlog.txt
  14. Re-ran Farbar Recovery Scan Tool. Attached FRST.txt and Addition.txt to this post. FRST.txt Addition.txt
  15. Much better results this time around, it seems. Downloaded and ran the AdwCleaner tool. At first it flashed a pop-up saying the version I was running was outdated and asked if I wanted to go to AdwCleaner's web site and download the latest version. I clicked "Cancel" and proceeded to run the version you linked in your post. The scan went by fairly quick and only found a handful of entries in the Folders, Registry, and Chrome tabs. I clicked "Cleaning" and waited for it to clean everything. It then prompted me to do a system reboot. After finishing the reboot, the log file appeared on my screen. It said it was saved in my C:\AdwCleaner folder. When I checked that folder, there were two log files with a date/time created about two minutes apart. I'm guessing one is a log from before I rebooted and the other is a log for after I rebooted since my PC only takes about a minute or two to fully reboot. Either way, I attached both log files to this post since I am unsure of which one you need. After the reboot, I went to uninstall Chrome. I exported my bookmarks as instructed. When I double clicked "Chrome" in the Program List, it asked me to first close all Chrome processes before continuing. I thought this was strange as I had no open Chrome windows or tabs. To my knowledge, Chrome wasn't even running because the notification icon that I usually see in my system tray in the bottom, right corner of my monitor wasn't there. I went ahead and opened Windows Task Manager and found three processes for "chrome.exe*32." When I ended one, the other two ended as well. Returned to the Programs List and double-clicked on "Chrome." This time it allowed me to uninstall. I was presented with only two checkboxes: "Also delete your browsing data" and "Make another browser my default" with a drop-down list saying "Internet Explorer." I'm assuming the "Also delete your browsing data" checkbox is all-encompassing that deletes the profile information, preferences, bookmarks, history, etc. like you said? After this, I proceeded to delete the Google folder under my %LOCALAPPDATA%\ folder. Finally I launched Firefox and proceeded to download Chrome from the link you provided. Downloaded the installer, ran it as administrator, and allowed it to install/update Chrome as needed. When Chrome launched, it prompted me to sign in. I already have a Google account with all my preferences, extensions, apps, and bookmarks synced so I went ahead and logged in. It proceeded to reinstall all my extensions and apps and imported my bookmarks. For the most part, it's back to looking just like it was prior to the uninstall, except for the undesirable AdPunisher extension. So far things are working great. I can open web pages, conduct searches, etc. and don't see any intrusive ads, pop-up windows, or web page redirects. I know we're probably not finished yet but I feel this is significant progress. AdwCleanerR0.txt AdwCleanerS0.txt
  16. Re-ran zoek with the script you supplied. It completed and prompted for a reboot. Upon finishing rebooting and checking the log file, I opened Chrome and still see the ads. The AdPunisher extension is still present in my Chrome extensions list. Doesn't seem to have changed anything; still getting web pages redirected, pop ups, and random underlined/hyperlinked text to ads. Does Chrome need to be fully closed when the zoek tool is run? Presently, I'm just clicking the close button in the top, left corner but I have Chrome set to run in the background. In other words, even though I close the browser window, I still see the Chrome icon in my taskbar's notification tray in the bottom, right corner of my monitor. Not sure if leaving Chrome running in the background or fully exiting it will make a difference. Attached most recent zoek log file to this post. zoek-results.log
  17. Thanks for the assistance with my problem. I disabled my Microsoft Security Essentials but not my Spybot Search & Destroy (The link does not specifically mention Spybot by name nor is it really an anti-virus software). Not sure if this makes a difference but I felt it best to point it out. I ran the zoek tool and attached the log file to this post. It did prompt me to do a system reboot. After rebooting and viewing the log file, I launched my Chrome browser to return here with my information and I noticed ads starting appearing on my web pages again. I checked my extensions and an unknown extension named "AdPunisher" is now installed. This was not there before I ran the zoek tool and rebooted. It's also making my web navigation and posting here on Malwarebytes difficult. I also attached a screenshot of the extension for reference. I have not re-enabled Microsoft Security Essentials nor ran any additional tools at this time. Awaiting your reply. Thanks. zoek-results.log
  18. Sorry, I forgot to mention. I was looking through the FRST text file and I noticed the section that shows files downloaded or modified out to one month ago. Just wanted to mention that I first discovered strange behavior in my Chrome and the unwanted extensions on March 23rd, just outside the one month window accounting for today after I ran the Farbar tool. Just throwing it out there in case if there's a way to extend the Farbar tool to report further back than 30 days or in case any forum experts need more information. Thanks.
  19. Hello, I've recently been fighting some nasty malware that has creeped into my computer that I built a little over a year ago and was working flawlessly up until last month. It started when I noticed some intrusive ads in my Google searches and an extension in my Chrome browser that I didn't recognize nor installed myself. Since then I've done a series of uninstalls and removals on the unwanted programs and extensions using several programs (Mostly Spybot Search & Destroy and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware). At first it looked like I got rid of everything unwanted but I noticed that every so many days the ads and malware kept returning, so I slowly but surely chipped away at finding the source of the problem and I seem to have gotten rid of the bulk of it presently but there's at least one malware that I just can't find and eliminate. It's something that causes my Chrome browser to redirect to an undesired web page when I open a new window in Chrome. It doesn't happen frequently; only once every hour or so. In the meantime, I can open dozens of new windows and tabs without any problems. For the most part, my browsing experience is pleasurable and I simply end the task on the Chrome window that occasionally gets redirected. Other than that, my computer's running fine, so I would simply like help trying to track down this piece of malware that's causing my Chrome to redirect please. Attached are the FRST.txt and Addition.txt files generated from Farbar's Recovery Scan Tool. The two security softwares I'm presently using are Microsoft Security Essentials and Spybot Search & Destroy. I've ran several threat scans in Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and it never detects any threats. Please let me know if there's any other additional system or setup information you guys need and I will be happy to provide it. FRST.txt Addition.txt
Back to top
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

This site uses cookies - We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.