Help
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this is my first post, so first of all I'd like to say "hello"
Now to my problem. I am not sure, if I'm in the right forum, since I don't know what causes it. So I am starting here and hope, someone might be able to help me.
Since a few days my PC behaves extremely weird. I don't know if these are separated problems or a series of one problem. Anyway, it started with that every now and then my PC became very slow, so I couldn't almost move the mouse cursor, lasting a few seconds or minutes and then it went to normal again. I noticed that svchost.exe used a lot of CPU at these times.
Next I noticed that a few of my program folders (all portable programs) were simply vanished without any trace.
Then next suddenly a program I just had started to use - Sticky Passwords - (portable version) crashed, freezing my entire PC.
Next, Windows Media Player suddenly does not play wav files anymore and mp3 only if no other player is open. This may have been since longer, but since mostly I use Mediamonkey or Foobar, I just noticed it now.
The next weird thing was a sudden runtime error on closing MS Word. I am using an addon, Metatexis, which I need as translator, and the error was obviously caused due to a corrupted file - but the weird things is, nothing had happened that could have caused that, no crash, nothing. Anyway, reinstalling Metatexis solved it. But I think, the deeper cause is somewhere else.
Also, 2 or 3 times (for example when copying files) I got an error message saying, there are not enough ressources for this action, too many GDI-objects (??).
Now finally the worst. The periods of slowing down haven't come back, so no mouse cursor freezing anymore. Instead, after a few hours, and completely out of the blue, my Anvir taskmanager (that runs on my PC since almost 2 years without any problem ever) pops up piles of windows notifying me it found new startup items - however, there is not one new, but its all items that I have in autostart since "ages". If I close these windows, it starts to pop them up again (and lists all old items as new ones). It seems every startup item is suddenly removed and right away re-entered - I have no idea, what could cause that. Right after that each and every running application terminates itself and several display items get screwed up (like my desktop dock menues fall into parts, the labels on my firefox tabs vanish etc.), I can`t even start taskmanager or anything and all I can do is power off, or, if I'm lucky restart.
After restart everything is fine. This weird behavior happens after hours of running. So, after restart, usually everything is okay for 8 to 12 hours and suddenly the nightmare begins, no matter what I am just doing, if I work with MS Word, or just simply read a website.
I have checked Anvir's logfile but there is absolutely nothing that indicates what it causes. Except that 5-7 minutes before the Avira avwsc.exe was starting and terminating (which is strange too, since normally it shows as avwsc.exe (lower case), but since 3 days sometimes it shows in uppercase as well as AVWESC.EXE - but I can't find any second avwsc on my PC, besides the file in the Avira folder).
So far I did run the Dell utilities for checking hardware (memtest, CPU etc.) - no error found. Crystal Disk info - everything fine. Scandisk - no error found.
System file check - nothing replaced (I have even purged the dllcache prior to this just to be sure).
Scanned with Avira, Malwarebyte, Super Antimalware, Rootkit Revealer RUBotted, Norman Malware Cleaner - nothing found.
Hijackthis doesn't show anything unusual.
I am at the very end of my rope, starting to pull out my hair
and have no idea, where to start, to look or what to do else.
Close to despair...
I hope that anyone can help me and point me into the right direction.
My system: Dell Dimension 5150, Pentium 4 CPU 3.40 Ghz, 3 Gb RAM,
Windows XP pro, SP3, with all latest updates installed.
Security: Avira personal free, Windows firewall, Anvir security taskmanager.
Thank you in advance for any help
Sabine
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