Easy fix for PC corruption?

[7beauties]

My problem began when my SB Recon3D Fatal1ty Champion wouldn't output to headphones. I performed a system restore to when my headphones worked, but nothing changed. During troubleshooting I tried playing a CD but it wouldn't auto play like it had forever. I discovered that none of my CyberLink programs would launch. It's amazing bad luck and coincidence for a sound card and Blu-ray drive to malfunction at the same time. But watching some online video clips would crash with messages "Skype Click to Call Crashed," or "Shockwave Crashed." Those can't be blamed on Sound Blaster or CyberLink. One time Firefox opened to its start page and was redirected to a product site. Another time I was on a browser when a JavaScript window opened telling me that Microsoft Antivirus 2013 detected a process and a scan was necessary. I didn't click the "OK" button as there is no Microsoft Antivirus 2013. I've performed a full system scan with my Kaspersky PURE 2.0 and nothing was found, but PURE's control panel erroneously reports my last system scan was over 15,000 days ago. I downloaded Malwarebytes and it found two suspect entries, nothing major, and deleting them did nothing to improve my situation. Bitdefender Quick Scan gave my PC a clean bill of health. Oh geez, reinstalling Win 8 Pro and all my downloaded programs will take two weeks. Is there anything short of this I can do? Is there any diagnostic I can perform that will tell me what went wrong? Thank you

 

[tracerbullet]

Perhaps a sys restore for a date further back? Any chance you made real, thorough backups such as with Acronis or similar? You might also be able to do a Windows "repair" routine, which won't set you back to the starting point.

You could have hardware failures, but it's likely software issues, those are worth looking at first anyhow.

The time savings alone at a time like this is what makes a program like Acronis or something similar so worthwhile... You can just say screw it, launch the restore, and walk away. Come back a short while later and it's all back to normal. Or at least to where it was on the last backup.

 

[Steltek]

What are your complete system specs (CPU, motherboard, hard drive and/or SSD, video card, memory, power supply, etc)? Have you checked your system temps to ensure there is no overheating? Are there any errors showing in either the Windows system log or Application logs?

If it were me, I would start by downloading MEMTEST86+, burn the bootable ISO, and test the system memory. It is always best to pull the modules and test them one at a time, through multiple passes. Another thing to do is to download a utility from the manufacturer of your hard drive and test the hard drive for faults.

You also can run SFC /scannow from an elevated command prompt to check your Windows system files, followed by CHKDSK /F (also from an elevated command prompt).

Finally, you should consider this event as a good reason to design and stick to a strict backup regimen which would get you up and running again in most cases within an hour. You can use Windows' built in backup software, or commercial software. Personally, I really like the paid version of Macrium Reflect Pro, but that is just me.

 

[Matt1970]

My problem began when my SB Recon3D Fatal1ty Champion wouldn't output to headphones. I performed a system restore to when my headphones worked, but nothing changed. During troubleshooting I tried playing a CD but it wouldn't auto play like it had forever. I discovered that none of my CyberLink programs would launch. It's amazing bad luck and coincidence for a sound card and Blu-ray drive to malfunction at the same time. But watching some online video clips would crash with messages "Skype Click to Call Crashed," or "Shockwave Crashed." Those can't be blamed on Sound Blaster or CyberLink. One time Firefox opened to its start page and was redirected to a product site. Another time I was on a browser when a JavaScript window opened telling me that Microsoft Antivirus 2013 detected a process and a scan was necessary. I didn't click the "OK" button as there is no Microsoft Antivirus 2013. I've performed a full system scan with my Kaspersky PURE 2.0 and nothing was found, but PURE's control panel erroneously reports my last system scan was over 15,000 days ago. I downloaded Malwarebytes and it found two suspect entries, nothing major, and deleting them did nothing to improve my situation. Bitdefender Quick Scan gave my PC a clean bill of health. Oh geez, reinstalling Win 8 Pro and all my downloaded programs will take two weeks. Is there anything short of this I can do? Is there any diagnostic I can perform that will tell me what went wrong? Thank you

Well there's your problem. Those typically cause a LOT more problems than any one program can find and fix.

Reboot Safemode.
Run a rootkill to make sure nothing malicious is running.
Re-run Scan with a fully updates Malwarebytes and run full scan.
Reboot normal and Follow up with Spybot and Super Anti-Spyware.

 

[7beauties]

Windows 8 Pro
Phenom II 965 3.6GHz CPU
Asus Crosshair IV Formula motherboard
OCZ Reaper 4GHz DDR 3 1333 DIMM X 4 = 16GB
Dual Radeon HD 7970 graphics cards in Crossfire
Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Champion sound card
LG Blu-ray BH10LS30 rewriter drive
PC Power & Cooling 950W PSU
Seagate ST32000641AS 2 TB SATA III HDD (is my C drive - SMART status healthy)
Western Digital WD20EADS 2 TB SATA II HDD (is my D drive - SMART status healthy)
Cooler Master mid tower case with plenty of fans

Fortunately my games on Steam still play well, but I can't play late at night through my speakers. I didn't know I could examine an error log in Windows. I restored my system to the earliest time available. I do have Acronis, but have been too lazy to set it up; I rue this now. Thank you all for your replies. I'm very grateful for your input, advice and concern.

 

[Steltek]

To view the system and event logs in Windows 8, do a search for event viewer under settings. After running Event Viewer, select Windows Logs on the left and look the System log. You'll need to filter the log (on the right side) to show only Critical, Error, and Warning log entries. Make a note of any items shown. Do the same thing on the Application log.

 

[7beauties]

A lot of people are recommending that I run full scans with Malwarebytes, my Kaspersky PURE, and even Superantispyware in safe mode. How do I do this in Windows 8 Pro? I tried rebooting, pressing and holding the F4, F6 and F8 keys, but my choice to open Windows normally or in safe mode doesn't happen. And was so when I did a cold shutdown and restart which would've brought me that option with other Win versions. I sure would appreciate knowing how to do this. Thank you.

 

[Steltek]

A lot of people are recommending that I run full scans with Malwarebytes, my Kaspersky PURE, and even Superantispyware in safe mode. How do I do this in Windows 8 Pro? I tried rebooting, pressing and holding the F4, F6 and F8 keys, but my choice to open Windows normally or in safe mode doesn't happen. And was so when I did a cold shutdown and restart which would've brought me that option with other Win versions. I sure would appreciate knowing how to do this. Thank you.

Press the win+R keys to get the run box. Run MSCONFIG. In MSCONFIG, select the "safe boot" option. When you reboot, the machine will start in safe mode.

Once you have done whatever you intend to do in safe mode, you need to go back in to MSCONFIG and remove the check from the "safe boot" option before you restart. Otherwise, the laptop will continue to permanently start in safe mode until you do this.

 

[7beauties]

Malwarebytes says that a worldwide Trojan is infecting millions of PC's through a Zero Day exploit in Java and recommends disabling or deleting Java from browsers. That error message that "Microsoft Antivirus 2013" detected a process that requires a scan was a Java window. I have IE, Chrome, Firefox and Opera. I would appreciate advice on how to do this as well. Thank you for your helpful replies.

 

[Smoove910]

Do an MSCONFIG and go to the 'startup' tab. Ensure there is not anything booting up with the PC that shouldn't be (i.e. Microsoft Antivirus 2013). If there is, uncheck it then reboot. Once you've rebooted, go into the add/remove programs and see if there's a 'Microsoft Antivirus 2013' to uninstall. If there is, uninstall and reboot... If not, then run the latest version of Malwarebytes.

Hopefully this will snag it and remove for you!

 

[nature1ders]

There is no choice here, you MUST reinstall Windows 8, you'll never find out what's wrong because your System Restore messed to much up, you NEVER do this it's bad! You want to always fix the single issue yourself not compound it by back dating your system so it's all goofy.