View Full Version : Virus, malware, bug or what ? D/C issues.
I have, as all of you in TS know, a lot of problems with lag and connection.
I now have a strong suspicion that my computer has a virus. I have Avira AV program installed, it detected 4 "infections".. But the infections were on old programs that I have on an external drive, these programs are soooo old that I doubt that they could infect my computer and that the fact is, that I have never had those programs installed on this computer.
Anyways, Iīve been searching the web for virusī related to connection issues and found a few posts about them, but nothing particularly good as an answer.
I keep having random disconnects and my computer will freeze at random times.
I donīt know if BC2 is affected by the freezings or not, but could the freezing be the thing causing my "Rubberband" lag? Where it really often is that I am playing and suddenly everything on my screen gets a push, like a blink forward maybe this is the freezing?
Sound does usually not get affected by these freezings, but if I am watching a video on the computer, be it on youtube or Media player then it can suddenly freeze and the sound keeps playing and then suddenly the video resumes to where it should be.
Is this malware or a Virus? Or might it be that my CPU "Bussing" or "threads" are failing (I really donīt know how they work, but have suspicion towards this) Or maybe a virus is affecting the CPU/GPU ?
Any guess is more than welcome, I know that a lot of guys here know a lot about computers and I hope you could help me with this :)
Thanks in advance :)
XxXButcher
19-07-2010, 08:01
Well if the software is so old, then delete it. ;)
Check wich processes are running while the crashes, then disable them.
Clean your system start up, until only necessary programs are loaded.
:dunno:
The problem doesn't seem virus related, but there's always a chance it could be.
It looks like those infected files on your external drive could be left over from an old virus/spyware/malware that you saved in a backup or something. I recommend downloading the free versions of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware http://www.malwarebytes.org/ and SUPERantispyware http://www.superantispyware.com/ . Update them both after installing, then run complete/full scans on all of your internal and external drives. If they detect any infections, delete them and boot into Safe Mode, then run both full scans on the same drives again.
A friend of mine used to get random disconnects from BC2 and we found out it was a problem with his network card. He hadn't updated the drivers in a few months and for what ever reason, they didn't like BC2! He updated the drivers and the connection problems stopped.
Regarding the freezes while watching videos, that could be hardware, graphics drivers or maybe audio drivers. I assume that you've tried fully uninstalling and reinstalling your graphics drivers, so try doing the same with the audio drivers. The only other thing I can think of is that it could be the video codecs you have installed. When I first started playing Fallout 3 I got random crashes and what looked like hardware lag. It turned out to be the DivX software I had installed, and a tech support forum post I found about the problem recommended downloading a different set of codecs, but I can't remember what they were. If the ideas above don't fix it, try downloading the latest DivX software or search google for new codecs.
XxXButcher
19-07-2010, 12:19
I tested SUPERAntispyware :wacko:
free ware, but after 30 days it wanted to be registered and payed for or it will be disabled.
As I tried to uninstall it denied uninstalling until being registered :bfingers2:
Anyway, I took a stolen key to register it and then uninstall it :P
Ok, I already had malwarebytes on my computer. I ran malwarebytes and installed Superantispyware and ran that too.
Malwarebytes found 5 detections... 4 of those were on my external drive, where I keep a backup of my previous computer. Superantispyware found 800 detections. 99.99% of those were on the same backup as malwarebytes found itīs detections.
anyways.. Superantispyware found a .dll file in windows which was marked as adware and I deleted it.. Even so the problem still persists.
Iīve now turned to my services.
Iīve looked at my services and even though no service really utilizes any large amount of memory, I am sure that it is one those that somehow are causing my computer to get these random freezes and weird lags.
Service "Cryptsvc" is one that I want to disable and by the looks of it on the windows forum, it should not cause any trouble if I do so. Do you guys have any other suggestions to which services to deactivate ?
Or any other ideas ? The spyware stuff didnīt change anything, I am still getting random 5 sec freezes and super rubberband lag or teleport lag.
Just want to state, that my CPU is running on 0-1% at most times when browsing and stuff, I donīt see any irregularities but I still get random freezings when watching videos, be it youtube, random websites or HD movies.
These freezings have particularly affected my editing in Sony Vegas Pro, It freezes constantly and in most cases crashes to desktop. But as Vegas Pro is very depending on RAM, could it be that my computer is suffering some kind of memory error ?
All ideas and inputs are more than welcome.
Thanks.
Have you made sure you updated to the latest codecs, flash player, java etc.
All these things I find can cause issues when watching videos, and when I have a problem watching vids, i go to update whatever it is that it is using.
I can't see this being the issue, as I assume vegas would ensure everything it needed was up to date and fine before it let you start.
Vegas pretty much eats every codec out there.
Vegas is also taking forever to start up and load projects.. What usually took 5-10 secs to load now takes 5 mins, Vegas just sits still on 1% when trying to open a project then slowely progressing to 2,3,4,5,6 and sometimes 7% and then boom it opens the project. Iīve looked at Sony forums and I canīt find any real solution to the problem there.
Seems more like itīs my computer failing. But as Vegas pro is failing hard at maintaining working levels then why is BC2 and any other game not affected by this, well BC2 has the goddamn rubberband lag, but other than that, it still runs fine when looking at performance.
If you are suspecting memory errors, then I suggest that you run Memcheck or such to check it for issues.
The kind of rubberbanding and teleporting lag that you mentioned is usually caused by network lag or server side lag and usually has nothing to do with the client computer itself. Of course, if you are also getting regular freezes then they might be compensated for by what you refer to as rubberbanding or teleporting.
Have you considered the possibility of other kinds of hardware errors? Would it be a lot of work (as in too much) for you to re-install the operating system?
yeah... A fail safe plan (in most cases) is to reinstall the OS... But I really want to avoid this.
Ye, memcheck is one thing I thought about, I had a CD with the program on, but I guess itīs should be easy to google, but can I trust such a program from the internet?
I also want to avoid reinstalling the OS because I have a lot of projects going on at the moment in Vegas pro e.g. Timeless movie, Spoof movie and other stuffs.. I hate to loose the effects Iīve generated and the programs Iīve installed have settings which will be needed to readjust once the OS has been reinstalled... Well pretty much if I reinstall the OS I will be consumed in work to get the programs operational again.
But then again, at the moment I can barely edit anything in Vegas, which is my main editing program, as it keeps crashing to desktop and thereby a loose loads of data and I keep doing double work. So if I canīt find any solution on fixing this issue I will first try to reinstall Vegas and if that does not work, then reinstall the OS.
I have the newest version of Vegas.
This is from a Windows community admin or something like that, this is in response to another problem regarding overuse of CPU, but I will try this to see if it helps my vegas pro.
"1) Run MSCONFIG.EXE. (MSCONFIG is a built-in tool for Windows XP\2003 systems.)
2) In the Services tab, click "Hide All Microsoft Services" and click "Disable All".
3) In the Startup tab, click "Disable All". Click OK. (This will temporarily prevent third-party programs from running automatically during start-up.)
4) Restart the computer. Does the problem still persist?"
One more thing I would like to ask regarding the freezes in videos, for instance on youtube the video I am trying to watch might in some cases freeze, even though it has been buffed far ahead of the playing solid red color bar (well of what I can see on the less red bar, which shows how far the buffing has come). I talked to a friend of mine about this and he said he had never experienced this, this happens in all of my browsers, IE, chrome and firefox. Is this something you guys experience too?
I still think it might be a codec issue then. Like Dax said, have you double checked that all your video codecs/flash/java is up to date? If they are, try uninstalling them and downloading fresh copies incase the current installations are corrupt.
Ok, I will try it!
I had the K-Lite Codec pack, which has been working like a dream when Iīve used itīs previous versions.
A reinstall it is.
Thanks for the input :)
Ok chaps.. I think I might have found a solution, something I should have done a long time ago.
I downloaded Game Booster in an attempt to fix the problem and seems to have done the trick. Not completely, but the lag has decreased drastically.
So I recommend for anyone else experiencing lag or performance issues to download Game Booster :)