Posted: 3/20/2015 10:38:18 AM EDT
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Ladies, gentlemen, fellow ARFCOMers.
This past week my PC has been displaying several issues, but first some background. I haven't used the PC much lately, as I've been busy with work (tax accountant and it's tax season). Primary user the past few weeks has been my wife, who has terrible luck with computers. Now she insists she didn't do anything, but past history leads me to think that she actually did do something but didn't realize it. She does a lot of web browsing looking for recipes and baby-related stuff (first kid coming in August), but even AdBlock doesn't stop one from clicking a malicious link. She also can't handle leaving dialog boxes alone, but doesn't know what to do with most of them, so sometimes picks an option at random. 
Anyway, here are the issues I have observed so far: -Flash in Chrome crashes constantly. -HTML Video will load, but not play, in Chrome -Steam will not launch. The Steam Update window comes up for a second or two, then nothing. Steam bootstrapper process runs, but the client won't come up and no games run. -When shutting the computer down, it gets hung up on the Windows screen that has the "processing" circle and displays "Shutting Down". It will stay on this screen for upwards of 20 minutes, with a hissing sound coming out of the speakers. After 20 minutes I did a hard shutdown. Troubleshooting done so far: -Run virus scan (aVast!) and Malwarebytes. Two infected files found by aVast!, subsequent scan had nothing. Malwarebytes didn't find anything. -Reinstalled Chrome -Attempted to run flushconfig on Steam and various other troubleshooting steps from Steam Support Unfortunately that's all I've had time for so far. I'm guessing there is some sort of issue with Windows given the shutdown issue. My next step was to do a system restore to prior to the last Patch Tuesday, as everything was working fine then. Any other suggestions? |
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I'd just start fresh with a clean windows install. Sounds like you may have had some malware that caused the damage to the OS.
If your wife's primary use is web browsing set her up with a limited user account to use. There is absolutely no good reason to be browsing the internet as an administrator, especially someone who is not a tech person. Even better, get a cheap chromebook or tablet for her to use. |
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Quoted:
I'd just start fresh with a clean windows install. Sounds like you may have had some malware that caused the damage to the OS. Considered this as well. Gives me an excuse to upgrade to a SSD too. 
If your wife's primary use is web browsing set her up with a limited user account to use. There is absolutely no good reason to be browsing the internet as an administrator, especially someone who is not a tech person. Even better, get a cheap chromebook or tablet for her to use. We have a Windows laptop and a Nexus 7 (in addition to her Android phone), but she doesn't like using touchpads and touchscreens. I'll probably set up a limited account for her once I get everything resolved. |
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So, assuming the system restore doesn't work and I need to nuke the install from orbit (it's the only way to be sure), how big of SSD should I get.
I'd still have 2 1TB HDDs for storage, so I'm not exactly sure what (other than Windows and a few other apps) I'd want on the SSD. Something big enough for my Steam library would be out of my budget, so something in the 256GB range? |
| I just got a 256 SSD and it's more than big enough for OS, 3-4 steam games, and some movies plus other small bits of software. I also have a 1TB that I just got yesterday so I can offload moves/media onto and free up space. With the SSD, but sure to format it properly and never defrag it. From the research I did a proper format is 1024, not 4096 which is what windows likes to do by default. There is a performance hit which will be noticeable if you go with 4096. |