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[Omegamatt Shadowstar]

So, I had one of those stupid fake antivirus malwares attach itself to my computer somehow; waited 3 months to start making trouble for me.  Pretty sure I got rid of all of it, but now I've got a weird problem.  As evidenced by this post, I can get on the internet just fine.  Using Firefox.  Every other single program on my computer can't connect to the internet.  WoW, Internet Explorer, Google Earth, even my antivirus software.  I'm completely at a loss.  Anyone have any ideas?

[Usagi]

What did you use to clear it off?  I've heard of things like this from Norton users.
And check your firewall settings, of course.

[Randall Flagg]

I had a similar virus with my laptop when running XP. I had to change some internet settings and manually adjust my registry. I ended up reformatting.

[Teo McDohl]

When I get those issues from clients, here's what I use:

Malwarebytes
Microsoft Security Essentials
Spybot
Hitman Pro

After I've scanned the PC with each of those, I make sure it hasn't set "Internet Options" to connect with a proxy.  Then, I run (in CMD): netsh winsock reset

[Omegamatt Shadowstar]

Wow, never even thought to check proxy settings.  Seems to have fixed the problem though.  Thanks Teo.  Didn't use the Command Line at all though, just turned off the proxy settings and every connection sprang to life.  I'll let y'all know if there are any further problems.  Thanks guys.

[Teo McDohl]

You guys are always welcome to hit me up on AIM if you want, just FYI.  Glad it worked, Matt.  Fuck you.   

[Omegamatt Shadowstar]

Blrrgh, my computer's on the fritz again.  It boots just fine, and from what I can tell, Windows starts up fine, but about 5 minutes past startup everything just freezes.  I can move the mouse, and I can do some things like hitting the start menu and selecting icons on the desktop, but programs won't open and hitting CTRL+ALT+DEL results in a loooong black screen followed by an error message about being unable to display security options.  According the Vista's processor widget on the sidebar, the processor keeps on chugging at about 30-40% capacity, and it doesn't seem like there's any memory leak.  Anyone have an idea of how to isolate and fix whatever might be causing the freeze?

(It's probably worth noting that the computer doesn't freeze up at all in Safe Mode, although I do get an occasional anomalous report of I/O Errors, even in Safe Mode)

[Teo McDohl]

You could start with an obvious virus scan in safe mode (Malwarebytes, HitManPro, Spybot).  Check the hard disk with Seatools for DOS ( http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools )(create a bootable CD), and check the RAM with memtest+ ( http://www.memtest.org/ ).  

Try booting in safemode w/networking to get Internet access.

[Omegamatt Shadowstar]

Okay, so I've basically dropped the ball on this.  I did Dell's boot test thing (I don't really recall what exactly it was called) and it found one or two memory errors.  I don't really trust that to tell me what's wrong.  The virus scan found nothing of import, though I may try to run another one with different software.  I've not used either memtest or seatools yet, mainly because the computer I'm posting from can't create bootable CDs from ISOs, and I don't know if my afflicted laptop will be able to either.

As a quick update, I can still boot to normal Vista, open task manager, and watch about 10 processes start up. 
It takes a very long time to open any program, but once the program's up (I tested very basic; Solitaire) it works fine. 
WoW threw an error about not being authorized to write patch data, I'm a little confused over that one, might try running as Administrator.
Accessing Firefox or IE seems to cause hangups.

Once again, I haven't done what you could call extensive testing.  Working with this laptop gets depressing, so I'm not really motivated to power through this.

[Omegamatt Shadowstar]

The weirdest part about this is that my laptop works just fine in Safe Mode.  Even now I'm on IE in Safe Mode w/Networking and it's like nothing's wrong.  Except that my resolution is terrible, and tons of programs won't work because I'm in freakin' Safe Mode.  But, doesn't this sort of rule out permanent damage?  It's gotta just be some small piece of software affecting thread processing or something.

[Teo McDohl]

Possibly.  Usually when RAM is bad, it doesn't cause your PC to slow down, it causes programs to outright crash.  You might want to run some extensive virus scans in safe mode /w networking.  (malwarebytes, Spybot, HitManPro)

[Omegamatt Shadowstar]

So I reformatted, and furthermore upgraded to 7 (Home Premium, 32-bit).  Everything works perfectly except Windows keeps popping up messages every hour or so warning me that my hard drive might be about to fail and that I should back everything up.  I'm at that stage where my computer's been warning me about a possible failure for nearly a year.  Is there any way to forcibly disable these warning dialogues?

[Teo McDohl]

Windows 7 doesn't have such a feature.  Some third party software will, like an Intel RAID controller software.  There are viruses that pop up that message, however.  Can you screenshot it and show us?

[Omegamatt Shadowstar]

It doesn't seem to be doing it anymore, so maybe it just needed a good night's sleep.  If I see it again, I'll drop back in this thread, but until then, I guess this topic's pretty much closed.  Thanks for all your help, Teo (and Bunneh too).  Down the line, I'll simply get a new computer, but I think I'll hold off on that until I know TOR's release date