Computer help forum: Low virtual memory & svchost.exe simultaneously freezing pc

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Answer Best answer as chosen by user chiphxla

Based on that last bit

by Jimmy Greystone - 4/5/12 8:48 AM

In Reply to: Low virtual memory & svchost.exe simultaneously freezing pc by chiphxla

Based on that last bit about the browser redirects, it sounds like you have a malware problem. It's not unheard of for malware to disguise itself as some legitimate process to try and avoid detection. Since svchost is used as a generic launcher for several different Windows services, it seems to be a pretty prime target by many.

The other thing that caught my attention, was how you said AFTER you got the low virtual memory message you set it to let Windows manage it. That should be the default setting. I know there's a bunch of misinformation floating around about how setting it to like 1.5X the amount of physical RAM in your system will somehow speed things up, but it's a load of crap. The only thing that would speed up swap file performance is putting it on a separate physical drive. Not just another partition, another drive. One that operates independently of the drive with the OS installed. Just changing the size of the file doesn't do anything to improve performance, but if you don't set it high enough it can cause a state known as thrashing which will certainly cause your performance to drop to unusable levels.

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Low virtual memory & svchost.exe simultaneously freezing pc

by chiphxla - 4/5/12 11:17 AM

In Reply to: Based on that last bit by Jimmy Greystone

Thanks; I actually had changed the paging to the system default setting but that provided only temporary relief for a day or two, then it went right back to the LVM message and slowness. Also, I ran full scans in both Norton and Ad-Aware in Safe Mode a week ago, neither came up with anything other than a couple harmless cookies.

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Mixing Ad-aware and Norton?

by R. Proffitt - 4/5/12 11:28 AM

In Reply to: Low virtual memory & svchost.exe simultaneously freezing pc by chiphxla

I thought those were reported to conflict? You may have triggered this issue.
Bob

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Just one of many noted conflicts.

by R. Proffitt - 4/5/12 11:31 AM

In Reply to: Mixing Ad-aware and Norton? by R. Proffitt

http://community.norton.com/t5/Norton-Internet-Security-Norton/Adaware-amp-Nis-2010/td-p/156551

The titles Grif noted are on demand scans and not known to conflict with Norton.

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Couple of things

by Jimmy Greystone - 4/5/12 3:00 PM

In Reply to: Low virtual memory & svchost.exe simultaneously freezing pc by chiphxla

Couple of things.

1: Norton, and really every other AV program out there, is pretty bad at picking up malware
2: Norton and Adaware is NOT enough to make sure you're free of malware
3: Whether or not they found anything doesn't change the fact that you describe symptoms that are pretty classic malware symptoms
4: See Bob's post about the conflict between using more than one resident scanner program at a time

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Answer Best answer as chosen by user chiphxla

I'm going with malware too.

by R. Proffitt - 4/5/12 10:09 AM

In Reply to: Low virtual memory & svchost.exe simultaneously freezing pc by chiphxla

Grif has some scans noted at link.
http://forums.cnet.com/7726-6132_102-5098912.html?tag=posts;msg5099421

Good hunting,
Bob

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Answer Best answer as chosen by user chiphxla

One other thing.

by MarkFlax - 4/5/12 12:49 PM

In Reply to: Low virtual memory & svchost.exe simultaneously freezing pc by chiphxla

I've seen reports in these forums where if Norton's license has expired and not been renewed, it can cause unwanted effects.

That would be an easy thing to check before you embark on the others.

Mark

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update and thanks to all for your replies

by chiphxla - 4/6/12 11:38 AM

In Reply to: One other thing. by MarkFlax

I've confirmed at least one problem: I have the Happili.com virus, which from what I've seen on the Norton site as well as others, is plaguing a lot of people right now and Norton doesn't have a solution yet. Btw, I misspoke, I ran MalwareBytes, not Ad-Aware, ran it separately from Norton. This morning I used Norton Power Eraser, also in Safe Mode, but it did not pick it up so I'm thinking this is a rootkit. I need to be careful in resolving this as I do not have the capability to reinstall the operating system (XP). Any further suggestions are welcome and thank you all again.

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At the moment

by MarkFlax - 4/6/12 1:02 PM

In Reply to: update and thanks to all for your replies by chiphxla

I see only two entries in Google about this Happili.com virus that I would consider visiting and they are both at BleepingComputer.com in these discussions;

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic448955.html and
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic448976.html

Neither of them are resolved yet, and in fact one of them is getting help from elsewhere, so that discussion is considered closed.

The other Google links, apart from the Norton ones, are all very suspicious. My Firefox's security add-on for malicious web sites, WOT, (Web of Trust), gives a lot of these a red warning icon besides each, so please be careful if you intend to use any of those Google links.

I would suggest you post this problem in BleepingComputer's forums. The do seem at least to have some handle on this virus. You will need to register with them to be able to post, if you intend to.

Good luck, and let us know how you get on.

Mark

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