Possible Malware Infection?

[subyng]

Dell Studio XP 1645
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit with Service Pack 1

So a few days ago, my computer suddenly failed to be able to boot. So I formatted the partition Windows was installed on and did a clean install from a Windows 7 CD. Everything appeared to be fine.

A week later, my computer is having troubles again. After an initial failure to boot (with the computer not even being able to successfully enter into start up repair), Windows does successfully start now, but the start up time is VERY long, and for about 5 to 10 minutes after reaching the desktop, the system is still very slow and unresponsive, up until a certain point where it is responsive enough to be useable but still noticeably slower with intermittent slowdowns.

I've tried to reinstall Windows from the CD again BUT, I cannot successfully boot from the CD. Like what happens when I try to access startup repair, I get a black screen for a long while and then eventually the harddrive light stops blinking which I can only assume means nothing is happening. So I try an the "upgrade" reinstall option by launching the installer from inside Windows (since a "custom" install, aka a clean install cannot be done when Windows is already running), but some time during the second stage of the installation, I get the message "Windows could not prepare the computer to boot into the next phase of installation" and I have to exit the installation.

So I considered perhaps I may have a malware infection of some sort. Avast Anti-Virus did not find anything but it gave me a message that a certain files were not able to be scanned...suspicious??

Here are my logs.

[subyng]

MBAM Log

[Pondus]

message that a certain files were not able to be scanned...suspicious??

files that can not be scanned for reason given by avast, are just that, it does not mean they are infected
and it is normal to have some files that can not be scanned

this is the most frequently asked question in the forum so lots of info if yoy forum search


malware removers are notified and will check your logs tomorrow...

[subyng]

Okay, but I have never gotten this error before, and the error perfectly coincides with the occurrence of all the other symptoms my computer is experiencing, which is why I thought it might be an issue. 

Thanks for the quick reply.

[Pondus]

and what reason does avast give?
a screenshot would help

[subyng]

Yes, here are screenshots.

"Error: The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error (1117)"

[essexboy]

I/O device error is related to the transfer of data between various parts of your system

There is no apparent malware on the system

Could you download and run Slimdrivers from here http://www.driverupdate.net/downloads/SlimDrivers-setup.exe
Run a scan and screenshot the results for me please

[subyng]

Here are the results.

The reason why I have so many out of date drivers is because last week I reformatted my system and reinstalled windows since it was completely unable to boot up previously.

If there is no apparent malware, could these problems be hardware related? What can I do to be 99% sure there is no malware on my system?

Thanks!

[essexboy]

Could you locate a driver that references your chipset and install that please

[subyng]

If there is more than one that references chipset, should I install all of them?

[subyng]

Nevermind, it just automatically installed a bunch of drivers when I clicked to install one.

Okay, what should I do now?

[essexboy]

Now I need to know what problems you are experiencing.

The chipset driver will also include a host of subdrivers in the initial download, so that is OK

[subyng]

I explained the problems in detail in my first post, but to summarize: the computer takes a very long time to boot and is performance is slower than usual. This happened about a week after I formatted and reinstalled Windows. I had reinstalled Windows because previously because my computer could not boot at all. Also,  in its current state, I cannot reinstall Windows 7 at all from the installation disk, or access startup repair, due to various errors as explained in my first post.

[subyng]

Also when I start Windows Avast always starts with all shields disabled for some reason, and my sound is disabled until I set a volume.

[essexboy]

I needed to check whether the chip set drivers helped

Download the SDK web installer from here
Run the installer and select the following:

Leave the location to default


Windows Performance Toolkit 


You must reboot on completion of the install

After reboot set aside about 30 minutes when you will not need the computer

When ready start an elevated command prompt :

Go Start > All Programs > Accessories
Right click Command Prompt and select Run as Administrator

Then copy and paste the following command into the black box :

xbootmgr -trace boot -prepSystem -verboseReadyBoot



Now your PC will be restarted 6 times. With a two minute pause before the tool runs after the desktop loads
After the second reboot the MS defragmentation program is running and is placing the files into an optimized layout, so that Windows will boot up faster
The last Reboots are training of readyBoot. After the training is finished, you'll notice a huge improvement in startup.

Readyboot

The logical prefetching described above is used when the system has less than 512MB of memory. If the system has 700MB or more then an in-RAM cache is used to further optimize the boot process (it’s not clear from the book whether or not this ReadyBoot cache completely replaces the logical prefetching approach or just builds on it, my assumption is that both work together).
After each boot the system generates a boot caching plan for the next boot using file trace information from up to the five previous boots which contains details of which files were accessed and where on the disk they were located. These traces are stored as .fx files in the