After removing virus, laptop runs very slow

[F Red]

I've just recently bought a new laptop and the next day I was installing some apps and one of them came with a virus. It made my computer 'unusable' to browse the web as the virus keeps popping up a lot of ads and keeps redirecting me to the a website called " InitialSite123". I got really nervous and frustrated and I immediately went to the settings and reset it with removing all of my files. The reset took forever and when it finally finished, the laptop was slow as a turtle. With high disk usage, very slow boot up and overall very sluggish performance. I've reset it 2 times already and still nothing happened. Simply opening up Chrome takes a long time. Things that I've done are several registry tweaks (e.g. Superfetch, Windows update etc.) I've also tried to boot using Safe mode but it was still very slow. I've also scanned using MalwareBytes (custom scan) and it found nothing. So please, please, please help me I'm going to do all of my work on this laptop so any help would be very appreciated

My Specs are:
Asus x441ur
Intel Core i3 (6th Gen) @ 2 GHz
Nvidia 930 mx
4GB of ram
1tb hhd
Windows 10 Home

 

[webworkings]

Slow even in "Safe Mode" that isn't good. MalwareBytes is good, but not really for Virus detection. You should try something like AVG or Avast or another program like those.

Also, here are a few links to sites with info on removing the InitialSite123 problem. Part of it is that the program changes your browsers home page, in multiple places in windows and your browser. What a pain.

https/malwaretips.com/blogs/remove-initialsite123-com/

http/guides.uufix.com/how-to-remove-initialsite123-com-from-pc-completely/

Also, here is a video, https/www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOBZqdJJyME

 

[F Red]

Thanks for your reply. After the reset the virus doesn't show up now. But in return, it became very very slow. The disk usage is very high and its being consumed by a lot of different Microsoft services. Do you think that this a hardware issue or a software issue and does the warranty cover this type of problem? I barely any files here so I don't know whats the problem. Is the virus completely removed by the rest? This is my first time having a virus ( Btw, I use McAfee Live Safe (it came with the laptop) it didn't find any malware though and it also uses a lot of ram. I'll try to use AVG and Avast. This is such a huge pain in the rear!

 

[canadianvice]

Thanks for your reply. After the reset the virus doesn't show up now. But in return, it became very very slow. The disk usage is very high and its being consumed by a lot of different Microsoft services. Do you think that this a hardware issue or a software issue and does the warranty cover this type of problem? I barely any files here so I don't know whats the problem. Is the virus completely removed by the rest? This is my first time having a virus ( Btw, I use McAfee Live Safe (it came with the laptop) it didn't find any malware though and it also uses a lot of ram. I'll try to use AVG and Avast. This is such a huge pain in the rear!

A really good place to start with "slow" is running Check Disk. Boot into safe mode, run as admin:

CHKDSK /scan

It won't do anything, but it will tell you how buggered your hard drive is. If it's not this, I haven't found much else that's hardware related during my time as a low-level technician that causes major slowness.

If it's not hardware related.... then your manu probably won't cover it. You can always hit up their support and ask!

 

[webworkings]

Excellent suggestions.

 

[F Red]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I really appreciate it I've installed AVG as Webworkings suggested and the scan reports "no threats found" I'll try to use Check Disk later and post the results here. AVG also ran a hard drive check up and and reported that the hdd is in good shape with no issues. I've ran AVG's optimization wizard and it made my laptop a bit faster and the boot up is now about 50 seconds but not as fast as before which was 30 seconds. The start up made a bit of improvement but I want it to be as fats as before. The disk usage is also much better than before. It only goes up to 100 upon start up. I hope I'll find a permanent fix soon!

 

[Paul NZ]

Get then run tdsskiller it may have a rootkit as well

https/support.kaspersky.com/viruses/disinfection/5350

 

[F Red]

I have some good news! With the AVG stuff I did yesterday, all of a sudden my laptop became a lot faster (or even as fast as before). The boot up time is now around 30 seconds and the disk usage doesn't go as high as 100. AVG made around 480 registry tweaks and I turned off "Get tips, tricks, and suggestions as you use Windows" in Notifications. I've again disabled "Superfetch" which lowered the disk usage. Check Disk didn't really find any bad sectors so I think that's good. I'm first going to observe the laptop's behavior then I'll partition the disk and transfer my files when I believe that everything's good. Thank you to everyone who has helped me here in this thread! Y'all have been such a good help

 

[webworkings]

Awesome. Glad we could help.