Slow startup and usage.

[CrazyMav]

Windows 8.1
8GB of Ram
I7

I'm troubleshooting a friends laptop and I'm having a hard time finding what the problem is. He reported a slow usage experience and slow boot up, at first I figured it might be start up services, then he sent me a screenshot of his "AV" detecting numerous malicious files, little did he know that his "AV" was malicious... you know those adware/spyware programs downloaded through third party installs..
I uninstalled it, put Malwarebytes on it, scanned it and it found only 2 items.. okay, well I thought I'd scan it in safe mode, I tried from typing in advanced startup options, it failed and gave me an error, I figured some malware might have disabled safe mode or something, I tried to enable Windows Defender and it also failed and gave an error, again, the work of malware it seemed.

I went into msconfig and booted into safe mode that way, it worked. While booting into safe mode for the first time, he told me of the scanning of his hard drive volume because of an error apparently, after a 100% completion he said it still loaded slowly into the login screen and also into the desktop, but it was running smoothly once inside. I went into Event Viewer and noticed that there were hundreds of bad block errors, which I suspected might be the problem, though didn't think it would be the cause of the extreme sluggishness. I did another scan with malwarebyes, nothing popped up, I did sfc /scannow, it found errors but couldn't fix, I'll try to get the logs, I did a chkdsk and it also reported errors but I couldn't open the log in Event Viewer for some reason.

I started safemode with networking and this time it was as slow as if it was a normal boot up. I used CCleaner for giggles, nothing.. I had to go and restarted it normally, this time he reported of an error of, " Windows fails to connect to System Event Notification Service" I looked it up and apparently it is the cause of extreme sluggishness with many users.

Tried netsh winsock reset as most suggested, nothing.
Currently, I don't have time to troubleshoot it some more and would like it if I could get some assistance on here.

I might do a system restore in the end if I can't find the solution, if not that, then I'll suggest...

(I slightly looked at the RAM usage in Task Manager and noticed it used 4/8GB, I'll look into that more as well.)

 

[Im_Infinity]

i used to have a windows 8 laptop gave it to my mom it used to run slow and start up slow i got it up to speed with 1 thing i got ESSET nod32 ran a smart scan cleaned the entire computer of any malware spware ect ect trust me i used malewarebytes before i used esset some things got past malewarebytes that esset cleaned up so i would suggest he gets esset nod32 and runs a smart scan if that doesnt work i would only be able to suggest format.

 

[tman1]

It amazes me that people still think Malwarebytes is the end all solution before formatting. It's a fine tool, but not the only, and certainly not the best.

I would run adwcleaner on there, reboot, then run combofix. If any issues still lingered, I would use the windows repair app from tweaking.com.

You can get all 3 of these programs from bleepingcomputer.com
Some also recommend hitman pro, but it disabled my NIC last time I tried it - and took a few driver installs and reboots to fix, so I hesitate with that one.

 

[aldan]

your right,mbam is only part of the solution and is not an antivirus program anyway.again,there is no single program that will protect you.i would use combofix last after adwcleaner and junkware removal tool.post both logs so we can help you.

 

[CrazyMav]

Well, actually, even though I didn't indicate all the troubleshooting I would be doing, running an AV, as first attempted, is on my list. I only mentioned Malwarebytes because I got it to work in Safe Mode. I'm also running a few other scanners and doing some other ideas I've looked at and come up with. It would have been nice if you guys could have suggested something other than it being something malicious.
I mean, I did bold some text that I think it somewhat of importance, I've only not yet tried further steps into that because I don't have the laptop with me.
Thanks anyways...

 

[tman1]

I did suggest something other than it being something malicious. If you read my suggestions, you would see the third thing was windows repair by tweaking.com.

 

[aldan]

and so,do you have the logfiles from the antimalware programs suggested?

 

[CrazyMav]

I stopped looking into the "malicious" part of this problem as there was no sign of it being malicious, especially with the Event Viewer logs. I ran some hard drive diagnostic software and they all indicated problems with the hard drive, tried some more hard drive things just to make sure. Even though the hard drive is down the drain, the other issues still don't match in nature. I tried some suggestions online and it did help a little, ran some Microsoft fixes and for the most part, it fixed the problem, until the next day when it came back, but with only occasional stuttering.

I went back to one of the steps I followed and added some extra steps and currently the laptop has no problems, but still reports the hard drive errors.

Did some scanning in the end and it found nothing, just some cookie crap.

 

[aldan]

looks like you got it under control then.