Antivirus on laptop expired, warnings about low memory and now runs slow and freezes

[madferit]

Hi guys, can I just say that I am a complete tech noob so you'll probably find the cause and solution to this problem baffilingly obvious, but I assure you, I am not trolling.
Now, recently, Norton 360 was allowed to expire without renewal and I put off downloading free AVG for about a week. The real problem for me started when I was watching 24 (series 1) on Windows Media Player and it started to skip and freeze, which I considered peculiar, for this is what is typical when I am watching tv shows such as Impractical Jokers or Doctor Who on Project Free TV, not when I am watching a series downloaded via uTorrent.
Instead of the problems subsiding, which is what I hoped for, they only got worse, and a window opened warning me that the computer was low on memory. I pondered whether this was actually a virus let in due to my laptop's unprotected state, my reason being that the C drive was only 50% full with about 150GB remaining. Very strange, I thought.
Well, now I when I start my computer up, it boots properly and the Windows screen loads, however when I open programs such as Mozilla Firefox, it can't handle my clicking, and ceases to respond. Not only does the program stop responding, but also the start button and the bar adjacent to it stops responding, rendering a normal startup as not an option.
I am currently writing to you in safe mode, where I cannot watch videos or search Google Earth. Oh god, get me out of this dark place.

 

[voyagerfan99]

Do you have both Norton 360 and AVG installed, or just one of them?

In any case, we'll go on with some standard scans and see what we find.

Please download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware from here or here and save it to your desktop.

• Double-click mbam-setup.exe and follow the prompts to install the program.
• At the end, be sure a checkmark is placed next to
  • Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
  • and Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
• then click Finish.
• If an update is found, it will download and install the latest version. Please keep updating until it says you have the latest version.
• Once the program has loaded, select Perform quick scan, then click Scan.
• When the scan is complete, click OK, then Show Results to view the results.
• Be sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected.
• A log will be saved automatically which you can access by clicking on the Logs tab within Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware

If for some reason Malwarebytes will not install or run please download and run Rkill.scr, Rkill.exe, or Rkill.com. If you are still having issues running rkill then try downloading these renamed versions of the same program.

EXPLORER.EXE
IEXPLORE.EXE
USERINIT.EXE
WINLOGON.EXE

But DO NOT reboot the system and then try installing or running Malwarebytes. If Rkill (which is a black box) appears and then disappears right away or you get a message saying rkill is infected, keep trying to run rkill until it over powers the infection and temporarily kills it. Once a log appears on the screen, you can try running malwarebytes or downloading other programs.



Download the HijackThis installer from here.
Run the installer and choose Install, indicating that you accept the licence agreement. The installer will place a shortcut on your desktop and launch HijackThis.

Vista and Windows 7 users must right click on the hijackthis icon and click on run as. If the run as option doesn't appear then press and hold the shift key while right clicking on the icon to get it to appear.


Click Do a system scan and save a logfile

Most of what HijackThis lists will be harmless or even essential, don't fix anything yet.

When the hijackthis log appears in a notepad file, click on the edit menu, click select all, then click on the edit menu again and click on copy. Come back to your reply and right click on your mouse and click on paste.

Post the logfile that HijackThis produces along with the Malwarebytes Anti-Malware log