FM1 A4-3300 / ECS A55 / 2x4GB DDR3-1600 / 120GB SSD / Win7 64-bit - issues?

[VirtualLarry]

I'm a little confused by this, but I slightly suspect the SSD.

I supplied the (new) parts for this PC for my friend, and he built the rig for his GF, under my supervision. (This was a few months ago.)

I thought that the build went fine, and I put the OS on because my friend had to go, and updating Win7 takes a few hours.

So, anyways, I had no trouble with it, when installing Win7 and drivers. However, I did decide to play around with overclocking it slightly, and ended up having to clear CMOS twice, because it froze up while testing. Afterwards, back at stock, some superficial usage didn't reveal any problems. I didn't adjust the vcore at all when overclocking, so I don't think that I could have damaged anything.

Anyways, after I got the OS on, the rig sat boxed up at my friend's place for a few months.

Only just the other day, when I brought them and the PC from my friend's place to his GF's place, and then he unhooked her old PC, and hooked this one up.

He didn't initially seem to have any issues initially, or at least, didn't complain for a few days, but then he installed some "online gaming" clients. (I'm talking "gaming" in the same sense of "gaming commission", if you get my drift.)

Well, that, and he installed Flash Player, and some other stuff.

His VM specifically mentioned, the PC being "frozen", but the mouse moving, and he couldn't move the mouse onto the taskbar, to launch Task Manager. And right-clicking on the desktop opened a menu, but then that menu wouldn't close. Wierd stuff.

So, I'm wondering if this is an AMD video driver issue, and it's not just repainting the screen, or what.

A day before, I was over there, and helped his GF configure her FIOS router. I didn't have any issues specifically like a frozen system, but I noticed that the "systray extra icons" (the little up-arrow, that opens a window with all of your other systray icons), opened up HUGE. There was like one visible icon, and probably a hundred empty icon spaces, that seemed to have something in them, but when I clicked on them, they disappeared, slowly shrinking the size of the extra icons window back down to something manageable in size.)

This seemed to indicate a background program launching multiple times and closing. I wonder if it is some component of the AMD video or system drivers, or some of the "gaming" programs, or whether they got a virus on the box already from visiting "movie sites".

Or maybe it's the TLC SSD, the ECS FM1 mobo, the Allied PSU that came with the case, or something freaking out with Win7 64-bit or the AMD FM1 APU video / system drivers.

I should put Win10 on there instead, probably.

The system, as far as I know, is NOT overclocked in any way. Cooling and power should be adequate.

 

[RLGL]

malware?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah, I really wonder. My friend said that one of his "slots" site kept saying he needed Flash Player, when he already had it installed. I told him that it was a problem with NoScript shutting off Flash Player on that site, and that he needed to allow it. At one point, he said he clicked on the thing that said to update Flash Player, which I assumed meant that he downloaded it from that site, which is a major NO-NO, but then later, he said that he updated it from Adobe.

So, if he did download a "Flash Player Update" from a site claimed that he "needed Flash Player", then yes, I would say that he has a virus.

Edit: Ok, a follow-up. I talked with my friend, and he says, that what prompted him to download and install Flash Player, was the "gaming" site's client software that he downloaded and installed. It uses IE as a shell, and is essentially a web site-in-an-app. So it needed Flash Player ActiveX to function properly.

That makes me less suspicious that it's a virus, but I'm not going to completely rule it out.

The other possibility is that the mouse that is on that computer, is 4 years old, and may be flaking out. It apparently has a retractable cord or something like that.

I gave my friend a brand-new Logitech wired K120 USB keyboard + mouse set to go with that PC, and he doesn't remember it. Sigh. He's going to try to find it, and swap the mouse next time he's over there, and let me know how it goes.

I just think it's QUITE strange, to be able to move the mouse, but not to be able to move it vertically downwards, over the taskbar. To me, that sounds like malware, that wants to prevent the user from being able to click on the Start Menu, or be able to access Task Manager.

Maybe's that's a "feature" of the "gaming" client software he installed?

Does "full screen windowed" mode for games do that?

 

[Torn Mind]

You need to run HijackThis. Then submit results to a site like Bleeping Computer for analysis.

While I would not trust an Allied PSU, the main concern is random instability and destruction of other components upon its death. Issues with interfacing and stuff is indicative of malware, not to mention 7 is a chump in terms silently accumulating stuff.

Truly random like closing Firefox causing a restart, and then never happening again. That happened to me on P4 system with generic PSU and ECS board. But I don't blame the board. It was reluable and trouble free.

 

[Torn Mind]

Flash is integrated with IE11. It is totally uneeded to download it for IE...or Chrome.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Flash is integrated with IE11.

Interesting point. My friend probably downloaded a virus.

 

[Iron Woode]

Interesting point. My friend probably downloaded a virus.

under 8.1 and 10 IE11 updates adobe flash through windows update.

under win 7 IE11 still updates automatically from the flash app. the version of flash with IE11 is old and should be updated.