"Windows has encountered a critical error and will shut down in 1 minute."

[KingstonU]

I've gotten this message 5 times in the last 3 days:

"Windows has encountered a critical error and will shut down in 1 minute. Please save your work."

Specs: Acer Laptop TimelineX 5820TG. Windows 7 64 Bit. 1 year old.

Since then I have deleted about 100GB of files, performed virus scan, a defrag and a registry clean of my system. And I am still getting the errors.

I need this laptop for my job! Help very much appreciated!

 

[denis280]

di you try a CHKDSK.

 

[KingstonU]

di you try a CHKDSK.

I am running a FULL virus scan right now because the one I did before was just a "quick" scan. But as soon as that's done I will try CHKDSK, thanks.

What will running chkdsk do? Will it tell me if I have a faulty hard drive? If I do then what happens? I have to buy a new laptop?

 

[KingstonU]

Ok the FULL virus scan found siric.c trojan or something so got rid of that. Started checking my hard drive for errors but it's too long a process to do during the day so I had stop that after it was 13% completed. I will run it again tonight while I sleep.

 

[Ketchup]

Sounds like a virus of some type, as that is not a normal Windows message. Your last scan may have gotten rid of it though.

 

[imagoon]

This is a pretty common error message when a machine is either a) infected with a virus or b) on a network that is infected with a virus that manages to crash certain critical services such as lsass.exe.

You can do a shutdown -a on the command line to abort the shutdown but your PC is basically in an unstable state.

On rarer cases this can be caused by drivers but the fact that your AV found something already leads me to think you have a virus on that machine.

 

[KingstonU]

So can I feel confident that Microsoft Security Essentials is a good enough AV that it got rid of the problem? My only other solutions is waiting to see if the problem occurs again.

Edit: This is my first virus in many many years wow.

 

[imagoon]

So can I feel confident that Microsoft Security Essentials is a good enough AV that it got rid of the problem? My only other solutions is waiting to see if the problem occurs again.

Edit: This is my first virus in many many years wow.

It might be, I personally don't trying to save machines that are infected. I personally rebuild / restore them.

 

[KingstonU]

It might be, I personally don't trying to save machines that are infected. I personally rebuild / restore them.

I don't think formating this laptop will be an option for me at least for another few weeks as I won't be home for a while. Thanks for the help though.

 

[Ketchup]

So can I feel confident that Microsoft Security Essentials is a good enough AV that it got rid of the problem? My only other solutions is waiting to see if the problem occurs again.

Edit: This is my first virus in many many years wow.

I don't recommend trusting any one program to knock out viruses/malware. Try running Malwarebytes and Spybot as well.

 

[KingstonU]

Had the error occur again yesterday. Did another full scan with MSE but found nothing. I will give Malwarebytes and Spybot a try.

 

[KingstonU]

Well I ran Malwarebytes and Spybot and they didn't find anything, though Spybot thought I should remove various cookies from the system.

I'll have to try chkdsk tonight again and let it run all night. After that I'm all out of ideas as a reformat is not an option for the time being.

 

[Belegost]

I would run memtest86, a bad dimm may return corrupt values causing instability.

 

[Ketchup]

Run msconfig and make sure an unwanted program isn't in Startup. If it is, remove it from the registry, don't just uncheck it.

 

[denis280]

I am running a FULL virus scan right now because the one I did before was just a "quick" scan. But as soon as that's done I will try CHKDSK, thanks.

What will running chkdsk do? Will it tell me if I have a faulty hard drive? If I do then what happens? I have to buy a new laptop?

Yes it will. and it will try to repair bad sector if damage.But so far with all the test you did. i would format just to be sure the virus is out.do a chkdsk first to make sure the hd dont have errors.then format

 

[KingstonU]

Ran chkdsk last night. Woke up to my home screen, so I have no idea if chkdsk completed, and if so, what the result was. The error occurred again shortly after. Sigh.

 

[denis280]

Then you dont have the choice my friend

 

[Ketchup]

Then you dont have the choice my friend

You can either run a dozen or so virus and spyware removal programs (don't forget to try the online ones) or just backup and re-install everything. In a few cases, I have had to re-install Windows regardless, so it depends how much time you have on you.

 

[KingstonU]

I'm going to have to deal with it for another month at least before I have the option of reformating. Thank you all for the help.