Does situation indicate FAILING PSU or MALWARE/virus?

[stereoeggs]

Hi,

My situation: My Windows 7 (64-bit PRO) computer is crashing (all of a sudden, there is no power and it stops running) after I have booted from a bootable anti-malware rescue disk, while the anti-malware program is running.

The computer is crashing after the anti-malware program has been running approximately 20-30 minutes, and the crash happens before the anti-malware program has found any malware or viruses. (So far, no malware or viruses have been found - but the anti-malware program has never finished its scan, due to crashing.)

Question: Is the crashing more likely due to a failing power supply...or more likely due to undetected malware or viruses?

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!

 

[badboyrog2]

which anti-malware?
i do not thing is a psu issue ..but which psu brand/model you have

 

[theyeti87]

Describe the crashing.

Is it a blue screen of death? Black screen w/ components still running? Black screen with component shutting down?

 

[joex444]

So far this only sounds like the anti-malware software segfaulted. Meaning the authors wrote bad code. It's unusual to assume that it found malware and then crashed trying to remove it or crashed upon detecting it, or that there's some power supply issue correlated with running this particular software. (Though it is true that stressing a PC puts a strain on the PSU and if the PSU is weak/old it may give up, causing the PC to suddenly reboot. In this case your PC should crash/reboot faster if you ran a Prime95 Torture test with a GPU torture test at the same time.)

Here's an idea. Download a Linux live ISO, like Ubuntu, put it on a flash drive (software like YUMI would do that if you need a suggestion), then disconnect all your hard drives. Now boot the Linux live USB stick and see how long you can last. If it stays on for days and days, which Linux can easily do, then you don't have a PSU problem.

 

[stereoeggs]

which anti-malware?
i do not thing is a psu issue ..but which psu brand/model you have

Anti-malware is Bitdefender Rescue CD.

PSU is Seasonic X-1050 ( SS-1050XM2 ) 1050W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply New 4th Gen CPU Certified Haswell Ready.

 

[stereoeggs]

Describe the crashing.

Is it a blue screen of death? Black screen w/ components still running? Black screen with component shutting down?

Out of dozens of crashes (literally), only 2 or 3 times my screen went black with components still running.

With all of the other crashes, power to the motherboard shuts off (without powering down in an orderly fashion) and the screen of my monitor turns blue, stating "No Signal."

 

[badboyrog2]

hardwares drivers corrupted i guess or master boot record of the HDD ..somes virus can destroy your entire pc
i guess a new windows installation will be require or try reinstal the drivers gpu sound card or else??

 

[stereoeggs]

hardwares drivers corrupted i guess or master boot record of the HDD ..somes virus can destroy your entire pc
i guess a new windows installation will be require or try reinstal the drivers gpu sound card or else??

Thanks for your response. I'm wondering if this additional information might change your analysis....

If/when my computer stays "on" long enough, Windows will start up and I can even start playing a game or get onto the Internet. I have been trying to use an anti-malware rescue disk in an attempt to find any malware or viruses that might be causing the crashing.

However, whatever I am doing, my computer usually crashes in less than 5 minutes after turning it on, but sometimes stays on for about 30 minutes before crashing. Do you still think this is a software/malware problem rather than a failing power supply?

 

[badboyrog2]

your psu is a very very high quality psu ...but its possible your psu is tired a bit ..can you try with a friend s psu?

 

[stereoeggs]

your psu is a very very high quality psu ...but its possible your psu is tired a bit ..can you try with a friend s psu?

To try another PSU, I would have to purchase another PSU. Might there be any other way to do some "diagnosing" before I buy a replacement component?

I'm very much willing to buy a new PSU or other component to get my computer going again. If possible, I would just like to feel that the component I would be buying is most likely the cause of my computer repeatedly crashing.

At this point, do you feel the crashing is not likely due to a virus or piece of malware? Do you feel the crashing is most likely due to a failing PSU?

Here is some additional information:

After every crash, my ASUS board (Dr. Power turned "on") lights an LED which supposedly indicates a "loss of power/power failure" to the motherboard, but some seem to think that these LEDs are not always "reliable/accurate."

Using the BIOS and software, I have never noticed excessive temperatures with the CPU, mobo, GPU, or SSDs. (I'm not sure if RAM temp is monitored.)

On only two occasions (two to four weeks ago), I noticed something I have never seen before or since: a relatively small red box that appeared in the lower-right corner of my screen which said "Warning" and "+12 v" or "+12 volts" – I'm not absolutely sure that there was a "+" before the "12," as the warning sign disappeared after only 1 or 2 seconds, leaving me a bit clueless as to what the warning was about. (Would you happen to know?)

As you can probably tell, I am not very technically proficient with these matters.

 

[badboyrog2]

download this software here
https://www.piriform.com/speccy/download

put somes informations here to help to diagnose the problem , but do not trust the voltages with this software..

to know the real mesure of voltages you need to go in the bios


use the ''ctrl'' 'alt' 'del' buttons on keyboard to go to task manager and see if your cpu run at 100% and wich program run the cpu like that

 

[stereoeggs]

Thanks for all the help, tips, and advice.

After a lot of time and thought, I decided to take the plunge and buy a new power supply so that I could verify whether or not my original one was faulty. After I put in the new power supply, my computer stopped crashing and everything has been running smoothly. So...it was a faulty power supply that was causing the problems.

Thanks, again, for your responses.