smx.exe and explorer.exe failures:

[Waaib]

Hi All,
Advice required on how to start troubleshooting.

I have a laptop with WinXP SP3 and all other updates installed.

It recently started giving errors that smc.exe and explorer.exe have to shutdown and cannot restart. This happens when I leave the PC for a few hours and it goes to screensaver. When I come back there are about 50 smc.exe error boxes and one explorer box.

smc.exe is the firewall. I have to run Symantec because it is a work PC.

I'm not sure where to start looking for the error. I've re-installed Symantec already.

It also seems to have a memory issue. Sometimes when working for a while the PC 'goes haywire'. Apps wont close, the mouse wont right click, I get 'memory allocation' errors. If I shutdown and reboot then everything works fine for a few hours again.

It all started about a week ago.

Any help appreciated.

 

[Turiko]

Sounds like a a new malware doing the rounds- I had on my PC a month or two ago. It also kept throwing these errors. I removed said malware and I've never seen this problem since.

 

[Waaib]

Malware ... how to detect and remove?

 

[HavocXphere]

Start by downloading spybot.

If you think its a legit memory issue then download memtest86+

 

[fxit_man]

try Ad Aware

 

[Waaib]

windows malicious software remove tool - no good?

 

[Turiko]

Unfortunatley not.

Download HijackThis and post the results.

 

[Waaib]

Decided to do a fresh install and take it from there.