[minteapokesloth]

Hello, new to this forum. Not entirely sure whether this is the right subforum since I'm not sure whether it is a virus or not, sorry.

 

 

In short - dllhost.exe in task manager seemed to eat up all my memory (I had 10GB free) and make my computer extremely slow. I opened safe mode, freed up space, and have had no issues since. I need to know whether this was a normal problem with not having enough free space or whether it was caused by a virus.

 

 

Not so short -

I read that if the dllhost.exe file is in system 32 it's fine. I searched my computer for dllhosts and found 1 in system 32 and 3 others. Is it normal to have more than 1 of these? If not, I guess these are viruses?

 

Here are the file locations:

 

C:\Windows\System32

C:\Windows\SysWOW64

C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-com-surrogate_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_43fa44d954d596e7

C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-com-surrogate_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_a018e05d0d33081d

 

 

I had a problem with a dllhost.exe file, but now I have no issues at all, so I'm unsure whether I'm infected or not.

 

 

What happened to make me think I might be infected:

Yesterday I was on youtube and got a message urging me to close chrome down because of too much memory use. I did, then reopened chrome, and got the same message. I closed it down again and my computer was running slower. I clicked a video in one of my folders to play and it played fine. I closed the video down and all the thumbnails were blank and my computer was very slow. (I don't know if these were blank before or after clicking the video.) I opened task manager and dllhost.exe with description com surrogate was using up a lot of memory. I checked my main drive's free space (C drive) and it was on around 1GB - before this it was on around 10GB. I then closed everything down and then was no longer able to open anything. After searching (on my phone) I found that there is a virus which calls itself dllhost.exe which does this.

 

What I did to solve my problem:

I went into safe mode and deleted many files from my main drive (C drive.) There were no issues in safe mode. I then restarted the computer and since then I have had no problems whatsoever. I haven't even seen dllhost.exe in task manager since.

 

Why I think it might not be a virus (though unsure) :

I scanned these 4 dllhost files with microsoft security essentials and AVG and no threats were found.

Everything is running perfectly fine as though there never was a problem.

The common dllhost virus issue I read in other forums was about multiple dllhost.exe *32 com surrogates in task manager. This was just 1 single dllhost.exe com surrogate in task manager. without the *32.

 

 

 

 

 

One thing aside from just to make sure which makes me think this might be a virus is that after freeing up space on my main drive I had around 32GB free space on it. That was yesterday and today, when I booted my computer, I found the drive was now on 24GB, and have no idea where this went.

 

 

So...

Is it possible for my issue to happen without a virus causing it? - could this simply have been a case of having low memory and my computer trying to do something which required more memory than was available, resulting in this?

Is having 4 dllhost.exe files normal and safe? Are these definitely viruses or is there a chance that they are legit files?

Is this overnight loss of GB normal? Could this be being used for temporary things, or is this a bad sign?

 

 

 

Thank you, anybody who can answer any of this. I'm either in great need of help or great need to know my computer is fine.

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Hi, to determine whether or not this is a problem I will need to take a quick look at the system

Please download Farbar Recovery Scan Tool and save it to your Desktop.

Note: You need to run the version compatible with your system. If you are not sure which version applies to your system download both of them and try to run them. Only one of them will run on your system, that will be the right version.

• Right click to run as administrator (XP users click run after receipt of Windows Security Warning - Open File). When the tool opens click Yes to disclaimer.
• Select additions at the bottom
• Press Scan button.
  
• It will produce a log called FRST.txt in the same directory the tool is run from.
• Please attach both logs generated.

THEN

Download aswMBR.exe ( 4.5mb ) to your desktop.
Double click the aswMBR.exe to run it.
You may be offered the option of using virtualisation, accept that
When it offers to download the virus database allow that as well
Click the "Scan" button to start scan




On completion of the scan click save log, save it to your desktop and post in your next reply

[Essexboy]

Hi, to determine whether or not this is a problem I will need to take a quick look at the system

Please download Farbar Recovery Scan Tool and save it to your Desktop.

Note: You need to run the version compatible with your system. If you are not sure which version applies to your system download both of them and try to run them. Only one of them will run on your system, that will be the right version.

• Right click to run as administrator (XP users click run after receipt of Windows Security Warning - Open File). When the tool opens click Yes to disclaimer.
• Select additions at the bottom
• Press Scan button.
  
• It will produce a log called FRST.txt in the same directory the tool is run from.
• Please attach both logs generated.

THEN

Download aswMBR.exe ( 4.5mb ) to your desktop.
Double click the aswMBR.exe to run it.
You may be offered the option of using virtualisation, accept that
When it offers to download the virus database allow that as well
Click the "Scan" button to start scan




On completion of the scan click save log, save it to your desktop and post in your next reply

[Essexboy]

Due to lack of feedback, this topic has been closed.

If you need this topic reopened, please contact a staff member. This applies only to the original topic starter. Everyone else please begin a New Topic.