Desktop toolbars and icons blinking on and off

  • Thread starter Thread starter howarya46
  • Start date Start date
H

howarya46

An earlier question about this that I posted was answered rudely. So I'll
make a second attempt with more info.

Our DSL has been off for the last couple of weeks and our PC has been doing
fine. No new virus warnings during that time and no strange behavior. As of
yesterday, DSL is back on and now the icons and the toolbars on the desktop
continuously disappear, then reappear every ten seconds or so. I originally
thought that it was only happening on my side of the PC but my sons side is
doing it as well. Applications run fine but you don't have time to open any
file folder before everything drops off the screen, taking everything with
it. The CPU meter spikes to 100% everytime the missing items reappear so if
you're using a CPU intensive program it stops cold. I did a system restore
but it still does the same thing. The desktop background does go anywhere
though. My son keeps insisting that explorer.exe is the culprit and although
running it immediately brings everything back up it only lasts a moment. I
also tried all this in safe mode for what its worth.

What the heck is going on?
 
howarya46 said:
An earlier question about this that I posted was answered rudely. So I'll
make a second attempt with more info.

Our DSL has been off for the last couple of weeks and our PC has been doing
fine. No new virus warnings during that time and no strange behavior. As of
yesterday, DSL is back on and now the icons and the toolbars on the desktop
continuously disappear, then reappear every ten seconds or so. I originally
thought that it was only happening on my side of the PC but my sons side is
doing it as well. Applications run fine but you don't have time to open any
file folder before everything drops off the screen, taking everything with
it. The CPU meter spikes to 100% everytime the missing items reappear so if
you're using a CPU intensive program it stops cold. I did a system restore
but it still does the same thing. The desktop background does go anywhere
though. My son keeps insisting that explorer.exe is the culprit and although
running it immediately brings everything back up it only lasts a moment. I
also tried all this in safe mode for what its worth.

What the heck is going on?
Click to expand...

Since you mentioned the Internet was OFF for a couple of weeks (I assume on
holiday), that mean your Anti-virus and windows are hungry for updates,
beside other applications may also need to updates, hence the Disappear and
the High spike of the CPU usage. But I/we cannot be certain that this is the
whole scenario and nothing else on this machine, so please run through these
cleaning steps.
Follow these steps and then send your Log file to one of many forums for
Hijackthis, some of them listed below:
Go through these Cleaning steps:
1... Click start >> Control Panel >> Double Click Network and Internet
Connections >> Double click Internet Options, on the IE Properties window
you will see these Options:
General | Security | Privacy | Content | Connections | Programs
| Advanced .

Click on General Tab (1st Tab on the left) and you will see a Button called
[ Clear History ..] click on it to clear your History caches, then click on
[Delete Files..] to delete Internet Files created over the time, click on [
Delete Cookies...] to delete your cookies left by visiting websites.

Then click on Advanced tab and scroll down to under the Browsing Option:
[&] Browsing
[ ] Enable Third-Party browser extensions (Req Rest) uncheck this box.
= Then try to Disable the Add-Ons on your Browser somehow installed on your
browser, On how to disable the Add-ons follow this:
Click on Programs Tab and then click the Manage Add-Ons Button there Disable
the None/Not Verified Plug-ins/Add-ons ( you need to Renable them one-by-one
later and see which is the culprit .
How to manage Add-Ons:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883256
Scan for malware from here:
SuperAntispyware - Free
http://www.superantispyware.com/superantispywarefreevspro.html
RootkitRevealer v1.71
By Bryce Cogswell and Mark Russinovich
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Security/RootkitRevealer.mspx

Run a scan from here on-line:
http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/default.asp?langid=ie&venid=sym
http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/virusinfo/scan.aspx
Download Avast Cleaner (off-line scanner) from here:
http://www.avast.com/eng/avast-virus-cleaner.html

Lots of tools to download and disinfect your machine (off-line scanner):
http://www.bitdefender.co.uk/site/Downloads/browseFreeRemovalTool/

After the scan run disk clean-up on your drive then defrag and run this
command:
sfc /scannow click [Ok] and let it run.

Open a Notepad, customize or minimize to the taskbar as you will need it
later for this step to copy the error message on it.
Open a run command and type in:
eventvwr.msc click [OK] you will get the Event viewer control Panel.
click on each of these:
Application
System
Security
Look in the right Pane/window for error message with red (X) or Yellow
exclamation mark /!\ , double click each one to get more info about the
causer.
On the Event error properties message you will see:
Up Arrow
Down arrow
Two pages
Click on the two pages to copy the error message then bring up the Notepad
you opened earlier and right click on the first line and select Paste from
the list, this will paste the error message on a Notepad.
Please don't duplicate the error message one of each kind will be sufficient.
HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427/en-us

It will help you to both identify and remove any hijackware/spyware. Post
your log to
http://www.merijn.org/index.php
http://aumha.net/viewforum.php?f=30,
http://castlecops.com/forum67.html,
http://forums.subratam.org/index.php?showforum=7, or other appropriate
forums for expert analysis, not here.

Let us know your progress.
nass
 
I also have blinking icons.
During this I found these programs running.
isass.exe
winlogin.exe
svchost.exe system
explor.exe Ron
taskmg.exe
dthtml.exe
csrss.exe
system
system idle process
It seems like the icons that are windows type are the ones blinking. What
can I do to cure this? All programs show about 0-5 % useage of the cpu but,
system idle which is 98 % but, each varies with in one or two percent.
Ron B.

nass said:
howarya46 said:
An earlier question about this that I posted was answered rudely. So I'll
make a second attempt with more info.

Our DSL has been off for the last couple of weeks and our PC has been doing
fine. No new virus warnings during that time and no strange behavior. As of
yesterday, DSL is back on and now the icons and the toolbars on the desktop
continuously disappear, then reappear every ten seconds or so. I originally
thought that it was only happening on my side of the PC but my sons side is
doing it as well. Applications run fine but you don't have time to open any
file folder before everything drops off the screen, taking everything with
it. The CPU meter spikes to 100% everytime the missing items reappear so if
you're using a CPU intensive program it stops cold. I did a system restore
but it still does the same thing. The desktop background does go anywhere
though. My son keeps insisting that explorer.exe is the culprit and although
running it immediately brings everything back up it only lasts a moment. I
also tried all this in safe mode for what its worth.

What the heck is going on?
Click to expand...

Since you mentioned the Internet was OFF for a couple of weeks (I assume on
holiday), that mean your Anti-virus and windows are hungry for updates,
beside other applications may also need to updates, hence the Disappear and
the High spike of the CPU usage. But I/we cannot be certain that this is the
whole scenario and nothing else on this machine, so please run through these
cleaning steps.
Follow these steps and then send your Log file to one of many forums for
Hijackthis, some of them listed below:
Go through these Cleaning steps:
1... Click start >> Control Panel >> Double Click Network and Internet
Connections >> Double click Internet Options, on the IE Properties window
you will see these Options:
General | Security | Privacy | Content | Connections | Programs
| Advanced .

Click on General Tab (1st Tab on the left) and you will see a Button called
[ Clear History ..] click on it to clear your History caches, then click on
[Delete Files..] to delete Internet Files created over the time, click on [
Delete Cookies...] to delete your cookies left by visiting websites.

Then click on Advanced tab and scroll down to under the Browsing Option:
[&] Browsing
[ ] Enable Third-Party browser extensions (Req Rest) uncheck this box.
= Then try to Disable the Add-Ons on your Browser somehow installed on your
browser, On how to disable the Add-ons follow this:
Click on Programs Tab and then click the Manage Add-Ons Button there Disable
the None/Not Verified Plug-ins/Add-ons ( you need to Renable them one-by-one
later and see which is the culprit .
How to manage Add-Ons:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883256
Scan for malware from here:
SuperAntispyware - Free
http://www.superantispyware.com/superantispywarefreevspro.html
RootkitRevealer v1.71
By Bryce Cogswell and Mark Russinovich
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Security/RootkitRevealer.mspx

Run a scan from here on-line:
http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/default.asp?langid=ie&venid=sym
http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/virusinfo/scan.aspx
Download Avast Cleaner (off-line scanner) from here:
http://www.avast.com/eng/avast-virus-cleaner.html

Lots of tools to download and disinfect your machine (off-line scanner):
http://www.bitdefender.co.uk/site/Downloads/browseFreeRemovalTool/

After the scan run disk clean-up on your drive then defrag and run this
command:
sfc /scannow click [Ok] and let it run.

Open a Notepad, customize or minimize to the taskbar as you will need it
later for this step to copy the error message on it.
Open a run command and type in:
eventvwr.msc click [OK] you will get the Event viewer control Panel.
click on each of these:
Application
System
Security
Look in the right Pane/window for error message with red (X) or Yellow
exclamation mark /!\ , double click each one to get more info about the
causer.
On the Event error properties message you will see:
Up Arrow
Down arrow
Two pages
Click on the two pages to copy the error message then bring up the Notepad
you opened earlier and right click on the first line and select Paste from
the list, this will paste the error message on a Notepad.
Please don't duplicate the error message one of each kind will be sufficient.
HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427/en-us

It will help you to both identify and remove any hijackware/spyware. Post
your log to
http://www.merijn.org/index.php
http://aumha.net/viewforum.php?f=30,
http://castlecops.com/forum67.html,
http://forums.subratam.org/index.php?showforum=7, or other appropriate
forums for expert analysis, not here.

Let us know your progress.
nass
Click to expand...
 
Frequently it's your antivirus scanning it that is causing the problem.
Check the forum for your AV.
 
Did you every get a reply?

I am having the same problem.

randy.sigler(@)gmail(dot)com
Click to expand...

What anti-virus system do you have installed? I noticed this
"flashing" occuring when I was using McAfee VirusScan with its default
Virus "shield" settings of all files. This caused the Desktop and
toolbars to always be scanned / refreshed (a PAIN!) However, this was
"years ago" and I have since stopped using any McAfee version.
 
What anti-virus system do you have installed? I noticed this
"flashing" occuring when I was using McAfee VirusScan with its default
Virus "shield" settings of all files. This caused the Desktop and
toolbars to always be scanned / refreshed (a PAIN!) However, this was
"years ago" and I have since stopped using any McAfee version.
Click to expand...

I experience the same issue since yesterday - might have got it after
visiting a torrent site
I ran some antivirus and anti-spyware applications and it still does
not resolve the issue.
seems like the explorer.exe process shuts down and restarts all the
time which causes the desktop UI to disappear and reappear every few
seconds up to a few minutes
note: because the issue is in the explorer.exe , other applications
that are open do not blink
 
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