Infected with something, I'm sure.

[Cy Perish]

First off, I'm using Windows XP, I Have an old AMD 3500 I think it is... Like 2ghz or something... 2 gigs of RAM across 3 sticks (1gig and two 512 sticks).
At first I came to the conclusion my hard-drive was just on it's last limb and about to give, but a friend says it's a possible software issue. I use Firefox, nothing else. I'm not getting any error messages about stuff. Though when I try to restart into Safe-Mode, there's 2 things that'll say could not "End Now" properly. First is avp.exe and Explorer.exe

That pretty much cover's the info you guys request on my spec's and what not.

The basic problem is, I'm sure I have some kind of spyware, virus, malware or what have you. The first sign was when I did a random scan because I started getting pop ups while visiting a few select sites, typically with Myspace.com 80% of the time. Something that came up in the report was something with the name like "Iamsuper" or "Iamawesome"... Something like that, and it happened to be in the Firefox dir.
I think I got it out because it never showed up in my future reports. But after that scan, a couple weird things happened to my browser. First, any foreign languages turned into Blocks of numbers such as 22/84.. Almost as if the font was deleted from my computer. And also, half of the time I went to view any kind of quicktime movie, I was taken to fake 'scan your computer for virus now!' sites. Sadly, I think I waited too long to do anything, because now when I boot up, It's hit and miss if everything even loads up and my computer just freezes. I'll click on something that actually did load up, then it'll act like it's not responding. I get my internet wirelessly on my desktop from our house network, and when I unscrew the antenna, I generally have a couple minutes to go to msconfig or something to boot to safe mode... Other than that, programs freeze, or I can't click anything. I've downloaded malwarebytes and will be doing a scan after this post, but if this is something deeper than just a quick fix done by a scan, then I'd love to know. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[Cy Perish]

My bad, I meant to put this in the spyware section. Sorry!

[Cy Perish]

Well, after trying to load into safe mode with networking just like this site suggested, my computer no longer even boots into any form of safe mode.

Awesome. =/

[Joey]

I agree, your problem does seem to have reached the advanced stages and is severe. There is 1 other virus/spyware/malware  removal method that is a bit advanced I use at work. If you do not care about losing any data you have on your computer then just skip down to the last paragraph.

 What I do is open up the computer case, remove the hard drive and place it into what is called an External Enclosure. Here is the one I use at work http://www.amazon.com/Vantec-Nst-360U2-Bl-Nexstar-External-Enclosure/dp/B0009HMT9Y/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1235604348&sr=8-2
With the enclosure it will be recognized similar to a portable USB stick. You can plug it into any Windows XP or Vista computer. I recommend plugging it to a computer that has Kaspersky or nod32 installed and performing a Full/Thorough scan. Then backing up any valuable data to that computer. After the scan is complete reinstall the hard drive back in your case/computer. See if it starts up correctly. If it does not then you will have to perform a complete system recovery.

Worst case scenario is that you have to perform a full system recovery. You will lose any/all data you have on your computer. The good news is that after the full system recover your computer will be like brand new again, as fast as the day you purchased it. To perform a full recovery you must use the original manufacturer’s recovery discs that came with your computer. Sometimes by just pressing one of the, “F” keys it will perform it automatically without any disks (all the data is stored in a hidden space on your hard drive). Whatever your brand is, visit the manufacturer’s website and search for the manual. It will tell you the exact recovery procedures. If you lost your recovery discs most manufacturer’s offer then online for a small fee.
If the computer was custom built you need to use a Windows XP CD. Install Windows XP again using that.

[Cy Perish]

My computer is custom built. I haven't done anything technical since High School when I took some Cisco Systems classes and A+...
Sadly, I'll be losing about 9 years of music I've produced and various projects I'd been working on... But it's alright. Hard lesson learned for pirating software, heh.

I think my computer is due for a full cleaning anyways. Thanks for the help.

[Joey]

You do not need to lose any data. Just follow my instructions above and remove the hard drive and place it into an external enclosure. Then plug it into another computer. All your files will be available and the other computer will see it like a giant USB drive.

Do a full Windows install from scratch. In case you get any ideas to install Vista I highly recommend that you stay with Windows XP on that computer.

[AwesomeSause]

I would definitely say that this is severe considering that Explorer.exe handles all your files and folders, and on the other hand avp.exe is the kaspersky setup, which probably means that kaspersky has been turned off. One problem could be that you downloaded kaspersky from an unsafe site. If not that you have some other kind of virus/malware/spyware (most likely in this case virus).

[lilu]

thanx for info, guys..