Bad PC news

I started up my PC today and opened up a bunch of things at once. I opened on Firefox, which has a tab restored to show a video. It had a lot of extensions, namely one that is not on the Firefox store. I also opened up Spotify, which was modded with Spicetify to look cool (which sometimes can be glitchy). If relevant, Windhawk and Sticky Notes were two startup apps but considering I opened them up dozens of times, what happened as described in the following paragraph is likely not their fault.

So I started up the PC specifically because I wanted to go on the AI Dungeon website to read all my AI stories one last time before I deleted them one by one and I deleted one story on the iPad before realizing it'd be easier to do on PC like with Character.ai. However, the video that was playing on the screen stopped loading and went to a green screen. Shit. Then random artifacts showed up, not just on the video screen but outside of it. It was scary. My computer started lagging and the PC made the sound it makes when it overheats. So I closed Firefox, and maybe a few other things, but closing Firefox stopped it.

I knew I had to do something fast. I checked if I had a system restore point. I did not. So I provided 1% of my storage to system restore points but I'll have to check if that's even enough because that's 18 GB. I also installed MalwareBytes and did a system scan (which accidentally got cancelled).

I then opened Google Chrome on guest mode. Nothing bad happened. So, since I didn't install pretty much anything on either Windows or Firefox besides the GAOMON app I have to keep uninstalling and reinstalling for every restart, I assumed the problem was that I opened the AI Dungeon website, a site I haven't visited on PC in years. So, because my settings have Firefox's tabs open as usual every time I open it up, I thought I had to find a way to open Firefox without those tabs starting. It was hard to understand.

I opened up Firefox again. Bad mistake. The same stuff happened, and the screen flashed to black sometimes, and I heard beeping noises. Shit. Luckily, spamming the close button on Firefox actually worked and Firefox closed. I scanned with MalwareBytes again and it found 101 PUPs (potentially unwanted programs)... all in the Chrome local data folder(s). Huh. I deleted those, scanned again, and it found nothing else.

I opened up Firefox a third time, and luckily, nothing weird happened before I closed the AI Dungeon tab for good. Didn't even have to restart, which, now that I think about it, maybe I should.

After that, I uninstalled the aforementioned app not in the Firefox store in fear the app has been hacked, disabled all but three extensions on Firefox, and added AI Dungeon to a list of blocked websites on the PC. The three extensions are Website Blocker, uBlock Origin, and OneTab.

I'll have to restart the PC, or at least shut it down when I go to sleep. But idk if this error is gonna pop up again, considering it happened so early in startup. Perhaps the PC was overwhelmed? Or maybe it overheated too much? (I've been hearing the overheating sound in places where it shouldn't be making that sound). Might have to back up some stuff.

Best case scenario, that was a fluke and I should be fine for the foreseeable future.

Medium case scenario, the PC needs a cleanup. I know it needs it. But I don't know how and I don't trust myself or anyone I know to do it (the tech people in my family live out of state) and my house is definitely not ready to have a PC being cleaned by someone. My safest bet is Geek Squad.

Worst case scenario, even with a cleanup, the PC is doomed.