AI Suite 3 won't go away!

[Ken429]

I made the mistake of installing AI Suite 3 on my Hero VII/2700X Windows 10 system. After several crashes and the need to Clear CMOS to get the system to boot I eagerly tried to uninstall the beast. All seemed to be OK until I started looking at the stuff remaining in Task Manager>Services. I think I have managed to get rid of all the leftovers except the "AsusUpdateCheck.exe". When I disable it in Services.msc and delete the file in the System32 directory it comes right the next time I boot.

I have deleted everything I can find that relates to the AI Suite 3 in the Program, Program(x86) and Program Data folders. Obviously, I missing something! Help would be appreciated. Is there an ASUS or third party program that will kill this thing?!

[R5Eandme]

Ken429 wrote:
I made the mistake of installing AI Suite 3 on my Hero VII/2700X Windows 10 system. After several crashes and the need to Clear CMOS to get the system to boot I eagerly tried to uninstall the beast. All seemed to be OK until I started looking at the stuff remaining in Task Manager>Services. I think I have managed to get rid of all the leftovers except the "AsusUpdateCheck.exe". When I disable it in Services.msc and delete the file in the System32 directory it comes right the next time I boot.

I have deleted everything I can find that relates to the AI Suite 3 in the Program, Program(x86) and Program Data folders. Obviously, I missing something! Help would be appreciated. Is there an ASUS or third party program that will kill this thing?!

Hello Ken429,

I unistalled AI Suite 3 and that file does not persist. See this TechPowerUp article, the problem may be related to ASUS Armoury Crate, and you have to disable that to keep the exe from coming back on reboot: https://www.techpowerup.com/248827/asus-z390-motherboards-automatically-push-software-into-your-wind...

Strangely you may have to disable Armory Crate from within UEFI BIOS menu options, according to this article!

I wouldn't use Armoury Crate, it is or was apparently a security risk, see post

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?109912-Trojanised-Hacked-Asus-LiveUpdate-(Armory-crate-)

Also see this from www.file.net:



The fact that ASUSUpdateCheck returns after reboot could be suspicious in that some malware has redundant components that restore deleted components. Note the paragraph "Important: Some malware camouflages itself as ASUSUpdateChecker.exe, particularly when located in the C:\Windows or C:\Windows\System32 folder. Therefore, you should check the ASUSUpdateChecker.exe process on your PC to see if it is a threat. " Even though File.net has slightly different spelling ("Checker") it may be the same issue discussed in the above posts. Armory Crate/Live Update was compromised. You may want to do some deep scanning just for peace of mind. You can start by uploading your ASUSUpdateCheck.exe file to Virus Total for analysis by up to 70 scan engines. This is a Google service. https://www.virustotal.com/#/home/upload

[Ken429]

Thanks for the response and information. I've visited several of these pages looking for a solution to my "problem". Unfortunately nothing makes sense. I let Google review the AsusUpdateCheck.exe file that keeps reappearing in the Windows/System32 folder and no virus was detected. I've also looked in the BiOS for any reference to my issue but come up empty! I am not using a laptop and I am not aware of installing any strange program(s) other than AI Suite 3 stuff. I am using the ROG Hero VII MB with the latest 2203 BIOS.

If there is a setting somewhere in the BIOS, I sure could use a little help locating it! I'm about to take the ultimate step and restore a version of W10 prior to playing with AI Suite 3. But...based on the information in the above links I may be just going through an exercise of futility.

[Ken429]

I STAND CORRECTED! I looked at system backups from long before I met AI Suite 3 and the AsusUpdateCheck.exe program is in the Windows/System32 folder! I have several other desktop systems with ASRock X370 and Z97 MB's and of course there are not any Asus services present. So it ain't AI Suite 3 and it is Asus MB related. Help is still needed trying to rationalize what is going on if anything. Seems as though Asus likes to generate mystery services.

[R5Eandme]

Ken429 wrote:
I STAND CORRECTED! I looked at system backups from long before I met AI Suite 3 and the AsusUpdateCheck.exe program is in the Windows/System32 folder! I have several other desktop systems with ASRock X370 and Z97 MB's and of course there are not any Asus services present. So it ain't AI Suite 3 and it is Asus MB related. Help is still needed trying to rationalize what is going on if anything. Seems as though Asus likes to generate mystery services.

Hi Ken429.

Glad that VirusTotal scans are clean on your ASUSUpdateCheck.exe file. Maybe the most likely explanation is the one in that TechPowerUp article: ASUS Armoury Crate or Live Update is loaded from BIOS to the OS during boot, and executed there. I have not encountered these my particular BIOS yet, but it might be worth time diving deep into the BIOS menus especially Tools. You could look at Windows Services list to see if one of them is running. Something is putting that file back after reboot, something probably from ASUS. If there is no evidence it is coming from an ASUS program, it would not hurt to run deep malware scans, although it sounds like an ASUS issue.

[Ken429]

I can't believe I'm the only guy with an Asus MB that has stumbled into the AsusUpdateCheck.exe file that reappears at each boot. There is a thread on Ten Forums where the conclusion reached was it must be the BIOS putting AsusUpdateCheck.exe in the Windows System32 folder and Asus wants to keep it a secret?!! It's strange that there is so much chatter/information on this file with no real conclusion on where it came from. Anyway, it's not causing me any issues, at least that I'm aware of, so I'll go away or maybe I should post this "mystery" under a different heading since it has nothing to do with AI Suite 3 .

[R5Eandme]

Ken429 wrote:
I can't believe I'm the only guy with an Asus MB that has stumbled into the AsusUpdateCheck.exe file that reappears at each boot. There is a thread on Ten Forums where the conclusion reached was it must be the BIOS putting AsusUpdateCheck.exe in the Windows System32 folder and Asus wants to keep it a secret?!! It's strange that there is so much chatter/information on this file with no real conclusion on where it came from. Anyway, it's not causing me any issues, at least that I'm aware of, so I'll go away or maybe I should post this "mystery" under a different heading since it has nothing to do with AI Suite 3 .

Maybe it is a good idea to move the post to software with a different heading, like "AsusUpdateCheck.exe reappears after reboot" or something. Surely others have this issue and are unaware. It would bother me if I couldn't find an explanation.

[Ken429]

Done.