dabe

Join Date 09/2003

Is this a virus?

I have a major problem. I will be working with my computer, then all of a sudden, the thing just freezes up. Completely. It's not my mouse battery, which of course is the first thing I checked. My computer becomes so frozen, as in everything, that the only way to get it functional is to unplug it. I've tried the reset button, but that just reboots my computer into a frozen state.

A friend of mine suggested that maybe it's a virus or trojan. How do I figure which one? I run Norton, and my definitions are always up to date. I run ad-aware almost every day. My Norton is about to expire, and I'm thinking of trying one of the free virus packages, like AVG. It's supposed to be great, and $50 for Norton is absurd, IMHO. Any suggestions? I'd love to hear some of you computer guru experiences. TIA

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It could be a number of things.

1. does it lockup or is it hug?

When it seems to *freeze*, if you hit the caps lock or num lock do the LED's on the key board turn off and on?

If they do it is hug and could be a driver conflit, virus, browser high jack or some other neferious thing doing it.

If they do not, it could be the above but I would lean more to a hardware issue first and look to make sure the ram is seated tightly and that all cable connections are correctly snug and seated.

One thing you should do is run Spybot Search and Destroy version 1.3 with its updates. SpyGuard is another freeware *donation ware* app which I would also run.

thats just my opinion and I am sure there will be more....

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What happens when you unplug it then plug it back in? Does it boot normally? My first thought might be flaky ram. If you unplug it then plug it back two things happen, one the ram is completely cleared and two the temp drops. That is my second thought, that it is a heat issue. If Norton is up to date, I seriously doubt that a virus or trojan could have gotten on it with Norton on.
I love Avg. It's free and has saved my computer several times. Another two you should get(they are free) is Ad-aware and Spybot Search and destroy. Both are great in detecting spy-aware that could "freeze" your computer.

Unfortunately if you have had to "unplug" your computer several times, the files may be now fragmented.

If this os is Xp, defrag your hard drive. This may help with the computer that is continuous having to be rebooted.

What is your os and the type of notebook you have?
Ladysarajane

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Heat was one of my thoughts, also. I have a really old mobo, 440BX, on a Dell that is about ten years old. So, it doesn't have heat monitoring capability.

Flaky RAM never occurred to me, though I've had the same problem in the past. I replaced some RAM about five years ago, and increased it by adding another 256mb a year ago. I suppose that's a possibility.

I think I'm going to try AVG. I think it really sucks that Norton charges so much money. They can keep their product, even if it is good. It's good to hear that you have good success with it. That's encouraging.

I have ad-aware, and spy-bot S&D. I keep them up to date and run them routinely. I also just ran the EasyCleaner reg cleaner. Maybe that will help.

Software conflict also comes to mind, but I don't know how I'm gonna resolve that one. I thought about this. I download lots of stuff from www.majorgeeks.com, and one recent one seemed to maybe cause the problem, so I deleted it. But now it's happening again, so that wasn't it. The only other software that I can think of is Object Desktop products, but why all of a sudden would that cause problems, when it hasn't in the past.

I keep going back to the heat issue. Maybe I'll start with opening the box and cleaning out all the dust, dirt and dog fur.

Thanks for your inputs. Keepin' my fingers crossed......

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Well, the first thing I thought of when you wrote that was a Trojan or a butt load of spy-ware.

I am sure there are allot of free solutions, if your computer stays up long enough I think you can even go on-line to some sites and they can check you computer... I think I remember Norton doing that.

Anyway, I think you computer is past the point of using free stuff though. Your going to have to invest in a fully loaded virus checker.

I did and my computer does not do what yours does anymore. (Especially running certain programs.)

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Older mobo...bad news. I had an old desktop that froze then rebooted. Then it couldn't find files .dlls etc. Even after a clean install. Turned out it was the power supply. Since yours is not rebooting on it's own, I don't think it is the power supply. I really think it might be heat or the ram. When you clean it, make sure you reseat the ram.
Avg I have good results with. It's caught several Trojan's for me and helped me to delete them. One thing to remember on that is to turn off system restore to all drives when eliminating the problem on an XP system. Otherwise the problem stays on the drive in system restore.

I forgot that the first time, I needed to eliminate a problem.

Dog fur.....sounds like me! I have four large pooches!

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well there's 1
When I get a problem like this, I just Unplug and Replug My Computer.

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HG_Eliminator

Join Date 07/2002

+354

avg beats the heck out of nortons and its free..

heat.

cmos battery..(they tend to be the last thing checked .. but the first thing to die) ....

power supply

take out 1 ram card... run it .. if it freezes .. take out that ram card and try the other .. if it still freezes its unlikely a ram issue .

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Although a trojan or a hijacking is always possible, I'm thinking of another problem...impending HD failure. My computer did this exact same thing periodically, and then more and more. I began to suspect HDD failure when I ruled out just about every other possible cause, I had a Maxtor HDD and I downloaded thier HD diagnostic utility which confirmed exactly what I had suspected. "Hard drivd failure is immenant. Back-up now!" I never had the chance to do a full and proper backup when one day my PC froze and I unplugged and tried to reboot, and...nothing. Could never access the HD again. Check your HD manufacturers website for a diagnostic utility. Also, what kind of system event notifications are you getting? You may want to look at that. However, in case this is a trojan or a hijacking , run any antivurus checker yhou have and make sure you include a bootscan with it. (By the way, Ive been using AVG free version for about 3 years now, and its just wonderful! ) Another couple of freebies u can try to see if youve been hijacked are: CWS shredder (the authors website is down right now, but you can download from here
http://www.krone.at/index.php?http://www2.krone.at/freezone/internet_tools/freezone_download_140404_1.html
CWS shredder will automatically fix the problem if you choose to have it fixed.
Also, Hijack this. This little nifty app will scan for browser hijackers and display a report. If youve never used this before, DO NOT hit the "fix" button unless you have it make a backup and you know what you are doing. Usiually people scan thier PC's , copy the report it gives and paste into forums for other to decipher it and give advice. You can download here: http://www.download.com/3000-8022-10227353.html. If you care to try it, there are forums at spywareinfo.com (down right now), and computercops.com
In those forums you can post your report and ask for advice. Good luck to you

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Interestingly, I was running SpyBot S&D when my computer froze. So, I unplugged it and watched some of the Olympics. Came back, plugged in my computer and downloaded a program from majorgeeks called a-squared. I ran it, and lo and behold! it found four trojans - 3 instances of Backdoor Delf and one of TrojanSpy Win32.Justin. Nothing else found these. This little program may be a good find.

I don't know if this is my problem, but I'm happy to be rid of these things. The Backdoor Delf was acquired when my son was trying to download a copy of Poser using Kazaa Lite. That be some bad news.

Thanks for the tip on my HD, Lady crissy. I'll check out a diagnostic utility. And, I think AVG will be my next AV software. Norton expires in 4 days.

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Hmm it's not a failing power box. That usually causes computer to suddenly turn itself off. It also usually makes top of computer very hot. *It can cause computer to get itself on fire!*

Hmm so far I think it could be hard drive. If windows needs to do some task and reads files but it couldn't, it could freeze.

Did you get some long pauses when windows just won't respond then suddenly its fine? That's hard drive failing and not responding once a while, evenally it changes to perment failure, and after a while, make computer unbootable.

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Jafo

Join Date 03/2001

+1845

First guess....ram

Second guess....memory leak / conflict driver-related

Third guess....user error....being silly enough to actually have kazaa on your system...

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Maybe I'll start with opening the box and cleaning out all the dust, dirt and dog fur

hmm, yes, I would do that. If you're not kidding, which I hope you are, this is definitely the problem.

(I won. What do I get?)

Once you install spyware or execute virus/trojan programs on your computer it can immobilize your spyware programs and your anti virus and effect your firewall too. I've had instances where my virus program would not turn on anymore after the reboot. I had to uninstall it and reinstall. The same for my firewall. You may want to uninstall your virus and firewall and spyware programs and reinstall them. You might be surprised. These malicious programs will change the settings during their installation. I've even heard of instances where a spyware program would uninstall Spybot!

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Well, I tested my RAM. It's good. I tested my HD's. They're good. I've downloaded and run AVG. It caught a trojan that Norton missed, Backdoor Delf.

I haven't had Kazaa on my machine in over a year. I guess these trojans have been quietly residing ever since my son downloaded Poser. Amazing. I'm not sure what they were doing though. But, my computer hasn't frozen all day. the only thing I haven't done yet is open and clean the box. Maybe tomorrow.

Jafo, speaking of memory leaks, I'm thinking that DesktopX has a big one, if a single program can have one. I cannot run DX at all these days. If I run it, only using a few simple objects, like a mail checker and clock, everything runs fine for a few minutes. Then, my CPU jumps to 100%, and my system bogs down. As soon as I unload DX, the CPU drops down to single digits. I've uninstalled, rebooted and reinstalled DX, but the same thing happens. I'm baffled. I'm using objectbar instead, as a supplement to my start/task bar. It's good, but not as pretty.

There just haven't been many themes released recently. Certainly not like DX.

Thanks all for your input. It has helped so much.

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If you've had any version of Kazaa you'll probably want to run KazaaBegone to remove all traces of it from your PC.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3446.html
Kazaa is notorious for installing itself into all kinds of nooks and crannies on your comp and not fully uninstalling.

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The following error occurred when I tried to upgrade/install to v.2.20.024:

Move: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Stardock\trayserver.exe 0 (32: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.)

Now, this is lousy. I don't even have DX loaded up now, and I still get the message. Also, I bet this has something to do with why DX is maxing out my CPU to the point of not being able to run DX at all. See above message from me. Any thoughts on the matter?

I suppose this should be posted on the Help forum, but I already started this thread here, so I hope this is OK. I hate to double post this.
TIA

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did u remove it from your msconfig system startup? sometimes it uses the shortcut but might not show up on the ctrl alt delete window.

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