This thread was formerly known as 'Spyware, Virus' and Log-on problems'

But no, my f**king PC won't let me do anythin without giving me a BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH. It's given it to me 48 times already today and I'm pissed. I am royally pissed off. I have to copy everything to CD, reinstall XP and start all over.

Almost everytime I attempt to Log-on it takes 20 times longer than usual and then it shows me a blue screen of death! I use XP and the only thing that's changed over the last week is that I installed a new DVD drive.

I keep running AdAware and Spybot, each time I find new Spyware, at least ten with each program. And virus' keep popping up. My firewall says nothing's getting through but my PC is getting royally f**ked in the ass.

Apologies for my attitude but I am pissed, this is my fifth attempt at writing this post and the first four were pretty damned impressive.

Any help would be great before I press El Deleteado tomorrow

Personally, I'd just say reinstall. It's far more effective What does the Blue Screen say? Do you use a via chipset? I used to have many, many problems with via chipsets, even with the 4-in-1 drivers installed. I'd always get an IRQ less than or equal to blue screen. Via sux!!

Try uninstalling the DVD player and see what happens. I doubt that's it, if you keep getting virus's and spyware. Do you get spyware even if you remove it, then check again? Or are you surfing in between. Do you have all the security updates? MS just released three or four new security updates a week or two ago. Are you using a software or hardware firewall?

I'm reinstalling, I've decided...ah f**k, more virus' found! I only ran you this morning!!!! Anyway, I've decided to reinstall. I've had enough, no-one can reason with me, I'm a beast possessed without the foul stench!

I can't read what the blue screen says totally, it goes off the screen but there's some fatal error. What, logging in counts as a fatal error! Gah!

No via chipset, I don't even know what one of those is! lol!

I doubt the DVD player would be effecting it, it doesn't seem to be doing anything. Just sitting there.

I get spyware any time I run either program I find something. All I have running is MSN (bitching about my PC to everyone) and Opera while in the Sciforums window.

I got rid of my old crappy software last week, like Kazaa, got rid of everything affliated with it and got Kazaa Lite ++. I've been cleaning up my PC over the last two weeks, didn't think getting better programs would kill it!

I don't recieve XP updates due to the fact that they take up so much god damned room. Guess I should get them. I'll download them tomorrow.

Firewall is software by the way.

you should definitely get the critical updates. XP is full of holes, and without security patches they're well-known and easily exploitable holes. About their size, I found that XP with service pack 1 is smaller than without it. Don't ask me why, and I don't remember the exact size difference. Definitely less than 1/2 a gig, maybe 100 to 200 megs. I found this out when making a new restore disk for my laptop. I should examine the two backups pre and post sp1 and post how big it is. I'm sure that the extra patches on top of sp1 will add some bulk though. C'mon SP2!!!

edit: Only problem with reinstalling is coming across those things you inevitabley forget to backup before reinstall.

My XP came with Service Pack 1, but I shall download the automatic updates it keeps trying to throw at me from time to time.

Thanks for the advice.

Note: XP hasn't crashed in a whole 20 minutes, I'm getting my hopes up!

Thanks

32 minutes and holding. Looking good.

Best download these things or I'm gonna live in fear forever!

Last i heard was that spybot had been compromissed, it actually invited more spyware onto your computer. Was a while back might not be the case now, just a heads up :m:

oh if you want another free spyware scanner try http://www.spywareinfo.com/xscan.php

Sounds like your system Thor was overkilled with spyware and ate all your systems resources up, doing so would have destabilised the systems since things needing resources like graphics card drivers wouldn't load properly and then cause a bluescreen.

As mentioned you will need to cover updating your XP install with all the safety trimmings, however it's known that some RPC vunerabilities can be exposed while you try to download, and during that time you could find your system outputing "Will reboot in 1 minute", for that you just need to make sure you run a software firewall for the duration of your updates.

When you've got your clean install, make some backups of your system registery etc, just incase some stuff occurs in the future that you want a quickfix for.

I'm downloading the updates now. Kerio Personal Firewall is running...checking for Spyware now.

I really can't be bother to redo my whole entire computer just yet. I'll live with it until the summer or next Monday.

Agh, I just found a virus and Avast! can't kill it because it's being used by another process...will this nightmare ever end!?

Anyway, thanks for the info Stryd...er

you got something bad going on. Can you run an antivirus in safe mode? I just reread this thread and haven't seen you mention running an antivirus. Is this the case? Is it spybot that registers the virus alert? Spybot and Ad-Aware are both mostly spyware, adware oriented. You'd have better luck removing it with an antivirus program. AVG is good, I've heard. And there's a free version. Several other antivirus programs offer free versions as well.

Do you have any idea how you might have come across this virus to begin with? e-mail attachment, a download off the net? I've actually only come across one virus in all my time on the net. It was in the Invision Mirc script. It was a flood virus if I remember right. Probably used for DoS attacks I guessed. Other than that, I guess I've been pretty lucky or maybe just safe internet practices. *knock on wood* Actually come to think of it, I downloaded iMesh one time and gave it a shot. Did a scan afterwards and a keylogger was found. I reinstalled just to be safe, which shows my attitude about the whole thing. Of course, I only have 2 computers to maintain, I imagine I would have a different viewpoint if I had to manage a few hundred computers. :p

Here's a thought. Have you run msconfig to see if there is a bad process or two that you can stop from loading? Or the registry? My registry knowledge is limited, but I know you check both hkey_current_user and hkey_local_machine /software/microsoft/windows/currentversion/run, runonce, runonceex. I wouldn't mind getting a little more advice about the registry myself, as I know that there are other places for processes to start.

"And virus' keep popping up"

"more virus' found"

"Agh, I just found a virus and Avast! can't kill it because it's being used by another process"

lol, what thread did you re-read invert? And I have no idea how I came across any virus. I download stuff all the time! I mean all the time, I see it this way; if I'm not downloading, I'm wasting valuable bandwidth.

I'm not gonna even touch the registry, last time I did that I killed my PC and couldn't get any stuff off it.

Edit to add: I know for a fact I have a Cydoor on my PC, I keep getting these IE pop-up windows from nowhere and in the link it even says 'Cydoor'. Neither Spybot nor AdAware detects it...

I would recommend Updating Adaware if you havnt already because they update all the time.

... what thread did you re-read invert?

This one, I can assure you. You've mentioned adaware, spybot, and kerio firewall, but I can't find mention of an antivirus program or is Avast! the name of an antivirus program (I thought you were a pirate, avast ye matey!). Just wanted to cover all the bases, just in case.

As for the registry hack I mentioned, this one is relatively safe. In the different run folders, it basically just gives the name of a startup process, if you don't know what it is, you can do a google search on it. I don't think you'd find anything in there you wouldn't find in msconfig though.

Ok, I don't want to insult your intelligence here, but just to cover my bases. Have you checked task manager to find out if there is any odd processes going on, hogging up your processor? Doubt if it would be that simple, but you never know.

Other than that, I think I'm out of ideas. Maybe try a different antivirus. I say reinstall. A couple of hours and you're free.

edit: there are programs that specialize in trojan removal as opposed to spyware and adware. Pest patrol is the one that springs to mind. I don't believe it's free, and I'm not sure if it's trialware. There's a program called Hijackthis that might also help.

Avast! is the Anti-virus software I am using. I used to use AVG but that missed so much, I couldn't bar to use it anymore.

As for Task Manager, I run that every time I log-on. There's always something I don't need/want running in the background, silently stealing RAM. Non are virus' though, I checked them all on google.

I'm downloading PestPatrol as we speak, I hope it does some good.

It is free by the way

Well you thought your problem was Arghhhhhh!, check out what this guy had to say about his: http://www.kls2.com/~karl/random/nuke-clippy.mpg
(thanks Nabraxas!)

Avast! runs fine on my computer. It finds files which I thought myself were dubious. But I haven't found any 'I don't remember that file' virus'. I think it's quite good and I would recommend it. And yeah, it occasionaly does a boot scan. This way it can terminate virus' masqurading as system processes.

Stryder - I'll look at it when I get home

Right, update.

I took the day off college to fix this mutha of a PC. I've copied all important files to CD such as music, work, porn, game saves, etc and reinstalled XP. This time I created it with two partitions. One for all my stuff and the other for installing stuff too.

Firewall is software by the way.

:D

hehe... sorry, I read this a bit late but I think this deserved a highlight. Pictures of a big anti-fire wall plugged into a comp. just flashed into my mind. lol. Sorry :o go back to your talking.

[quote]Firewall is software by the way.[\quote]

I missed that earlier, stupid since it was the last line in the post, but :p

There are software and hardware firewalls. Hardware is the way to go in my opinion. If you're on broadband anyway. Not such a big deal on dial-up. A hardware firewall is a router with a built-in firewall. It could be said that the firewall exists as software inside the hardware, but there you are. Software firewall is good for keeping things from calling out. Hardware firewall is good for keeping things out.

edit: by the way Thor, how did it all work out anyway?

edit again: actually, I did read it before, but I read it as meaning that your firewall was software. Was this the actual meaning? If so, forgive my lesson on firewalls. :p

Jaded - I must say that you have confused me yet again!

invert - Thanks for the lesson in firewalls...always helps to have it refreshed...again, lol! I use a softeare one cos I really can't be bothered nor can I afford a hardware one.

The PC is fine now. Only niggle was that I forgot to put my Joint Operations demo install onto CD and every time I tried to download it again it crashed. Finally got it working with voice over I.P. w00t. All back to normal and prolly better than before!

Sorry if I confused you...

but I just imagined this huge inflamable-brick wall with a little chord, plugged (with a USB2 cord, of course) into a computer, while someone tried to hit it with a blow torch.

My imagination going LoCo

That was weird yet random