OldGrayGary

Hi nikeman

I've heard that they probably use a disk along the lines of the "Ultimate Boot CD for Windows" (the Bart's PE based disk) - or perhaps a Linux-based diagnostics CD, similiar to the original "Ultimate Boot CD". I use versions of both, plus specialized disks with other run-alone tools.

In their estimate of $140, what work did they propose they'd do? Did they give you a list of the things they would fix for the original $70 estimate? They can't say that everything's fine, except for a virus infection, and then turn around and say that everything isn't fine. It is or it isn't. It's true that the cost of malware cleanup can range from $25 to $70 (and up, if a system reinstall is performed) - but they should have made that clear with their original estimate.

Part of your $70 investment with them certainly should be for them to tell you what they found wrong. With that knowledge, you can either pay them $140 to fix it, or attempt the repair(s) yourself.

You can follow the link to the Driver Verification tool (in my last reply) & read the instructions available right there in the article. It's not an easy tool to configure and use - If you decide to try it, read all you can about it first. I rarely have to use the tool myself, since I usually install fresh drivers as a matter of habit, and clean up after the old leftovers with CCleaner and the MS Windows Installer Cleanup Utility. But for some systems with a great variety of devices and a diverse assortment of programs - the driver verifier can prove to be the one that provides the clue that solves a brain-buster puzzle.

You've proven to have a lot of perseverance in your troubleshooting, I hope the key turns in the lock soon - so you can get back to enjoying your computer.
. . . Gary

nikeman

the original $70 that I paid was only for the diagnostics of my computer. All they told me was that all of the hardware passed the tests and that I had a viral problem. They said they would charge me $140 to completely clean the machine of viruses and spyware/malware which I thought was just crazy! The paper they gave me listed the hardware they tested (CPU, Motherboard etc.) with a check mark and the tech's initials beside it. Then they gave me a list showing what virus I had and showed me I had a few spyware programs also (which i cleaned myself for free). Honestly, I think they did a virus scan, found a trojan and just decided to tell me that was the problem out of laziness. Looking at my system restore points since I gave them the machine last Saturday, it looks as though they didnt even touch my computer until the following Thursday and then called me the next morning with the news about the virus. In system restore Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, are all blank with no restore point while Thursday has one for "software distribution service 2.0"

nikeman

just a note. The fan on the side of my case that had the blue LEDs all around it was not plugged back in by the tech at geek squad. I have noticed that my computer has only locked up once since I got it back from them and I even left it on for 2 days straight and came back and it was still working. I left it on overnight last night also and now that I am home from school it is still working good. Could the fan or LEDs have something to do with the lockups or is it just a cowincadence (SP?)

nikeman

i guess i should link you to this thread now that i started. I think that geek squad did something to my computer because i have been getting that stupid error since i got it back and now it will not stop and as soon as I click ok it comes back!! Also, my computer is running VERY VERY slow. BUT, it is not locking up near as much now. There is something wrong with my explorer.exe file because all of the errors have been linked to that file..

been getting this annoying error latly

OldGrayGary

Hi again

Unless the fan has a short in it, or the motherboard fan connector has a problem, the TruePower shouldn't have any trouble running the fan.

From the buffer overflow error, it sounds like malware again. Try ewido or Trendmicro's online scan.

"Buffer overflows may cause a process to crash or produce incorrect results. They can be triggered by inputs specifically designed to execute malicious code or to make the program operate in an unintended way. As such, buffer overflows cause many software vulnerabilities and form the basis of many exploits".

Visit Windows Update manually, and then press the "Express" button. Update all Critical Patches it suggests.

It's certainly possible you just keep getting infected over and over and over again. You've got to scan everything going into your PC, and look into your protections setup. Got to stay patched, too. I can't remember what firewall you are running - which one was it?
_______
Whew. $70 just for diagnostics. Well, they do have a lot of overhead. Many shops will do the diagnostics for $30.

Check in your Add/Remove programs for any unwanted newcomers. Run CCleaner. Don't leave the Best Buy Cd in the drive anymore (who knows - their CD might not be OK - wouldn't that be ironic).

I still think the 2.6v on the memory is doable. [But only if you understand how! ONLY the memory gets the 2.6v --- several threads mentioned that the board seemed to run better with the memory at 2.6v, and proved somewhat unstable at 2.5v]

.... It's late here -- hopefully I'll wake up tomorrow morning to hear good news.
. . . Gary

nikeman

well, i did the trendmicro scan twice and the second time it found no errors. I then ran AVG AS and Virus and AVG found stuff and had me restart to fix them and I did. Windows Update says I have the most up to date version. I am using the COMODA Firewall Pro.

the other thread asked me to run chkdsk which was successful and then run sfc /scannow. when i tried to run that it asked for a windows xp professional disk and wouldnt work with my XP home disk. why would it ask for the professional disk?

nikeman

i ran Ccleaner and the error stopped and my computer is running normal again.. Thats strange to me... All Cleaner does is delete temp files and cookies right?

you keep telling me to change the voltage of the memory but you dont tell me what to do. I know i need to do it in BIOS but when i get to BIOS when do i do then? What setting would I change in order to up the voltage .1 volt?

EDIT: I must say that ever since i got my computer back from geeksquad my computer has been running better, minus all the errors and stuff i have seen. My computer has only locked up on me maybe 3 times since i got it back which is very good by my standards now compared to locking up 4 or 5 times a day before. I dont know what they did (probably nothing) but for right now it is better. I still want to get rid of the problem more permanently though. I think you said that you worked in a computer shop... If so, do you guys sell XP install disks or can you get one cheap? I will be glad to buy a $30 disk to see if that helps me out at all.. Maybe you could upload it as a torrent and I will just download it from you to save time and money on shipping??

nikeman

the error is now back and i can't seem to get rid of Adware.Virtumonde. I have that being solved in a Hijackthis thread though.. Dont want to get you doing anything more for me. Thanks for all your help so far though..

OldGrayGary

Hmmm ... your symptoms certainly do sound like re-infection from malware. Things run OK for a short while & get progressively worse -- if a worm or trojan is at work, things tend to get worse and worse. I'm a little concerned that your protective programs aren't able to stop the infections. I'm not familiar with the Comodo firewall - seems like either it is letting things through, or your AVG is.

I like using a combo of ZoneAlarm (free version) and avast! (free "home" version) [there's no conflict between the free ZoneAlarm and avast! - while ZoneAlarm Pro has to be configured just right to work with avast!]. I don't like the new "MailFrontier" anti-spam that installs with the version 7 of ZoneAlarm, but it's fairly easy to uninstall just the MailFrontier element. What I love about avast! is that it scans everything -- everything you access - email, Instant Messaging, local or removable drives, memory, bios, as well as all Internet traffic [it sets up a "web proxy" to do this = quite effective]. If you decide to try these products, though, make sure to make the change while offline.

The techs in the Security forums should be able to help you get rid of the pests = they are experts at that.

You asked about CCleaner: it scans and cleans both temp files and the Registry. The "Cleaning" functions clear up unnecessary temp files. The "Issues" functions clear up tangles in the Registry. Quite a few malwares like to hide in temp folders.

Best of luck
. . . Gary

nikeman

yeah, right now i have 2 viruses and 1 spyware on my computer. I do not know where any of them came from though!! I havn't been to any unsafe sites or opened any weird emails...

nikeman

should i delete AVG? I now have Zone Alarm fire wall and avast home along with the AVG AV running

OldGrayGary

Is your AVG the anti-spyware or the antivirus product? You can only have one "real-time" antivirus installed on a system. If the AVG is only anti-spyware, it can stay. If it's the antivirus AVG, you need to uninstall it. Make sure that avast is running OK by starting it, and viewing its status. Set the Resident Protection to "High", and set the scanner for local drives to "Thorough", also place a checkmark in the box "scan archive files". These settings are all explained in the help files, available by clicking the "Menu" button on the avast! main screen, and then click on "Help".


Here's my little article about Security programs:
_________

Security Programs Can Conflict –
This problem has been showing up more often recently, so try to remember that only one of each sort of real-time antimalware process should be installed [Real-Time = runs scans on-access (runs all the time!)]
1) Only one real-time Pop-up Blocker, one real-time Anti-Spam blocker, one real-time Anti-Virus, one real-time Anti-Spyware, one real-time software Firewall.
2) It's best to have only one locally installed antivirus program, period. It is possible to run an online antivirus scan - with a tool such as TrendMicro's HouseCall - without causing conflicts with your real-time scanner. Only one antivirus, though, should be installed locally on your computer. [The online scanners generally use an ActiveX or Java engine]. Online scans are handy ways of double-checking that your local scanner is doing its job.
3) You can have many anti-spyware programs installed, and can use them to help scan for spyware, but these scans will be different: they will only run when you start them. You can have your one real-time scanner on all the time. The other scanners will likely not bother the real-time scanner (though there are some conflicts - but often these are patched) so long as you only try one manually-started scan at a time. In other words, you can also run an AdAware scan from time to time, or a SpyBot scan from time-to-time - but you wouldn't run an AdAware scan and a SpyBot scan at the same time.
4) Only one software firewall can be installed and running in a PC.
__________________

But the final say in Security matters is really the advice from the techs in the Security forums -- they specialize in that.
_________

By the way, how to change voltages for the memory is explained fairly well in your motherboard manual - you do this sort of change with Bios settings nowadays [several years ago, you'd be setting jumpers]. The timings you had looked OK - it's just a boost from 2.5v to 2.6v and only for the memory.

Try to be as thorough as possible as you follow the advice from the Security forums. I think some of the trouble you experience comes from your eagerness to find a repair quickly - and that you jump over certain steps along the way. Repairs need every step, especially when narrowing down a tricky problem.

The Best Buy techs mentioned $140 to repair things: that couldn't be $140 just for spyware removal. Try them one more time, and see if they had anything specific planned as part of the $140 (any hardware issues?) --- [I'm thinking that they planned a "clean install" of Windows = for which the $140 is around their regular rate].

I'll stay tuned.
. . . Gary

nikeman

when i talked to the tech on the phone all he said was that I had a viral infection and that he found a trojan on my computer along with a few spyware programs. He then said that it would run about $140 to fix it or I could bring it home and try to fix it myself. He also said that they would guarantee that the computer would work after that "some how". Those were his exact words. He seemed kind of impressed with how much I knew and about the things I told him I did before I brought it in.

Also, the security guys here seem to be very busy and havn't looked at my HiJackThis log yet. So i will keep u updated on that too. You will be the first to know when my computer is working like it should.

OldGrayGary

Hi nikeman

Thanks for your updates. Yes, the Security forum techs probably have one of the hardest tasks to do here on the forums: each thread has a great deal of information that is sorted through and checked. They see a lot of the latest threats, too - so when they scan your log, you'll know you're getting some good information.

I'll be out and about this weekend (family visit & then volunteer work on Sunday ["Big Sunday" here in Southern California, especially around L.A.]), but I'll check back to see how you're doing. Oh -- and, just in case you're curious: I worked in the I.T. department of a medical lab for 25 years, and when the computers were relocated to St. Louis - I started a repair business from my home. I guess that makes me a "cottage industry", as we might have put it in my college economics class.

Enjoy your weekend
. . . Gary

lolaraa

how to download video from youtube

http://www.mystation.be

nikeman

Yeah, they must be busy with all the long log files they have to go through. They got to me and my system is now clean... Now what? No lock up since the clean up but who knows until it locks up again..

OldGrayGary

Hi again

I looked at your thread in the security forum - pretty amazing that you had that many pests infesting things, when you'd been fairly active with your scanning & protections. Make sure to read through the security articles that tetonbob linked you to: these will help you keep things clean.

I noticed in that thread, though - that you have Limewire installed. Truthfully, I don't recommend any peer-to-peer file-sharing over the Internet, especially one that lets remote users access your computer to grab files (although with Limewire that can be optional). Easy enough for things to arrive in Limewire downloads, too. If you keep Limewire, I think you need to keep a much stricter schedule of malware scans than the average computer user. You might want to schedule a full system thorough scan daily, for a time when you won't need the computer for an hour or so.

Hope it goes better from here on out
Best of luck
. . . Gary

nikeman

my computer is still locking up on me but not NEAR as much as before. I might lock up once or twice a day now instead of 5 or 6 times/day. I remembered a while back I was suggested to run the Video Card Stability Test and at the time I was unable to run it. Well, i downloaded it and ran it for 20+ minutes and it finished successfully. Does this rule out the video card as the problem? If so this means we have eliminated the following:

Video Card
Memory
CPU
Mother Board
Power Supply

What else is there that can cause this problem? its looking more and more likely that I have a bad copy of windows XP and I wish I could find a cheap install only version of it so I can be sure..

OldGrayGary

Hi nikeman

Actually, we really haven't ruled out either the motherboard or the cpu: they are often best tested by swapping out with "known-good" parts [a very expensive procedure for a single user, not so hard for a computer repair shop].

I've mentioned it before - a computer just shouldn't lock up. None of the Windows XP computers in my house (and there are several) have ever locked up. [And the only thing that crashed the Windows 98 2nd Edition PCs was a problematic game - and that was fixable]. Most of my customers computers, even as infected as they are sometimes, do not lock up either. Locking up while in the middle of a super-demanding 3D game isn't so unusual in the gaming world - but locking up just browsing around and doing office work isn't that common. Heck, even locking up in the middle of a demanding game should only kill the game itself, and not Windows. You shouldn't have to put up with any lock ups at all.

Check in your EventViewer logs again, to see if there are errors associated with the lockups. If not, run the same routines from your Security efforts: I think you are getting reinfected. I'd especially recommend that you check for rootkits. [You can use Rootkit Revealer for this --- http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...tRevealer.mspx --- read the instructions carefully to avoid false positives].

On the hardware side, get your motherboard manual out, and boost the memory from 2.5v to 2.6v --- I've mentioned this a few times already: several threads on the MSI forums for your motherboard point to system instability at default memory settings. The timings from the last time you posted them looked fine - it's just one little voltage adjustment to the memory voltage only.

If the system crashes most often during a particular game, see if any patches are available for it.

I hate to say it: but I think we've gone over most of the possibilities many times already = and at some point, swapping "known-good" parts one-by-one is the way to determine the trouble. It's very expensive for an owner to do this, that's why I've mentioned repair shops.

Your system likely needs hands-on troubleshooting from an experienced pro. We are several weeks down the road now, and truthfully haven't narrowed down things much. The fact that you are suffering malware infections at such a rate is alarming [None of my computers here have suffered any malware infections, either -- though avast! has caught several trying to sneak in - in email]. But it's just as possible that you have a hardware issue (whether configuration or faulty parts). And it's possible your source CD wasn't perfect. Constant lockups could damage parts -- it's possible that neither the motherboard nor the cpu are 100% OK. They might be fine, they might not = one of the only ways to tell is to swap in replacements, one at a time, and see if the problems disappear.

I'll say this again about peer-to-peer programs: they are just not ready for prime time. When they finally prove to be both legit, stable, and pest-free - that's the day you can use them without worry.

Try printing out this thread, and the Security forums thread, and go over several of the recommended procedures again.

Best of luck
. . . Gary

nikeman

hate to bring this back up being that its so old but the issue still remains and I am starting to use that computer more and more often. It just locks up at random times. I am thinking about downloading a copy of XP from the internet and putting in my code to see if the new windows files will do anything to help me. I still here a faint clicking sound right as it locks up but I am also having another issue at the moment with the comp not being able to see my keyboard and therefor not boot up...