My Computer Has a Virus---Turns off by itself! (Can someone help)

Personal ^ | 1-22-05 | Me

[zoobee]

Can anyone help me? I have a computer here (My brothers actually) that constantly turns on and off by itself. Sometimes it doesn't even let you boot up until the 4th or 5th self-rebooting....it tries and then starts over and over again.

I remember not too long ago a virus did this and was hoping someone in here could tell me what virus did that....and how I can fix it? It won't let you get online either.....

No...he did not have a firewall and let Norton expire......I yelled at him already.... :)

[Petronski]

I have another suggestion. This one is odd. Remove the outer case, point a fan at the computer (like a summertime table fan), and see if the problem repeats.

I suspect a hardware issue, like the power supply or overheating.

The first thing to do while you have the case off is check, when the power is on, does the CPU fan spin? Those things fail too, and soon thereafter, the CPU will get flaky and very soon thereafter, it can burn out.

[Fire_on_High]

Yup! I have one machine that's known for being....a bit rough on em, due to a couple of design flaws and my stubborn insistance on using it for EQ anyway. Long and the short of it is, first time it failed it took me over 6 months to diagnose it, bc it failed very slowly and only in EQ at first, then after a long time, in Diablo 2 also, but with a known iffy cd drive, I still never looked once at anything but buggy coding in EQ and "the bloody cd hanging again" in D2. Finally had to lock up in the patcher when it died for good before I pinned it down.

Next fan was a cheap POS that lasted about a month but had the grace to die cleanly. I stupidly exchanged it for another from the same shop and even same lot, just glad they didn't stick me for more money. BIG mistake! That one also died after about 6 weeks, and that time the machine had been idling for about 3 days with the monitor off...while I sat furiously disgusted at EQ's constant crashes yet again and wondering why it was still happening.

Turned it on to find it froze at WinME boot screen, no apparent cause....hit reset and it locked immediately past vid card bios info, soon as it started counting ram. I checked it out and of course found the fan sitting there defiantly still. No clue to this day how long it actually sat like that, but 2 years or so later the machine still runs, and shockingly enough, is still pretty reliable.

However, no one should take this to mean they should ever let a machine run without proper cooling...it'll toast em real quick. I just got really lucky and have a machine that's sturdy as hell and doesn't run TOO hot. In the end I also now keep a swamp cooler on it 24/7 bc the requirements for EQ have gone up and keep pushing the machine harder and harder, while the design flaws that make it prone to heat crashes just can't be fixed fully.

I've also replaced a couple power supplies on each machine, but none gave the symptoms in the original post. They've all gotten loud and rattly over time, and then just bogged down to the point the cooling fan is moving slowly or stalls totally. When whacking on them no longer quietens them or brings the fan back up to speed, it's time to replace.

[anniegetyourgun]

LOL! Sorry 'bout that! Hope the 'puter is all better!

[zoobee]

I took RedBloodedAmericans advice and went into MSCONFIG in safe mode and I found TONS of spyware starting up.... SO I stopped alot of it from starting and was able to stay on the computer for almost 2 hours and I turned it off myself!! (I took that opportunity to backup all their pictures and documents them on a CD). So it looks like it was spyware taking it over......

I have to install AOL since they have a cable program that I can't use and I will update it with virus protector, adaware and zonealarm and see how that goes.

IF there are another surprises or if that didnt' work I will let you know...

THANKS FREEPERS!!!

[zoobee]

UPDATE:

I feel like an Exorcist!
I finally ran a Virus program (Mcaffee) on this computer and found out it was infected with tons of viruses…… I thought it was just the spyware…..but look at a partial list of what it found:

fthyezkn.exe—memory virus W32/generic.c!p2p
Trojan: Generic Backdoor.c
Uploader-R.dr
Prockill-JKill
Dialer-77
Trojan: Downloader-TH
trkgif.exe Trojan: QlowZOnes-10

Number of infected files: 7
Number of Potentially unwanted programs: 21
Number of infected files auto-cleaned: 4

ALSO….In the startup folder I found a file called: REBOOTSETUP.exe

Just thought I'd let you all know since you were so nice to help me out.....

[DaGman]

Good God!

It sounds like McAfee couldn't remove all the files by itself so you may have to do it manually. Be careful! You may have to edit the registry in addition to removing the unwanted files. Be sure you back up the registry if you have to edit it and follow any instructions very carefully and to the letter.

[anniegetyourgun]

Ugly stuff.

[zoobee]

Luckily it didn't ask me to edit the registry....it had me delete & quarantine them right then and there...and it deleted the trojans on it's own ......I hope it's over!

[cyborg]

You need a laptop condom.

[dennisw]

Boot into safe mode and to take care of business

[jdm]

Best Registry Editor I've found is Registry First Aid. Might be of help. It's also, by far, the most safe of all I've tried. It's free to download the version which only corrects up to 12 entries at a time. So what I do is simply run it 10 to 20 times to correct all (or most) invalid registry entries.

[dennisw]

Stinger is a quick free download. It will remove lots of viruses. It removes stuff from an infected machine. It does not protect .... that's why it's free


http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/

[zoobee]

Do I need to edit the registry when Mcaffee had me delete and qurantine? I really wouldn't know what looked funny or not....

[zoobee]

Thanks...I'll run that too....

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

Does any of this look/sound familiar to you? : )

[N. Theknow]

You think you got troubles!

Mine has my email sending out spam to everybody in the known universe and I am getting constant cannot deliver messages bacvk. 5000 yesterday and another 4000 (so far) today.

Anybody help! Please! Desktop running Windows XP Pro and Firewfox with Thunderbird.

Norton scanning now. AVG scanned yesterday and AntiVir sacan waiting.

[holymoly]

Mine has my email sending out spam to everybody in the known universe and I am getting constant cannot deliver messages bacvk. 5000 yesterday and another 4000 (so far) today.

A firewall may help you contain the problem (though not cure it). Remember, the firewall included with Windows XP is only half a firewall; it guards against incoming attacks, but does not allow the user to control/monitor outgoing traffic. (See my FR homepage for links to several freeware firewalls.)

Norton scanning now. AVG scanned yesterday and AntiVir sacan waiting.

You may also want to scan with Antidote SuperLite. Though Antidote doesn't clean (scans only) it has a very large database, so not much gets by it.

If you haven't tried scanning with these, you probably should:
Ad-Aware SE
Spybot - Search and Destroy

[Middle-O-Road]

You've got a virus.

Make sure you update your anti-virus software to get the most recent updates before you scan. People often forget to do that, so the software doesn't catch everything.

If the software still doesn't find anything, go to either the Norton or Mcafee web site. They have a database online with all the most recent viruses. If your virus is really new, they may not have an automated fix for it yet, but they may have manual instructions on how to remove it in their database.

[sauropod]

I have run into the same problem. CPU usage climbs to 100%.

I have Norton AV and AdAware on the box.

[jongaltsr]

Yep. It pays to keep your system clean. My assumption that it was the power supply is because I never let viruses in my computer and excessive files clutter things up.
There are a couple of free programs (SPYBOT) which will eliminate spyware and (CLEANUP) which eliminates temp files, cookies etc which are not necessary for a healthy system.