Computer's Infected With Something, No Idea What

[Lunarhawk]

My home computer I have right now I've had for 6 years, and if this has happened before to this degree I can't remember it... Basically a few nights ago I got hit by some sort of virus or malware and it's screwing me over. Spawning pop-ups, messing up my pop-up blocker so it blocks stuff I want to open by clicking on a link (Not blocking these ones though), slowing my comptuer down a *Censored Word**Censored Word**Censored Word**Censored Word* load when it spawns the afore mentioned pop-ups and even just in general...Hell it's gotten to the point where it can even open a firefox or IE window with those popups without me having either of them open. I've run ad-aware, I've gotten Spyware Blaster, run all the options in tune-up manager 2007...nothing. I tried getting a free virus scanner last night, some VGA thing a friend linked me too, but it slowed my computer down to a crawl and was *Censored Word**Censored Word**Censored Word**Censored Word*ing up itself I think too.

Also it started something new last night as well before I got that virus scanner. I'm getting an Explorer memory buffer error of some sorts (Visual C++ I think) and it shuts down my desktop, forcing me to restart. First time it happened I didn't think much since my computer is infected with something and had been on for 6 or 7 hours, but then when I restarted it happened again an hour later...ugh. Normally this would be when I reformat, but as I've mentioned in a few other topics I'm finally getting a new computer this thursday (Well, building and ordering from ibuypower.com so I probably won't have it for another 2 weeks) and I don't want to have to reformat when I'm just gonna not even be using the thing in a couple weeks.

I've searched all the processes that run on my computer through google and only found one that was probably a trojan that I got rid of (Didn't help though) and I've pretty much added most of the popups to my restricted sites list (but it still spawns the same number of popups, just different ones...) and I'm sick of it. If reformatting is my only choice, then yeah I'll go and do it even though I'm replacing this comp soon but if there's any other way...

[gobbly2100]

Well I would proberly advise a clean install there, backup everything you got first and then once you have completed a re-install before you attatch whatever your backed up files are on make sure you have some kind of virus scanner first so it will scan the device you have all your backed up stuff on before you move all the stuff over.

If you want a free virus scanner then I think the best one has to be "Avast" which I have used myself many times.

After you have a nice virus scanner running also make sure you have a firewall setup (atleast a firewall within your router plus the standard Windows SP2 one).

I would proberly suggest avoiding things like "TuneUp Utilities" but that is just a personal opinion, I find they don't really help, it is more of a mental thing and it makes you feel like things are running better but actually are not, at the end of the day all it really does is a disk clean up which is what makes your PC faster for a short while, as I said that is just a personal opinion though so you may wish to still use it.

Last thing is just keep using something like "Ad-Aware" and forget about any other spyware removal programs.

Anyway I hope this helps you a little and sorry if I have gone on about some things which you may already and most likely already know about.

I hope you get it sorted anyway.

Good luck!

[CarnaGe]

Personally I love "Spybot: search & destroy", it really makes a difference, after running S: s&d I go for Ad aware, always use both when checking for probs, and of course, I've got NOD32 =)

[187 Phantom]

Originally Posted by CarnaGe

Personally I love "Spybot: search & destroy", it really makes a difference, after running S: s&d I go for Ad aware, always use both when checking for probs, and of course, I've got NOD32 =)

ditto.
sounds like your problem is with adware and spyware.
go to the homepage of Spybot:Search and destroy here:
www.safer-networking.net
download the updates, immunize internet explorer, then run a spyware check.
when its done click 'fix problems' might take a while if your omputer is really infected. and if it says 'some problems could not be fixed, should spybot run at next system startup?' click yes. and restart ur computer. u only have to do that once. as long as you use the immunization tool you wont pick up nearly as much spyware. just make sure you set it to 'block all bad pages silently'

[Lunarhawk]

As I said I'm getting a new computer soon so I'm trying to avoid the reinstall/reformat/whatever =/. I'll get and run that virus scanner later when I move to that computer, on a different one now.

For the new one I also have a registered copy of bit defender (Just Antivirus v10, not plus) waiting in my e-mail for me to get, I just don't want to waste it on this current computer since it'll soon be replaced.

[Lunarhawk]

Got and ran avast!, fixed 61 things (Lots of Trojans and Trojan-gens it labeled as other). Gonna run ad-aware now and see if that cleans the rest up.

In the end, while it apparently did fix stuff, nothing fixed whatever is causing one of the problems. Trust me, I've wasted the past couple of nights trying to fix this and not just this one. Just gonna give up on it and label it one of those "Congrats; you're *Censored Word**Censored Word**Censored Word**Censored Word*ed" things that happens every few years. So normally I guess now would be when I reformat, but since I should have a new computer within a week or so I'll just leave it and try to use this computer as little as possible till then. All I really need it for now is getting .exe and .rars I want on my new computer onto a flash drive to save time when I get the new one setup so I can transfer them over and not have to go around and redownload them all. Putting stuff like the setup programs for Daemon tools, old version of AIM, Winamp/VLC, etc on it. Also a nice cracked version of Microsoft Office 2007 ultima edition and a keygen that passes the test they run to let you install updates for it as well; I've been waiting till I got a new computer to get this.

Now, just in case you all were wondering, I've said my computer was *Censored Word**Censored Word**Censored Word**Censored Word*ty before but never said what was in it. So here are the specs to the current computer that's infected.

Monitor: 17" CRT
OS: Windows XP Home Edition
Processor: Intel Celeron CPU 1.20GHz
RAM: 384MB
Graphics: Geforce FX 5200 (PCI, not AGP; This was and the RAM were upgrades when I got City of Heroes a bit over 2 years ago, I had integraded graphics card since about september 2001 before that)
Sound: Integrated
HDD: 19gb, I got a 250gb EHD maybe a bit over a year ago.

Just imagine trying to play any of today's games on that =/ especially online ones.

[polish husaria]

how good are you with the computer becuase there is a porgram called hack this and it will find anything that it killing you registy and what ever else , but its really basic so it will tell u the problems but not fix them u need to do that yourself

[Corbs]

Lunar, I would strongly advise you to remove any content that refers to piracy, for obvious reasons.

I'll go with gobbly2100 on this one. A fresh install.

Although you could try accessing Windows through safe mode and run all those checks again. Norton or Kaspersky probably have a 30 days trial available to them. As far as Registry goes, there exists a few programs like Registry Mechanic but I am unfortunately not familiar with any of them nor with their efficiency.

[Lunarhawk]

As I said, I'm in the process of building a new computer (Well, stuck on it. I'll probably have to call someone or take it some place and pay them to finish =/) so I won't be using this computer for more than another week; at most.