virus, or just program fluke? possibly neither. pseudo-updat
02-18-2007, 08:43 PM
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virus, or just program fluke? possibly neither. pseudo-updat
heres the story.
a couple weeks ago i decided to run Disk Defrag for the first time in roughly three years. set it up to run overnight. i got up the next morning and the computer was off -- this is odd because i do not have my power settings set to turn anything off. i dismissed it as a windows fluke and didnt try to run defrag again [as id been distrated, probably by bonnevilleclub]
3 days ago i ran a McAfee virus-scan, while i was watching tv. ignored computer, and when i looked again the computer was turned off. started it up again to run overnight [thinking, its just overheating].
2 days ago, i woke up and my computer was off again. after 8 hours at work, came home and ran virus-scan, watching closely. it shut off while scanning Program Files>Java>jre1.3.0>lib>rt.jar -- this piqued my curiousity. rebooted computer in safe mode, shut off wireless internet card, and ran virus-scan again, only in that particular folder. goal here was to establish for sure it wasnt overheating [ive had problems with that in the past]. computer shut off immediately upon reaching rt.jar.
yesterday to today - i deleted rt.jar from dos, rebooted in safe mode, and ran virus-scan again. this time, it scanned until it got to microsoft office>office10>htmlref [didnt pay much attention, just took down the name and deleted it]. ran virus-scan again expecting no trouble, and it shut off again. this time it got into microsoft.net sql before shutting down.
so what say you, computer-savy bonneville-ophiles? is this a virus that just moves itself each time i delete it, and if i keep deleting files as virus-scan shuts down on them, ill end up slowly wiping my OS until computer wont start - or is this a virus that had these files from the get-go and im just finding them one-by-one - or is this just a McAfee fluke?
a couple weeks ago i decided to run Disk Defrag for the first time in roughly three years. set it up to run overnight. i got up the next morning and the computer was off -- this is odd because i do not have my power settings set to turn anything off. i dismissed it as a windows fluke and didnt try to run defrag again [as id been distrated, probably by bonnevilleclub]
3 days ago i ran a McAfee virus-scan, while i was watching tv. ignored computer, and when i looked again the computer was turned off. started it up again to run overnight [thinking, its just overheating].
2 days ago, i woke up and my computer was off again. after 8 hours at work, came home and ran virus-scan, watching closely. it shut off while scanning Program Files>Java>jre1.3.0>lib>rt.jar -- this piqued my curiousity. rebooted computer in safe mode, shut off wireless internet card, and ran virus-scan again, only in that particular folder. goal here was to establish for sure it wasnt overheating [ive had problems with that in the past]. computer shut off immediately upon reaching rt.jar.
yesterday to today - i deleted rt.jar from dos, rebooted in safe mode, and ran virus-scan again. this time, it scanned until it got to microsoft office>office10>htmlref [didnt pay much attention, just took down the name and deleted it]. ran virus-scan again expecting no trouble, and it shut off again. this time it got into microsoft.net sql before shutting down.
so what say you, computer-savy bonneville-ophiles? is this a virus that just moves itself each time i delete it, and if i keep deleting files as virus-scan shuts down on them, ill end up slowly wiping my OS until computer wont start - or is this a virus that had these files from the get-go and im just finding them one-by-one - or is this just a McAfee fluke?
02-19-2007, 02:48 PM
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well, i did a system restore today. to mid-november.
decided i was going to just clean up some stuff from my system, went into msconfig and sysedit and deleted stuff i felt appropriate. opened regedit to change startup there too, as well as change my security message [i thought itd be cool awhile back to have my comp say on startup "You screwed up - the FBI is on it'* way.") forgot where it was, so i searched for the string in the registry. computer shut down. that gave me some questions, so i started computer again, loaded my Task Manager and watched the CPU usage. searched for the same string in the registry again and CPU usage spiked from 10% to 100% and held steady for ~5 seconds and computer shut down. this leads me to believe that anytime i do something like defrag, scandisc, virus-scan, registry search, it spikes my comp usage and computer responds by shutting down. 3.06 ghz processor [couple years old], with .75 gig of ram [one .5 gig stick and one .25 gig stick]
input?
decided i was going to just clean up some stuff from my system, went into msconfig and sysedit and deleted stuff i felt appropriate. opened regedit to change startup there too, as well as change my security message [i thought itd be cool awhile back to have my comp say on startup "You screwed up - the FBI is on it'* way.") forgot where it was, so i searched for the string in the registry. computer shut down. that gave me some questions, so i started computer again, loaded my Task Manager and watched the CPU usage. searched for the same string in the registry again and CPU usage spiked from 10% to 100% and held steady for ~5 seconds and computer shut down. this leads me to believe that anytime i do something like defrag, scandisc, virus-scan, registry search, it spikes my comp usage and computer responds by shutting down. 3.06 ghz processor [couple years old], with .75 gig of ram [one .5 gig stick and one .25 gig stick]
input?
02-19-2007, 03:59 PM
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doesn't seem to be that bad of a coputer (old as you say...)
well, i don't know much about getting in to editing the registery... if its still that messed up i might look into backing up important files and wiping the hard drive clean and doing a fresh install of the OS. that should fix the problem unless its a hardware issue...
well, i don't know much about getting in to editing the registery... if its still that messed up i might look into backing up important files and wiping the hard drive clean and doing a fresh install of the OS. that should fix the problem unless its a hardware issue...
02-19-2007, 06:20 PM
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Originally Posted by Custom88
open the case and see if the fan on the processor is working. If the processor overheats, it will shut the computer off immediately to protect it.
Do you have an AMD or Intel? I didn't see it posted, sorry if I missed it.
Make sure the fan is spinning on the heat sink. If not that would be the problem. If it is spinning, clean any dust out of the fan and the heat sink. Then if that fails, pull the heat sink off and wipe off any old thermal grease. Then glob some new grease on. That might be all it needs....
Good luck.
02-19-2007, 11:55 PM
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did i mention its a laptop? does that change any of the advise? [i hate laptops. when i had a desktop i never hesitated to dismantle it completely, because i knew exactly what i was looking for]
Intel Pentium 4, 3.06 GHz processor, 736 mb of ram
i can hear the fan running. though, it seems very loud. spins up very loudly, runs for awhile, shuts off, off for awhile, then starts up again
Intel Pentium 4, 3.06 GHz processor, 736 mb of ram
i can hear the fan running. though, it seems very loud. spins up very loudly, runs for awhile, shuts off, off for awhile, then starts up again
02-19-2007, 11:57 PM
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yup, it could really be overheating... laptops run hot anyhow, and if it spins up really fast like that it may be stalling out due to lack of air flow... in other words it could be cloged up with dust internaly... have you tried taking a can of compressed air to it?
