Symptoms of a virus?

[CLONECOMMANDER501]

My computer is experiencing the following symptoms:

 

1. It keeps making crackling-popping sounds, mostly when loading.

 

2. The occasional slowing down.

 

3. My wireless strength used to reach up to 60, 70 or even 80! No it's barely at 50.

 

4. the weirdest, sometimes, my computer turn off but will still be running! The screen will turn black but the Fan and stuff will still be on.

 

5. I could never connect to a site unless AOL was running, and then after having to deal with it and trying to get it to start it would say an unknown program told it do do that

[stoffe]

My computer is experiencing the following symptoms:

 

1. It keeps making crackling-popping sounds, mostly when loading.

 

2. The occasional slowing down.

 

3. My wireless strength used to reach up to 60, 70 or even 80! No it's barely at 50.

 

Some random ideas:

 

You can use the HijackThis utility to check if there are any weird processes running on your computer.

 

As for sounds and network strength, do you have any strong radiation sources very close to your computer, such as unshielded loudspeakers, mobile phones, fluorescent lamps or the like?

 

4. the weirdest, sometimes, my computer turn off but will still be running! The screen will turn black but the Fan and stuff will still be on.

 

I experienced something similar a couple of years ago, with the computer just spontaneously freezing up and turning off the monitor, but not shutting down down the computer itself. In my case it turned out to be caused by my motherboard having a too old version of the motherboard BIOS to fully handle my graphics card. After upgrading the BIOS to a more recent version that problem disappeared.

 

Though if you've just only recently gotten this problem without having done any changes to your computer hardware I doubt it's the same in your case.

[tk102]

I'd also suggest checking your System and Application Logs during the time your shutdown is hanging.

 

Right click My Computer -> Manage -> Event Viewer -> System

Right click My Computer -> Manage -> Event Viewer -> Application

 

I've had problems with a particular Soundblaster .dll not responding in the past, causing shutdowns to take almost a full minute. The Application log revealed the issue to me.

[CLONECOMMANDER501]

Heh thanks guys, you're the bomb!

 

 

^The whole back screen thing has actually going on since my last reformat, heck thats what caused my last reformat, maybe it has to do with my upgrades, but all I upgraded was my ram and got a new hard drive.

[RoxStar]

It sounds more like an issue with your power supply, especially because of reasons 1 and 4. Your power supply can do all sorts of bad things if it is not functioning properly, even drain power from your wireless connection.

[CLONECOMMANDER501]

Whoa, i gotta check that out!

[Astrotoy7]

It sounds more like an issue with your power supply, especially because of reasons 1 and 4. Your power supply can do all sorts of bad things if it is not functioning properly, even drain power from your wireless connection.

 

QFE! There is no virus known to man that makes crackling sounds !! Thats more like electricity doing stuff it shouldnt normally do!

 

Definitely worth checking out, because if your PSU is playing around, theres always the chance that it can cause a surge and fry your whole damn rig !

 

I remember someone from around here, saying they got a ''free'' psu from newegg? (after a rebate). In any event - unless you are running a super duper sli setup with watercooling ,a 400w psu will get things done. One thing I like about smallform rigs is they can pull off stuff full size boards + rigs can at sometimes half the power. Some Shuttle pcs that can fit dual slot/gpu cards run on a mere 250W plus.

 

astro

[CLONECOMMANDER501]

I will show a video of what these sounds ... well.. sound like.

 

 

DAMMIT IT WONT LOAD TO PHOTOBUCKET!

 

Edit: Sorry for the double post but editing the post would not bump this and this situation needs an immediate answer. My dad ran a test with this norton program and he told me that my hard drive is dying. Could this be true? Can a dying hard drive do this?

[MrWally]

If it tells you the hard drive is "dying" then I wouldn't even question whether or not the hard drive is the source of your previous problems. If I were you I would just go out and buy a new hard drive before it crashes and thus lose all my files. They're dirt cheap, anyways. And who knows? It might just answer your problems.

[CLONECOMMANDER501]

My dad said that it was dying I never saw the results of the scan.

[Astrotoy7]

norton now does HDD tests ?? Interesting!!

 

Ok CloneComm501 - I think we need to refresh, otherwise people will be spouting pet theories and anecdotes at you all day.

*List your specs in as much detail as you can

*Get some temp readings on your CPU, mainbaord, psu, hdd. Pc wizard is a quick, easy to use and free

 

Unless your dad is *really* experienced with IT/PCs I'd wait before acting on his findings If he was really experienced ...he maybe wouldnt be using Norton to identify problems... !!

 

if you end up giving it a go - let us know

 

mtfbwya

[CLONECOMMANDER501]

You people in tech support really p*ss me off, dont ask why.

 

 

I fixed the problem, all I needed to do was reformat. I guess my only conclusion was that I really did have a virus.

[Astrotoy7]

You people in tech support really p*ss me off, dont ask why.

 

then why say it ? You came asking for suggestions, which people offered. You mentioned crackling noises. There were excellent suggestions as to what causes this:

 

*bad psu

*soundcard probs.... (with speakers on)

 

You didnt report if you tried these and whether they worked or not, and now you say your are pissed off ???

 

Something makes me think you might not get that much help next time...

 

I fixed the problem, all I needed to do was reformat. I guess my only conclusion was that I really did have a virus.

 

a virus that causes crackling noises ? Unless its corrupting your soundcard or its drivers......its supremely unlikely.

 

When was the last time anyone really got a compy virus that an AV program couldnt handle ?? You mentioned Norton. As bloated and cumbersome as it is, it deals with viruses pretty darn well. It didnt raise any alerts ??

 

and earlier

The whole back screen thing has actually going on since my last reformat, heck thats what caused my last reformat, maybe it has to do with my upgrades, but all I upgraded was my ram and got a new hard drive.

 

and from another thread:

My Gaming and only comp has a bad fan so I can't really give an answer...

 

An overheating risk, 2 reformats and no clear reason why.....do you need any more proof that theres possibly some hardware bug ? Adding a non system HDD and RAM should never require a reformat, even in Vista - which is very finicky with hardware.

 

Anyway, now it's fixed, I hope it stays fixed for you

 

good luck in all your endeavours 501.

 

over and out

 

mtfbwya

[CLONECOMMANDER501]

norton now does HDD tests ?? Interesting!!

 

Ok CloneComm501 - I think we need to refresh, otherwise people will be spouting pet theories and anecdotes at you all day.

*List your specs in as much detail as you can

*Get some temp readings on your CPU, mainbaord, psu, hdd. Pc wizard is a quick, easy to use and free

 

Unless your dad is *really* experienced with IT/PCs I'd wait before acting on his findings If he was really experienced ...he maybe wouldnt be using Norton to identify problems... !!

 

if you end up giving it a go - let us know

 

mtfbwya

 

 

Ya, thats why I was p*ssed.

 

 

My bad fan: Sometimes my CPU usage will be 28% and the next sec it will be 80%.

 

 

 

He didn't use norton anti virus to detect my problem, he used a 5 year old utilities program from norton to detect my problem.

 

 

It took 2 Rogue Antivirus programs, a rogue codec, and tons of trojans to cause my probs.