Can someone give me some free technical advise?

Question

I have a HP pavilion DV6000 laptop that i got for xmas. About 3 months ago i noticed I some how caught some kind of virus. I was having pop ups constantly up to 20 if i leave my lap top open thru out the night, it would freeze up or go very slow I couldn't get in2 my email or even go to certain websites. I'm not a very tech savy person and I thought the security that came with the laptop was for at least a year not just 3 months. So i obviously got a virus. So i bought Mcafee installed it and even started doing the security updates that HP automatically does, even that doesn't work right. I can do updates for maintenance but not security. So i didn't know what to do and cant afford those expensive tech Pol. So i tried opening a new user account instead of just the owners account. So I have 3 user accounts, owner, guest and guest 2. Owner is the bad account but the both guest accounts work just fine, a little slow but not that bad. I don't understand how, if i do have a virus it can only be in a user account and not the whole computer. Can someone tell me what i can do to get my less then 1yr old laptop back to tip top shape?

Answer 1

Norton and Mcafee are c**p, they cant even catch a virus if it said Hi to it.

Download Avast Home, install and choose to scan when next restart, choose option 2 to delete when virus are found

http://www.avast.com

Answer 2

The best way is to reinstall the windows or your os. It's a surefire way to get rid of all the junks. I would recommend AVG 8.0 and Ad-ware.

Also if you suspect any undesirables(adware) you can manually delete them in the "Program Files" folder but some nasty ones are harder to remove. Also check the starup programs, many adwares have tendency to add themselves to this. What starup programs do is to run themselves at the beginning of the windows.

To check what kind of starup programs you have you can click on "Start" -> Run -> type msconfig -> and go to starup.

Uncheck the boxs for any undesirables. If the problem persists, please contact me. I want to help and learn.

Hope this helps

Answer 3

It sounds like you need to run some Ad scans. One application that works really well is Ad Aware. I would run that as well as Spybot Search and Destroy and that should clean those up for you.

Both of those applications are free for home use.  

Answer 4

I just had a similar problem on my PC.  Your problem is most likely malware not a virus, so Norton & McAfee probabaly won't help.   Download AdAware and Spy Bot Search & Destroy (both free).   If they don't work, try the free antivirus program.  Also, you can do a Internet search to try and determine the exact piece of malware/virus you have, and can download free fixes from the Symantec site.  (Must download  one fix per malware.)

Finally, if all that doesn't work, do a system restore, then download all the updates.

You should also go to Control Panel-> Firewall and restrict the programs that are allowed to pass through the Firewall.

Good luck.

Answer 5

Tell you what if you dont mind loosing some files you can do a fresh install of the os.

Recovering during startup

Use the following steps to perform a recovery from the hard drive :

Disconnect all connected devices (such as the Personal Media Drive, USB drives, printer, and fax), remove media from drives, and remove any recently added internal hardware. Do not disconnect the power cord.

Turn on the computer.

Just after the first screen appears (the logo screen), press the F10 key repeatedly until a recovery menu appears.

Select one of the following procedures, depending on which recovery type you want to perform:

To perform a standard system recovery, click Next , and then click Yes .

To perform a destructive recovery, click Advanced , (select Destructive Recovery ) and then click Next .

CAUTION:  A destructive recovery will format the hard drive. This will delete all the information on the hard drive and reinstall Windows XP and the original software that came with the computer .  

Read and respond to each window and screen that appears.

After the System Recovery is complete, the computer restarts and continues into Windows setup. Complete the setup screens and wait until the computer finishes the setup.

NOTE:  It may take a long time to complete Windows setup. This time varies and may take over several hours, depending on the amount of files that were stored in the user account folders (for example, My Documents and the Desktop).

I would do the destructive recovery, such a harsh word but all that means is that it will do a fresh install of Windows.

You can just fight with the viruses on your machine, but the simplest and most efficient is this.

Good luck!