Replacing my PC due to Trojans - software questions?

kippen_noedel

Oxygen is the catalyst for combustion, not the source.

Muppet81

Good morning all,

There has been a fascinating exchange of views since I logged off last night

I have powered up this morning with the side off the tower and so far all is quiet. Mind you it was yesterday for the first half hour then the growl kicked in.

There sure is a lot of dust in there and I have already been blowing so hard I am in danger of hyperventilating.

Dim question time again . Is the PSU the small black bow with a fan on the front of it (central on my motherboard) or the fan up in the top of the tower which presumably keep it cool? If it is the black box there look to be 4 cross head screws holding it in, do I undo these and simply pull it off?

Edited: Just looked on Wikipedia and it is clearly the fan in the top of my tower. Assume I need to remove top of case and then what exacly do I pull out?

Presumably I could buy a replacement over the internet? Are they all the same or would I need details to find the right one?

Aplologies but the interior gubbins of the PC and I are exactly familiar with each other. You all talk about hard drives and PSus. I talk about interior gubbins ...... says it all really

Donnie - will record the licence no and version of XP ... could I then just download it if necesary or woul I have to apply to Microsoft

Daily - mine is a Maxtor HD so I will look into what you suggest.

Will keep you informed.

macman

The power supply is not on the motherboard, it is on the top of the tower at the back (whre the mains lead plugs into). Normally just undo the 4 outer screws from the back and it will release, (don't let it drop onto the mobo) then undo all the connections (make a sketch or tape mark them so you know what goes back where). But it's not really necessary to remove the PSU to get rid of the dust, just get in there with a can of air and a small paintbrush and that will do the job. Do the rest of the PC while you are in there.
The fan on the mobo that you were mentioning is the processor fan, that will benefit from a cleaning too.
All ATX power supplies for an ATX (desktop) case will fit, you just need to get the same wattage or greater, it will be clearly marked on the PSU. If in doubt go to somewhere like Maplin with the old one and they will give you a match.

thirascule

I only really stated taking it out as the amount of dust a psu can hold is tardis-like. You'll be horrified at how much can come out and the settle over everything nearby. But before you do any of this, when it next makes the noise, see if you can track it down to the right fan. No point taking out the psu if it's the cpu fan making the noise.

colin13

Fortunatley, I do have them. It is just XP which I do not have as I don't recall getting it with my Packard bell PC.




could try running Magical Jelly Bean Software,,this prog gives all the sierial numbers of software you have installed

Muppet81

Right!

Thanks to all the helpful tips, I have now cleaned both the CPU fan and the PSU fan. The inside of a PC is not quite a scary as I had thought.

Everything is quiet at the moment so I will leave it running and see how it goes.

I will sort out the imaging of my system and I have found the licence number for my Windows XP on a sticker on the case.

Is the Magic JellyBean software absolutely safe? I have a mortal fear of loading anything at the moment. Sounds very useful though.

Thanks once again to all of you for holding my hand through all this. Hopefully the buying of a new PC and all the hastles associated are not imminent but at least I feel I have learnt a lot from you all to enable me to handle it when the time comes.

thirascule

Sorry to bump the thread but I just thought of something. Is your PC a Dell? I ask because for a few years in the early noughties they used non-standard psu's. So if you replaced it with a normal one you'd get a fried PC, smoke probably and a bang maybe:eek:. Worth bearing in mind;)

aliEnRIK

Jellybeans fine muppet

-TangleFoot-

Muppet81 wrote: »

Is the Magic JellyBean software absolutely safe?

There are no guarantees in life, but as it's open source I'm reasonably sure you have nothing to worry about.

thirascule

I've used it for years, the only problem I've ever had is overzealous AV programs deleting it. Just for the hell of it, I've just downloaded the latest version 2.0.1 unzipped it, run it and then scanned it with Norton AV 2009 (I know, but it was free), Malwarebytes and NOD32 on my laptop nothing untoward found.