Crashing

sak46

Hello,
Recently my sons computer had a virus via msn. A friend sent him a link asking if the picture was of him and on clicking it the virus downloaded.
We think we have got rid of it, but we arent 100% sure.

Now the problem we are having is that within 30 seconds of the computer being on, it crashes(blue screen, saying error and something about running in safe mode etc)
The only was he can use the computer at the moment is via safe mode which isnt very helpfull as he is studying Design for interactive media at uni and really needs it to run correctly.

Can anyone give any suggestions on how to fix this?

So far he has used CCleaner, Ad-Aware and AVG programs during safe mode to try and fix the problem but nothing is working.

Thanks in advance!

johnmc

If you've got the original disk then run setup again.

Else go to https://www.windowsupdate.com and download the latest fixes.

espresso

Follow the instructions in the Malware/Spyware removal guide sticky

Browntoa

try a registry cleaner

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/System-Tweak/TuneUp-Utilities.shtml

its a fully working 30 day trial

you will need to download it to Cd and install if you can, you may be able to install it is safe mode

If a message appears indicating that an error has occurred, close the message and continue with Restart the Computer Normally.

skiddy2k

If the above doesnt work, please state the file + error code it mentions in the Blue Screen

David_B_2

sak46 wrote:

Hello,
Recently my sons computer had a virus via msn. A friend sent him a link asking if the picture was of him and on clicking it the virus downloaded.
We think we have got rid of it, but we arent 100% sure.

Some friend!!

As suggested above. Plus, have you got virus software installed (if not get one) as this should not have allowed this to happen or it would at least tell you what you have got installed which helps when trying to remove it.

Good luck

-monky-

David_B wrote:

Some friend!!

I have seen this sort of thing before. Once you have the malware it intercepts your msn chat session and replicates itself. So his friend may not have actually sent the message - it was probably the malware replicating itself.

When this happened to my dad he tried a bunch of things, even went and bought a new virus scanner. Thing is, the malware was so blatant - it just ran as a windows process like a normal program so since it wasnt acting "like a virus" it wasnt picked up by any scanner.

So, while I would echo what others have said about scanning for viruses and using a malware/advert/cookie cleaning/etc tool like Lavasoft Ad-Aware if this doesnt work then start your computer up in normal mode (not safe mode) and press Ctrl-Shift-Esc to get Task Manager up. Click the Processes tab and take a screen shot of that window (alt-PrintScreen) and paste it into something like Windows Paint, save it as a GIF. Then either post it here or PM it to me and I'll see if I can spot any rogue processes.

Sometimes it seems virus/malware checkers are so clever at finding processes that hide themselves away that they miss the blatant ones written by 13 year old geeks in their bedrooms :rolleyes:

Browntoa

better still download hijackthis

http://www.tomcoyote.org/hjt/

run a scan as it shows you and then post the log back here to see if we can spot the offender if it's still there

sak46

The only thing i can see on the blue screen that says anything about the error, is the following

Tech info

***STOP: 0x0000008E (0xc0000005,0xFD38B7C,0xB9578A20,0x00000000)




Also , as for taking a screen shot of Processes, i cant because it doesnt stay on long enough, in safe mode this is all i get.

Browntoa

nothing untowards there but one of the error messages can possibly be caused by the effects of a trojan

this site has some good steps you should try before a repair Xp install

http://www.help2go.com/Tutorials/Windows/How_To_Repair_XP_and_Avoid_a_Full_Reinstall.html

a repair installation will NOT lose your documents but try the other steps first

you will need to re-apply any windows updates staright away after the repair

only a FULL reinstall wipes everything

sak46

Browntoa wrote:

nothing untowards there but one of the error messages can possibly be caused by the effects of a trojan

this site has some good steps you should try before a repair Xp install

http://www.help2go.com/Tutorials/Windows/How_To_Repair_XP_and_Avoid_a_Full_Reinstall.html

a repair installation will NOT lose your documents but try the other steps first

you will need to re-apply any windows updates staright away after the repair

only a FULL reinstall wipes everything

That sounds good to me, but the disks are here and my son is in portsmouth. Ill have to give them to him next friday