PC "virus" help

Hope this is the right forum to hopefully get some help on........

I believe I have some sort of virus/worm on my laptop, but having used pretty every bit of software available to find it, I'm still in the dark on what/where it is. It's taking over my internet connection (Broadband) and I am unable to upload anything to the web, plus my connection speed is up and down like a brides nightie so trying to get anything done web wise has become a real nightmare............. On average it takes from 20 seconds to 40 seconds to load POTN and up to 6 minutes to load yahoo mail as an example...........

I have tried to do a safe boot in windows to sort out the problem but it just won't start up that way which makes me think that the virus/worm has got a pretty good hold of the laptop.

I'm running Win XP Home service pack 2 build 2600, IE ver 7 7.0.5730.11 on an Acer Aspire 9504WSMi

Cheers for any help you may be able to give me to at least relieve my stress

Cheers

Rob

If you can get to here.....www.pandasecurity.com
Click on the ActiveScan link using IE....if you have a currently active virus, worm, malware or spyware odds are good that it will find it.

It could also be a trojan horse. You can download this freeware: http://www.download.co​m …3000-8022_4-10377953.html and use it to scanyour system, If it finds something it will also give you directions on how to clean it.

Cheers Dan and KonTiki, very much appreciated

Rob

worst case, re-format the harddrive and re-install all the software. Backup the files first before doing the format.

galahad wrote in post #4533714
Backup the files first before doing the format.

Backup the non-infected files first before doing the format.

If you're fairly computer savvy, then google up "Hijack this". It's a program that lets you see exactly what's being loaded up on system startup. Some of the viruses/malware are fairly tricky in that they immediately spawn themselves as a program of an entirely random name and set the registry up so they load the next time windows boots up. So any scanning software will see the one that's in memory, and clear it, but the next time you boot up, it'll magically re-appear.

I have to find the infected ones first me thinks lol..........

I purchased an external Hard drive, last week as my other three are full, so when that turns up, hopefully this year I'll do a complete re-format then and thanks for everyones comments/help, it's really appreciated......

Pete, I'm pretty computer illiterate when it comes down to it, but I will gave that a go and see how I get on cheers

Rob

Make sure when you do get any anti virus installed (I like avast!) that you do a reboot scan. It scans before it loads windows and it really the best way to do it.

Most viruses are delivered through password keygens/crackers, crappy downloads, cracked software etc. Porn and torrent sites are bad for trojans and spy/malware. Avoid that crap like the plague. Sorta like blaming a car for being bent after you drive it into a pole.

I was rebuilding my wife's old box last night to be given as a gift to a poor family member. I'm quite sure she never clicked the no button to any window that popped up in the 3 years she used it. 4 toolbars, 2 weather applications, money trackers, download optimizers... It had 5 different trojans on it even. She's a little smarter now, not installing anything on her laptop now other than office and never installing anything crappy.

You computer is as clean as you keep it. It's the pitfall of having open hardware choices and WAY too much choice in crappy software.

Once you get it sorted out....make sure you always use a fire wall. I like zone alarm.

I would recomend AVG and spybot. This will let you check for both 'virus' and spyware. Both have freeware versions that are very good.

poloman wrote in post #4534223
Once you get it sorted out....make sure you always use a fire wall. I like zone alarm.

I am a former user of zone alarm. Far too many conflicts with stuff not working. Once I put my machine behind a router and got wise, it became redundant for me.

Go to this site..

http://forums.techguy.​org/

It is free. They are fantastic at this kind of thing. I had a terrible trojan once that nothing could get rid of. One of the members there had to make a special tool to kill it.
They are first going to tell you to download Highjack this that was mentioned above. Once you run it copy and paste the results to this website and they will look at it and tell you what to delete. If that doesn't work they will tell you step by step what else to do and they will see you through to the end.

They got me up and running again.

Good luck!

These are the ones I have found and sbsoft seems to be a real dodgy one, now I just need to find something to get rid of it which is proving difficult

Adware:adware/sbsoft Windows Registry
Spyware:Cookie/YieldMa​nager C:\WINDOWS\Temp\sqlite​_cfFmb420gnPCU7F
Spyware:Cookie/Apmebf C:\Documents and Settings\ROBUK\Cookies​\robuk@apmebf[1].txt

Thanks Char, I'll certainly be looking into that tonight

I don't download any dodgy software, games etc and I only have two games on the machine from bought CD's, Warcraft III and Sega Rally lol and don't go anywhere near anything with two XX's let alone three as the laptop is my lifeline to carry out my work on the road and anything goes wrong I don't earn

I've found this on the net, anyone have any idea whether it's cosher to follow this...........

Below listed dlls registry entries files are part of this spyware. To manually get rid of it, follow these instructions (at your own risk). SBSoft Removal InstructionsUnregister the following DLLs and reboot
ie2cltr.dll.
Delete these registry entries
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\clsi​d\{08bec6aa-49fc-4379-3587-4b21e286c19e}
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\inte​rface\{9d573d0e-663c-435f-bf31-2c4497373c41}
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\type​lib\{110fa82f-db6c-3c24-8929-60961d10c56e}
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\sof​tware\microsoft\window​s\currentversion\explo​rer\browser helper objects\{08bec6aa-49fc-4379-3587-4b21e286c19e}
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\sof​tware\searchtoolbar
Remove the following files
rdt.ini.

Thanks for all of your help again

Cheers

Rob

Robuk wrote in post #4535279
I don't download any dodgy software, games etc and I only have two games on the machine from bought CD's, Warcraft III and Sega Rally lol and don't go anywhere near anything with two XX's let alone three as the laptop is my lifeline to carry out my work on the road and anything goes wrong I don't earn

You've gone somewhere or done something. The real goal here is to avoid it from happening again after you fix this.

This might be an opportunity to look at alternative operating systems that suit you better.