My PC is Depressing !

Sharpster · Post by **Sharpster** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 1:01 am

Lately, i've not had many problems with spyware and what not after Ice had helped me out. My computer has been running quite great the past couple of days. Today I'd just finished playing Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory with my neighbor and I noticed my computer was running a little slow as well as my firefox. I figured it was simply just because I hadn't restarted my computer for a couple of days and have had alot of programs running. So I restarted my computer and has it was loading back up, I noticed that my background wasn't working (was a solid blue color). I also noticed that the windows security window had popped up, ya know, the one from the control panel. A couple of new icons were also down in the bottom right by the clock. My desktop icons were rearranged in an order far from what I had just left them in as well. I hit the start menu and all of the programs right under start, not under program files had been reset as if I had like just restored the computer or somthing. Then I got spammed with lots of popups and took like 15 mins for me to get control of it... I restarted it because at that point in time I couldn't think of anything better 2 do.
After it had started back up, I waited awhile for it to all load and so I could take control of it. I remove a bunch of random shit that had popped it's way up into my add/remove programs part of the control panel. I also noticed some junk in my program files under the start menu. After getting rid of all of that I started running spybot s&d and ad-aware. They both found a considerable amount more then usual. Dunno what happened though, outa no where right as Spybot was finishing it just closed itself out without me getting a chance to clean off the crap it had found. Ad-aware had appeared to have frozen on the same file for over 10 mins now with about 95 objects, 50 of them critical ones. Since there was nothin else I could do I hit the cancel button on ad-aware and it took me to the screen where I can clear the objects found... When I got to that screen, there was nothing there. Nothin on either the Critical or Negligible(sp?) Objects.
At this time I was really perturbed at what had happened, my computer was running smoothly with nothing wrong. Then after a simple restart it had completely screwed up my computer. I cant even do much on it. I'm typing this up from the other computer in the other room.
Once before about a week or 2 ago I had run my weekly Norton AV full system scan and it found around ehh 20 or so objects but it had only deleted about 3... the rest the deletes were failed. I added all the names of the files and their locations to a notepad I had been keeping of popups the happened randomly and had nothing to do with firefox or ie.
I'm really at a complete loss of what to do guys... I have no idea how to handle this junk... Anyone have any of ideas what 2 do ? I'm in over my head here.

(p.s. - What confuses me is that I haven't done anything but play games and check the forums and my email over the past week. Haven't been around browsing or anything.)

EDIT: Also noticed when I tryed putting counter-strike back on my computer today that when I was updating my version of steam, it kept getting closed out around about 27%. Think this may have been a result of one of these many problems I encountered later that afternoon?

Post by **XMEN Gambit** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 12:38 pm

Switch to Linux!!

hehe.

Let's take a step back for a sec, because apparently your security measures aren't holding up, and if we fix the PC then we'll just end up right back here if we don't fix 'em.

1) What sort of firewall have you got? Physical, or just the one that XP sp2 has, or is that even turned on? Any other things, like internet connection sharing, file sharing, any thing else that might make your system vulnerable to outside attack? For your sanity, you may want to get a hardware broadband router, even if you don't need one otherwise.

2) The other way stuff gets on your PC is when you authorize it. Internet explorer ActiveX stuff, for example, or those browser popup windows that look just like windows system messages, but the "close" button is really a link to a covert installer, or stuff like that. Oh, and toolbars - everyone's got a toolbar! Sheesh. Admin passwords, runas service, lots of stuff. You've got to really lock down and be careful these days. One way to do that is to make your normal user account a non-admin account. "Power user" at most. Then you wouldn't be able to let these little critters install themselves with admin privileges.

There are several ways a program might be installed on your computer, but not "fully functional" until after a reboot. You're probably going to have to go through all that stuff you did with Ice, again, to get cleaned up.

This stuff certainly could have got in the way of Steam.

Sharpster · Post by **Sharpster** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 1:14 pm

Ahh ight, Well im bout to leave for florida in an hour or so and not be back for about a week and a half

.

In terms of firewalls, I have the sp2 firewal enabled, as well as a norton one that just wont disable so I stopped bothering with it.

B4 all of this I've dealt with bunchs of popups that happened at my start of my computer and *wow... just got a porn popup, wonderful, my lil sis was right behind me* just have x'ed them out.

My internet connection isnt shared, unless you mean like that it is routed to the other computer that I had typed this message up with last night.

And As for the antivirius, lately it has been finding more things that it can't delete then things it can... so I dunno about that.

Well I gotta head out and make sure I'm all packed up. I'll talk with you guys when I return.

Sharpster · Post by **Sharpster** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 5:56 pm

Well I'm back!

Had a good time down there, getting to see my grandparents, and going places. Although the 2 hour plane ride home was a bit upsetting because I had remembered I was coming home to a computer that went crazy a couple of days b4 I left

. I sorta dredded it.

I dont even know where to start to be honest with ya'll.

Post by **XMEN Gambit** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:11 pm

WB!

You could boot off a Knoppix disk and clean it up. There are lots of sites out there with instructions for that.

Sharpster · Post by **Sharpster** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 9:04 pm

What's a knoppix disk ?

Also tried early to run some spybot again and it found many more things then often... problem was when it was about, eh, 75% of the way done it said somthin about a program error blah blah and closed. I'm sure it is the spyware preventing it from working.

XMEN Ashaman DTM · Post by **XMEN Ashaman DTM** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 11:40 pm

Do a google search for knoppix. Then download the manual and the ISO for it. Print the manual out. Burn the ISO to a CD.

Then start looking for the "fixit" sections in the manual. Get those marked out so you have an idea of what to do. Then put the CD into your drive, restart, and boot from your CDROM drive.

It's easy from there.

Sharpster · Post by **Sharpster** » Fri Aug 19, 2005 10:00 am

Alright sounds simple, only thing is I dunno how to boot from my CD-ROM Drive.

How would I do that

?

Post by **XMEN Gambit** » Fri Aug 19, 2005 8:00 pm

When your machine boots, it probably says somewhere on the first screen or two "ESC for boot menu." Or something like that. Tap that button, and keep tapping, until you see a list of devices to boot from. Select it and go.

If you can't find such a message, you may have to go into your bios settings. There will be an option that says "boot order," and it may have such options as IDE0, IDE1, CDROM, USB, ZIP, etc. Put your CDROM ahead of your hard drive, save, and reboot.

Sharpster · Post by **Sharpster** » Sat Aug 20, 2005 12:05 pm

Alright thx, I'll see how that goes !

Sharpster · Post by **Sharpster** » Sat Aug 20, 2005 12:32 pm

Only downloads I saw said linux ? Is that what im doing, running linux and cleaning windows from there ?

EDIT: Ehh, having trouble finding a straight download... Alot of dead links and other stuff.

Post by **XMEN Gambit** » Sat Aug 20, 2005 3:19 pm

http://www.knoppix.com/

Many mirrors listed in the download section. There's a DVD version, too, that you don't need, so be careful about which you get.

Sharpster · Post by **Sharpster** » Sat Aug 20, 2005 9:57 pm

I don't understand how to use the mirrors. I go through the download agreement, then it takes me to a bunch of files that I can click, but don't know how to like actually get them.

Post by **XMEN Gambit** » Sat Aug 20, 2005 10:00 pm

Right-click -> "Save As" usually will do it, if left clicking won't.

What you're seeing is an FTP directory. Basically it's just a list of files on a server somewhere. You need to pick the right file, which is usually apparent by the name. (something.ISO, for example)

Sharpster · Post by **Sharpster** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 1:04 pm

Well i've finally gotten around to downloadin that iso file of knoppix. I tried to open it or w/e and it said I needed to install sonic recordnow! I'm now confused at what 2 do. I've also realized that since the file is 690 or so mb's, I wont be able to put it on a regular cd disk... Any ideas ?