Serious PC perils

[beavereater]

OK...got the blue screen of death. Reseted. Wouldn't boot. Turned everything off. Started it up. Gave me a message like "...over-clock failure, reset options and save. I did that. It wouldn't start again. As I go to restart I get a screen in red that says "DON'T TURN OFF OR RESTART YOUR COMPUTER. PLEASE WAIT!" and it's been sitting there for an hour. What do I do...what don't I do? The title at the top of the message says FLASH BIOS

[otpw1]

Sounds like you have a worm that attacked your BIOS. To check, shut it off, let it sit for a minute.
Disconnect your HD power cable and boot from a floppy. If it boots normally then its just a matter of Virus eradication. If it doesn't boot from the floppy then you get to reflash your BIOS.
Have you done that before?

[redwudz]

Just guessing, but it does sound like your BIOS settings were corrupted. Usually what I do is shut down the computer and unplug. Pull the BIOS battery for a few minutes, then replace. This clears your BIOS settings back to default. The BIOS itself can't be destroyed unless the chip fails. You should take notes of your BIOS settings so you can restore them to what you had before. But default will work.

When you get that done, best to boot into 'safe mode' and run some antivirus/antitrojan scans. Trendmicro's site is good for that.

[otpw1]

Pull the BIOS battery for a few minutes, then replace.

oops forgot that.

[beavereater]

Thanks...didn't do any of that. Just turned on the PC and prayed...it worked!!

[beavereater]

OK...PC is fooked up again. Looks like I'm pulling the battery. Do I need anything special to pull it out or are my hands fine for this?

OK...cleared the CMOS I think, with the jumpers. Now I just get a nothing. Help

[redwudz]

Usually just a fingernail to hold back the retaining spring. Just pay attention to how it's held in there, so you don't bend up any of the holder springs. You may be able to change a jumper from one position to another to accomplish the same thing. You would need to check your motherboard manual for that.The jumper is usually close to the battery. Same thing, though. Unplug your computer to do any BIOS reset. I usually tell people to pull the battery because they may not have the MB manual.

That will at least set your BIOS to default. If that doesn't cure it, then the problem is in your OS.

If you get it running, I would boot to safe mode, no internet connections and run your antivirus/antitrojan programs. I'm assuming a malware program did the damage.

If you get past that, Trendmicro has a great scanner program that is free on the net. It found problems that none of my other DL'd spyware/virus programs detected. http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

[beavereater]

OK...I got it working. Didn't do what you said though, I wasn't patient enough to wait for a reply. I cleared my CMOS with the jumpers.

Now, I'm going to do a virus check and so on.

The slow down I had I think was an app I had recently installed (Last night actually). I bought a new Maxtor One Touch II 200 gig. It came with an app called retrospect express. It was hanging my computer. I think that's what it was anyway.

[redwudz]

If you cleared your BIOS and that worked, doesn't matter how. The jumper is the better method, but the battery pull is universal.

I'm not familiar with that software, but maybe that was it.

I would still visit Trendmicro for a scan.

And you might want to check your BIOS settings as they may not be optimal. Default is usually stable, but not necessarily the best or fastest.