new virus or something?

[SIRCOOKS]

recently my computer is running slow as hell,, i just built it, its a p4 3.0 ghz 8000fsb with 1gb of ddr ram behind it, with a 128 radeon 9200 8x agp video card, usualy i cann uzip a . rar or .tar file under 5 minutes maybe less, but know its taking me almost a half hour for the same thing, same a s transferring files from one internal drive to another...

i have run ad aware many times, removed any unwanted things, i have norton 03 installed and updated as off september 11th, and that isn't picking up anything, and even that is running slow, it literally stops at a certain point. also i cant keep my homwe page, i think like an unknown trojan is there or something, and everytime i reset it to hotmail, it comes back and gives me another webopage upon opening.

does anyone know of any viruses i dont know about, is there anything else i should do, every program i have installed i need.....im just fed up because i can do things as quick as i use to.....i even defragged a couple of times, and that didn't even work...

holla back plz

[Capmaster]

Have you run an app like Spybot yet?

Is your swapfile dynamic, or did you set the min and max size to the same setting?

[SIRCOOKS]

i have run ad aware, im gonna run spy bot soon, as you just recomended it, what dio u mean by sawp file, where can i find it and what will i h ave to do with it.....ill be awaiting your reply soi can do these things asap...

[thecoalman]

i have run ad aware, im gonna run spy bot soon,

As soon as you run either clean what it finds then reboot and immediatley run them again, a lot of that scumware regenerates itself. If it finds the scumware again after reboot you probably will need to manually uninstall it. Do a search for that particular file that keeps coming back and include uninstall in your search phrase.

Make sure both are updated before running them.

[Steelfatboy]

I recommend installing spysweeper (from webroot.com) as well. After installing and updating the programs, boot into safemode (press F8 before you see the Windows XP splash screen) and then run them. You might also want to try hijackthis! but it's for more advanced users.

[SIRCOOKS]

k, thats some good ideas guys

[HillJack]

Is DMA enabled in Windows AND your BIOS? Everything in your system will slow down if DMA is disabled. If it is, is your BIOS detecting the proper transfer mode? My BIOS recently decided to detect my drives as DMA Mode 2, instead of DMA Mode 5 like it used to, and things were significantly slower until I manually reset it.

[SIRCOOKS]

i know what your talking about right, and i have a promise raid cardc in my system with my 2x250gb hds, and their trasferring at dma 5...what should i look for in my bios to manually reset this dma problem,and will this speed up my sytem to what it usually was....if not how do i enable it in windows and my bios..holla back

[Capmaster]

i have run ad aware, im gonna run spy bot soon, as you just recomended it, what dio u mean by sawp file, where can i find it and what will i h ave to do with it.....ill be awaiting your reply soi can do these things asap...

I was talking about setting the swapfile min and max to the same size. It keeps Windows from constantly adjusting the size of it and playing hell with fragmentation ....a common cause of slowdown.

Control Panel>System>Advanced>Performance>Advanced>Virtual Memory>Change

[SIRCOOKS]

whats a good amt to change it too...

[Capmaster]

whats a good amt to change it too...

750MB?

The old rule of thumb used to be double the RAM plus 30MB, but that's not current. I would try 750 and see. If you get out of memory errors, then bump it up a bit

Don't forget to defrag (allow swapfile to be moved in options) after you reboot.

[fritzi93]

Had a bout with a real nasty dug-in sumbitch of a virus a few weeks ago. Didn't want to risk installing SP2 on a comp with problems.

Anyway, a few thoughts:

Spybot is worthwhile, turn on advanced options (read the tutorial first!), and activate SD Resident. That prevents most crap from getting loaded in the first place. Also, be aware of the DSO Exploit bug in Spybot. If that shows up as a problem to be fixed, ignore. Delete and it'll return, as it's a bogus entry. Google on DSO Exploit for more info.

You could turn off system restore if that's where the bastard is hiding, but that seems a little drastic, losing your restore points and all. I finally nailed the one in my comp with Avast antivirus (free), by setting for thorough (slow) and doing a boot scan. I think Avast is fairly new(?) Had AVG, not bad but it couldn't cope with this one, it'd identify but could not fix the problem.

If you're using IE, it might behoove you to move to Firefox. Also, surely you're running a firewall? Zone Alarm and Sygate are a couple free ones.

Oh, and you could get Stinger from McAfee. It only scans for the forty-or-so nastiest known viruses, and it's very thorough, slow that is. There also a free online virus scan at Trend-Micro. Didn't work for my particular problem though.

Hmmm, you asked for ideas, and that exhausts my limited supply.... Good luck.

[mastersmurfie]

I recommend installing spysweeper (from webroot.com) as well. After installing and updating the programs, boot into safemode (press F8 before you see the Windows XP splash screen) and then run them. You might also want to try hijackthis! but it's for more advanced users.

ditto this, along with the other programs mentioned here.

mastersmurfie

[SIRCOOKS]

also, everytime i go to certain websites, it just automatically switches to another....this !@#$ is !@#$%^& with me....

[SIRCOOKS]

the homepage i now default to is http://www.iwantsearch.com..is this associated with some virus?

[Capmaster]

the homepage i now default to is http://www.iwantsearch.com..is this associated with some virus?

Probably not. Some annoying websites change your homepage to theirs, hoping that if you go there, you'll spend money. It's one of my many pet peeves.

You can change it back easily enough. Go to control panel>Internet Options and right there at the top of the "General" tab is the home page setting. Just put in where you want it to default to.

[thecoalman]

the homepage i now default to is http://www.iwantsearch.com..is this associated with some virus?

Probably not. Some annoying websites change your homepage to theirs, hoping that if you go there, you'll spend money. It's one of my many pet peeves.

You can change it back easily enough. Go to control panel>Internet Options and right there at the top of the "General" tab is the home page setting. Just put in where you want it to default to.

Tha will work great until the spyware changes it back to whatever feels like at the moment....

Edit: Just did a search and iwantsearch & spyware returns numerous spyware related pages concerning iwantsearch toolbar.

[mastersmurfie]

try here:

http://computercops.biz/postp299447.html

mastersmurfie

[SIRCOOKS]

so is that webpage assocviated with some type of virus or vicious spyware...?

[thecoalman]

so is that webpage assocviated with some type of virus or vicious spyware...?

Maybe, maybe not. It's just the page the spyware is changing your homepage too. It can contain malicious content or not..... I don't know and I'm not going to find out Keep it as your homepage, I'll bet no matter what you type in the search box it returns porn sites. That's a good thing right? The website doesn't matter and isn't the origin of your teoubles...

Have you done what I first suggested, the first thing you need to determine is what you have. If you go and do what I first suggested, run your spyware program (make sure it's updated) then reboot and run it agian. Whatever it finds the second time write down on a piece of paper or export to a text file for future reference. Post it here or better yet in a spyware forum.

There's a whole lot of other good info that other posters suggested too.

[mastersmurfie]

SIRCOOKS,

The link that I posted shows one way to get rid of the iwantsearch hijack...you need to run (at least) Spybot, AdAware, and HiJackthis!...

it's either that to try to remove it, or a full format and reinstall of XP...

mastersmurfie

[SIRCOOKS]

but i dont wanna try to remove it, i want to remove it, how do i shut it out compltely, i know system restore turn off is one starting point, what cause this, do i need a sonstant firewall or soemthing, right now im running, ad aware, hijack this, spysweeper, and everything i can at it, spysweeper is doing a pretty good job at protectine me, but what does this really affect and how can i move it....holla back

[Jayhawk]

SIRCOOKS, here's the sequence I use:

Try to remove the toolbar from Add/Remove Programs
(it probably won't let you but worth a try)
Update all your spy programs(Spybot, Spysweeper, AdAware)
Turn off System Restore
Disconnect your Network Cable
Reboot into SAFE mode (you may need to do a RUN>MSCONFIG and set the Boot Ini Options to /safeboot)
Do a Sweep with all of your spyware programs
Use HijackThis or BHO Daemon to delete all references to the Toolbar
Use MSCONFIG again to turn off /safeboot (if you used it)
Reboot
Run all your Spyware programs again
Plug in you network cable and Reboot

If that doesn't do it then it's a manual things which can be tricky depending upon how comfortable you are working at the DOS prompt or with a boot CD like Bart's PE Builder.

[SIRCOOKS]

i think i have it under control now guys, ill holla at yall with anything else

[SIRCOOKS]

ive done everything you guys have told me to do, but its still running kinda slow...ireally cant figure this out, should i just go for a reformat?

[gitreel]

Backup your data then reformat.

It couldn't hurt.

[SIRCOOKS]

cool

[SIRCOOKS]

how do i defrag my registry, with what program......
ill check to see if i did install the chipset ide driver, and do so again...how would i know if my hd is crashing, and what the helll and how would determine if i had a memory leak...holla back

[ripit]

I had similar problems a little while ago. Windows has become completly corupted but it started out with problems like yours(a repair didn't work) but I was able to clean the system by putting the hard drive into another computer (so it wasn't the boot drive). I was also running norton 2003. I'll re-recomend trend micro's online virus scan (someone else recomended it above). It immediatlly caught three things that norton didn't even see (backdoor orifice trojan, sasser b, and one I don't remember). I was a little irritated that norton wasn't catching these things. I realized that trend micro was pc-cillin and realized that I already had two copys of their antivirus/firewall that came with motherboards. I killed norton and installed pc-cillin. After getting the viruses etc. off, an unknown computer that was using a false ip address made hundreds and hundreds of attempts to access my computer (so I'm guessing I was hacked using backdoor orrifice).
I wouldn't count on norton (at least not 2003).

[SIRCOOKS]

after all of this you know i still haven't sped up that much guys..im reformatiing this weekend during this friggin hurricane down here were gonna get...holla back