Still having computer problems -- help !!!

[cdhall]

I'm not a PC Tech but I have worked in support and have friends.

2 possibilities haven't been brought up. Since you reformatted your HD I think you have either a 1. Boot Sector Virus on your Hard Drive or a 2. BIOS Virus on your logic board.

This is based on my DATED experience. Anyone on here know if either of these are still possible? If he reformatted his drive once, booting from a CD if PCs can do this and letting it run overnight would be useful to diagnose the Boot Device. Booting of an External HD may only spread the virus if it can migrate from his Drive or Logic Board to the other HD.

Right?

Someone who knows more, please chime in. Thanks.

[Captain]

I'm hardly a computer expert (heck, I type with two fingers) but some of this sounds like a virus I had a couple weeks ago. I ended up dumping everything and rebooting. About a week later I had the same issues you have...plus I kept getting an inordinate amount of junk e-mails. Ended up getting my computer savvy Sister to work some kind of computer mumbo jumbo voodoo to fix it all.

I sure hope you have better luck!!

[saildog]

I'd recommend Avast over AVG as well. It's great and it's free. I've done tons of surfing and have downloaded tons of stuff, and have never had a virus problem with my current computer or past ones.

AVG has a history of false positives for Windows files. Now, I don't know if that is true in your particular case, but it was the first thing I thought of. It's a known problem and I think it has assigned virus signatures to *.dll files when there was no problem. In the past there have been widespread, documented cases of AVG prompting users to delete critical Windows files.

Dump it and run with Avast for awhile and see if you have better luck.

[ctc]

>AVG has a history of false positives for Windows files.

I've never had that happen.... would it cause problems like Mike's having; or would it give some sort of warning first?

Don C.

[cdhall]

This is only vaguely related but I had to bring it up since Mike asked earlier.

I can NOT believe a 1 Terabyte (Seagate) USB 2.0 drive is now availble for $119.00. I will get at least one asap.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1218065495073

[fallensaviour]

Avast has been good to me as well.

[moonlight_night78]

Another thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet is that your power supply might be going bad. I don't know off-hand what brand of computer you have, but it's one of the 1st things to go and when it finally went out on my old computer, it fried the motherboard with it.

[cdhall]

Another thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet is that your power supply might be going bad. I don't know off-hand what brand of computer you have, but it's one of the 1st things to go and when it finally went out on my old computer, it fried the motherboard with it.

Good call. But if you could boot to a CD and it was still rebooting itself the Power Supply would be even more of a suspect.

The logic board battery used to also be a suspect. But if you can boot to a CD and run it overnight with no issue, that will tell you a lot. Like if the Power Supply is rebooting. That would be one of the only 2-3 things that could cause your machine to restart I think.

You may want to also do this at a different power outlet and/or with a different power cord but that can also wait.

[Sideshow Spock]

T1K seems to have lost interest..

[Mikey]

I haven't lost interest and i'm keeping up on this thread.
So far it's still down.

I haven't been replying often because I have to sign in and do it from a different computer every time I want to post.

[jwyblejr]

Would one of those diagnostic programs work? Something like System Mechanic or that Finally Fast PC ad they run on TV?

[Neutron X]

Last time I fought a wicked virus I spent days with it. I found that going back to safe restaring point(a month back) get the computer to start from there. Some virus block you from downloading any anti virus solutions. If restarting from a safe point works, Download antivirus then run the scan so the program can isolate or delete the virus.

I managed to isolate the rotten virus I had for 8 months but would have been better off reformating my hardrive. Which is what I ended up doing. Make sure you delete Windows before reinstalling Windows.

[steshell]

Just an idea but have you checked that your processor fan is working correctly. It could be that the processor is getting too hot causing it to reboot.


Steve

[mitchedwards]

Mike

Another old trick is to check you routlet to make sure its grounded? You can pick up a tester at home depot for 5 bucks. If your outlet is not grounded properly you can see pc reboots.