help !

March 7, 2006 9:15 AM

Virusfilter : what computer virus is this ?

I'm offline mostly now (thanks telewest) but i have a severe problem with my computer , i'm running xp pro and in the last month my ctr-alt-del is disabled , and my processor seems to be running at 100% a lot ...major slowdowns...any ideas what it could be ? or any up the the minute free anti virus programs ?
i know it might sound lame but i'm really stressed out trying to print jpgs for a college course here so it's pretty tricky ....thanks in advance : )

posted by sgt.serenity to computers & internet (10 comments total)

That could be any one of hundreds of different viruses (or, more likely, spyware that's taken over your computer).

A quick way to try to remove this would be to run MS Antispyware or Spybot (or, preferably, both).

For a general free antivirus, I personally like Avast!
posted by rxrfrx at 9:21 AM on March 7, 2006

You could try to run TASKLIST and TASKKILL from the console.

Use TASKLIST to find the culprit, then something like: TASKKILL /IM SCUMBAG.EXE

That might get your machine performing properly so you can run the scans rxrfrx suggests. I'd also recommend Trend Housecall and AVG.
posted by ed\26h at 9:32 AM on March 7, 2006

Yeah, it could be any number of Trojan horse programs too.

Like Ed, I would suggest the Trend Micro online virus scan as a first step. They also have an online spyware scanner that works pretty well.

Once you have done the first housecall scan and fixed any major issues, then you can go about installing and running Spybot, Adaware, Microsoft AntiSpyware, or any other two of the spyware scanners, plus any of the good free virus programs out there, like Avast! or AVG.
posted by gemmy at 9:36 AM on March 7, 2006

In my experience WindowsXP is just generally much less good about honoring Ctl-Alt-Delete than past versions of NT. I've had perfectly benign (though buggy) software peg the CPU and make it impossible to get at the task manager. So, it might not be quite as bad as you think. Still, its worth checking out.

Good luck.
posted by Good Brain at 9:45 AM on March 7, 2006

Check your processes within the task-manager and check the processes burning up your cpu-ressources.
oh, wait. you can't start the task-manager. hmm.
Anyway: I was going to recommend http://www.processlibrary.com/
There you can enter the names of suspicious processes and find out if they are harmful.
posted by ollsen at 9:45 AM on March 7, 2006

Taskmanager disabled (no Ctrl-Alt-Delete!) that's no good. you could try: Reboot in safe mode. Then go Start-Run "msconfig". From the Start-up tab. Disable everything. Keeping only what you recognize. Reboot and then do the Housecall stuff that ed and gemmy suggested.
posted by Hanover Phist at 9:52 AM on March 7, 2006

Forgot to say; I saw something similar on a friend's computer once, something had overwritten TASKMGR.EXE with a dummy executable. Check the size of the file and check it against a known-good one. It's in your SYSTEM32 folder.
posted by ed\26h at 10:15 AM on March 7, 2006

AntiVir is a good, free antivirus program as well (updates daily). It seems to catch lots of weird stuff.

I didn't realize that these other free antivirus programs existed - is there a recent comparison of them published anywhere?
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 10:19 AM on March 7, 2006

Here are some other ways to open task manager:

Start > Run > type, taskmgr into the box > ok

right click the task bar and choose task manager.

this keyboard shortcut: ctrl + shift + esc

or go into Drive:\windows\system32\taskmgr.exe and open from there (not sure if it is the same on xp pro, if it isn't there try a search for "taskmgr.exe" to find it)

Just wanted to add it might not be a virus, trojan, worm (oh my!) but a conflict between programs causing the problem.
posted by squeak at 10:34 AM on March 7, 2006

Before you run any spyware removal tool or virus checker its a good idea to boot in safe mode. This will make the removal tool much more effective at getting rid of the infected files.

If it is not malware, try deleting temp files - none of these are system files so don't worry, defrag your hard disk, and run disk cleanup. These things will clear up a lot of latency issues.
posted by Deep Dish at 5:39 PM on March 7, 2006