I know my PC is infected, Norton doesn't! Help Please!

[justin99655]

Greetings. Looking for some help with my Vista based laptop.

I have steered clear of Limewire, etc. and been very careful about what I download and install on my HP laptop, but the other day I had a blue screen pop up suddenly with a scary and long error message. Then my laptop shut down and I was unable to take note of any of the details of the message.

NOW, browsers (even Chrome & Firefox) are slow, java based websites and applications often crash, and my overall performance is much slower. I've noticed my cursor often jumps from the arrow to the circular blue "thinking/loading" circle (what used to be the hourglass) even when no programs are open.

I'm not sure how a virus has infected my PC, but somehow it has! Norton doesn't detect it, AVG free didn't detect anything. I tried Norton again, and still nothing detected. What has happened to my PC and what can I do to discover/fix it?

I would be eternally grateful for any feedback.

[tendragons]

Those symptoms could even be caused by some damaged RAM or disc. If you can get ahold of the hex codes displayed on the "blue screen of death", it will shed some more light on the possible causes. The code is in the format like 0x1234ABCD. Sometimes you can get the error message out of the System log using Event Viewer (Control Panel, Administrative Tools). It should still have the entry from a few days ago when it crashed.

Use the info at http://helpdesk.wisc.edu/page.php?id=7049 to stop auto-reboot so you'll have time to read the BSOD text if it reoccurs.

OOh, definitely run a "checkdisk" in the meantime in case the crash corrupted any files (My Computer, right-click C: drive, Properties, Tools tab, error-checking)

[Heyzaneretro]

If you are worried about a virus you could try an online virus scanner. Trend Micro's Housecall seems good http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ , but I prefer F-Secure's http://www.f-secure.com/en_US/security/security-lab/tools-and-services/online-scanner/ . If it's not damaged hardware, and depending on the nastiness of the virus, you may not be allowed to run these programs.

[Michael York]

Hi justin99655,,

This is Mike from the Norton Authorized Support Team.

Can you please tell me which Norton product and version you have installed? You may have an outdated version installed and may be entitled to a free update to the newest version of your Norton product, as long as you have a valid subscription.

If you have not already done so, manually run LiveUpdate , possibly multiple times, until you are informed that there are no more updates available. After the updates have completed, perform a "Full System Scan" with Norton and see if it detects any threats.

In regards to the blue screen that popped-up, please open the Event Viewer in Windows and locate the crash and let me know the stop code and any other relevant information that appears.

Thank you,
Mike

Greetings. Looking for some help with my Vista based laptop.

I have steered clear of Limewire, etc. and been very careful about what I download and install on my HP laptop, but the other day I had a blue screen pop up suddenly with a scary and long error message. Then my laptop shut down and I was unable to take note of any of the details of the message.

NOW, browsers (even Chrome & Firefox) are slow, java based websites and applications often crash, and my overall performance is much slower. I've noticed my cursor often jumps from the arrow to the circular blue "thinking/loading" circle (what used to be the hourglass) even when no programs are open.

I'm not sure how a virus has infected my PC, but somehow it has! Norton doesn't detect it, AVG free didn't detect anything. I tried Norton again, and still nothing detected. What has happened to my PC and what can I do to discover/fix it?

I would be eternally grateful for any feedback.