Possible Virus! Need help!

[Anime Kidd]

Tonight I was on the computer and all of a sudden my computer went haywire for a sec then went on standby mode. I flipped it back on and a little bit later it did it again. Then I restarted it and it did it again after a few minutes. I checked the running processes and online for anything that looked weird. I first thought it was "isass.exe:, which I googled and it came up as a virus (!!), but it looks like it might be "Lsass.exe" cause of how the system font displays the capital I from the lower-case L, in which case it's some Windows process.

Anyway, I just finally got done with the AVG virus scan and only some java stuff came up as infected. Nothing else came up either. I tend to keep this thing as up to date as possible and I am a bit nervous/paranoid about viruses/virii and spyware. I am on a LAN with a router and running XP's firewall too. I don't run Active X and I use Firefox as the main browser, but oher people use explorer (but that doesn't run Active X either).

Oh... before I did the virus scan, I trid to get the thing to boot into safe mode and had it unplugged from the LAN. The problem was that it never made it into safe mode. I don't if I was doing it right either. Isn't it "F8" during the startup process? I did get to a boot menu with four options; floppy disk, HDD, and two others I can't remember. Well during that my keyboard didn't work so I restarted it again.

Now while I type this, the thing hasn't gone all freaky so I don't know whats going on. While this was happening my dad was on his ham-radio and chatting with others and he thinks it might be some RF thing that was screwing it up. That seems likely cause ever since he has gotten off it hasn't happened again. Maybe next time he is on we'll see.

I come to ENWorld for help (again! thats what? 4 or 5 times now?). Maybe it was the radio antennae or whatever, or possible virus. I hope someone can help.

By the way, what are some good online virus-checkers out there? I know Symantec and McAfee have one, but I don't know the address for these. Also, I run Adaware, Spybot, HijackThis, and I think CWShredder and some program that checks the startup list. I run these ever now and then, but I fear I might be missing something. What other stuff should I have? While I like ENWorld, I hate to keep dropping this stuff on everyone here. So what tech boards are out there that are good for computer advice/help/etc?

 

[Aus_Snow]

I recommend http://forums.techguy.org for windows problems and questions. Usually, there's some helpful person there who'll respond fairly quickly.

As for freeware virus scanners, I'd give props to 'avast!' (yeh, it comes with the exclamation mark, but I like it nonetheless). It's available at http://www.avast.com/eng/down_home.html - you have to register it for a year or so at a time, but it's still free anyway. Beyond that, you'd have to pay money for something 'better', no doubt. Just be sure to *uninstall installed antivirus programs before installing new ones*.

Other than that, make sure the router's firewalled properly (if possible), including ensuring that access is only available to it from the LAN. Unless you're running servers, I'd block all incoming network traffic at the router, too (provided it can do 'stateful' packet filtering).

You probably don't need Windows 'Firewall'. It's completely useless for most purposes. Ad-Aware is potentially useful - but the rest of those programs? I have no idea.

You also might want to run something along the lines of Registry Mechanic or the like (check out http://www.download.com perhaps, for loads of these kinds of programs).

Also, maybe try right-clicking on each hard drive in Explorer and going to Tools/Error Checking, and check for certain kinds of file and disk errors.

Of course, check you have all the latest Windows Update security fixes etc.

Also get the latest version of Firefox (and Thunderbird, I'd add). They have got better.

Hm. I'll post more if I think of or remember additional stuff.

 

[maransreth]

For a good online virus scanner, try Trend Micro . You will have to install something, but it is quite small and is for the purposes of the virus scanner.

Apar from that, how old are the components of the PC? It doesnt have to be a virus to cause a windows problem.

 

[Anime Kidd]

Thanks for the advice and links.

The computer isn't that old. I got the thing around August/September of last year. I suspect it might of been the RF issue as I spent like 2-3 hours on it with nothing happening.