All you Webby/Computer Smarties out there....

cybermom

cybermom

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OK..how do I explain all this? I have Norton on my desktop and Trend on my notebook. I'm not having any trouble with my notebook. But my desktop has recently been having intermitent trouble online. Sometimes it's fine, but within an hour or so it connects at really slow speeds and generally becomes impossilbe to even be online with. The rest of the functions seem to be fine. It just online stuff.

It's an HP Pavillion that an extra gig has been added to..now 3G's. About a year ago I had problems and they added the gig and reverted everything back to the day I got it. Which sped it up for a while, but lately...like I said almost impossible sometimes on the web.

Also within the past week I started receiving spam emails from an address in my address book. Well really similar anyway. The first time I thought "that's funny I know someone named that" . After about 3 I double checked. The email is the same as the one I have for the person, excpet that hers is @aol.com and this one is a-something else .com (I deleted them all and now I forgot). When I look in them all the forwards are to addreses in my address book. Very random, and some of them are even just businesses who send me newsletters etc.

They also contain a link inside...different links in each one, that I've never clicked on. Because I access them from both computers I'm confused as to how they could have infected the desktop and not the laptop.

So I'm thinking that although I've run my virus scan time and time again and all it ever finds is cookies...maybe there is something wrong with my IE. Because it also within the past couple weeks (just about the time it updated to IE7) has been strange. It suddenly never keeps me signed into my email..even though the box is checked. And the little window that shows the website address used to save all the ones I'd been on and pull them up if I started clicking on them, it doesn't anymore. They are blank with every new IE session. Again, this is only on the desktop.

So what do ya'll think? I was thinking I should try deleting IE and then reinstalling it. But how could I re-dowload it from the web, if I delete it and don't have a web browser? Should I download firefox, then delete IE and then use firefox to re-install IE?

Up untill I started having trouble I also had the Windows firewall on. But my Norton is new as of like the end of January and the other day I thought maybe they're conflicting so I turned if off. But all this stuff was happening before that.

Thank you all so much for any advice! I was going to go ask the geeks, but I thought I'd try ya'll first...no hidden agenda's to worry about! Isn't it nice we have a place to come and post crazy questions?

Thanks again.
 
it sounds like something the liberals and democrats did. if you elect a teabagger conservative, everything should be fine again.
 
I completely ditched Norton about a year ago. It had gotten so intrusive that it was hampering my work.
I use Avast now, and have had no problem.
I'd suggest you download and run Malwarebytes to scan your harddrive for bad things, then CCleaner to clean out the cobwebs and tune up your registry files

Oh, and make sure you enable the sarcasm filter!
 
Its kind of hard not being able to look at the computer to determine the solution. I would try downloading mozilla firefox browser (which IMO is the best browser)...or reinstalling Windows on the PC...Do you have a lot of toolbars showing in IE? I use the free virus protection software AVG...works good for being free...it is most likely spyware on your computer which is a pain to get rid of, thats why I suggest reinstalling windows
 
I don't like Norton, and it sounds like you have a virus. If possible, you should try to download another virus scanner. Download it on your laptop, drop the file to a CD or jump drive, and then run it on your desktop. AVG or AVIRA are both free and work well. Most virus scanners can do a preliminary scan of your computer before installing. Hopefully it can then find the virus and take care of it. Usually you should uninstall Norton before installing another virus protection program, but you may want to eliminate the virus before uninstalling Norton.

These things take a lot of trial and error. There is no one-stop solution. Try the different ideas people have given you until something works. If all else fails, you can always reformat (losing everything) and reinstall windows.
 
ouch...sounds like i'm gonna be spening a lot of time sitting here...thanks all..i suppose i could just have the geeks clean it out, but i though i could save some moola and try myself. i'll let ya'll know.


btw monky....i DID vote republican, but I thought now it was one of my god-given rights to have a smooth operating computer....my bad
 
Consider this.

If your machine was brought to me these are the first few things that I would do.
Uninstall Norton. This can be tricky. Norton embeds itself in weird ways and can be stubborn to remove. Fortunately Symantic caught so much heat that they built a removal tool that picks up where the uninstaller fails. Find that here.

I agree with servantofone When that was finished I would install either AVG or Avira.
Once those were installed and scans completed I would make certain that Windows Defender was current and running. Maybe try these online scanners if I thought that it should need it.


Also I would use DanCs suggestion and try Malwarebytes and CCleaner.

All except one of the links above are from Cnet.com. If for some reason the links do not work just go there and search. The other link is too the results of a Yahoo search for the words 'online virus scanner list'. Top result.

If somehow that did not work I would really try to talk you into formatting the hard drive and a fresh install of the operating system. Hopefully this all helps, good luck.
 
JdgM3NT4L said:
If your machine was brought to me these are the first few things that I would do.
Uninstall Norton. This can be tricky. Norton embeds itself in weird ways and can be stubborn to remove. Fortunately Symantic caught so much heat that they built a removal tool that picks up where the uninstaller fails.
Click to expand...

I respect anyone that hates Norton. If Norton actually worked, it would recognize itself as a memory sucking virus.
 
servantofone said:
I respect anyone that hates Norton. If Norton actually worked, it would recognize itself as a memory sucking virus.
Click to expand...

Back in the day when I first started repairing computers, I'd get all of the viruses off and the computer would run just wonderful. I'd install Norton and the computer was actually slower than when it had all of the viruses on it. It was then that I learned that Norton was nothing more than BLOATWARE that just demanded more money every year.

Thank goodness for free antivirus solutions. One more I'd like to add is Microsoft's Security Essentials.

By the way Cybermom, if you still have problems, let me know. I'd be happy to have a look at no charge. (I do this for a living.)
 
Thanks everyone :) So far I'm 4 hours and 41 minutes through a malwarebytes scan, and it hasn't found anything. But I'm gonna try all the options you given...hopefully I'll hit on something before I have to reinstall windows.
 
OK now what? After a very long scan malwarebytes came up w/this. But is it really a bug? It looks like it's just because I have my firewall turned off? If I delete it will it come back if I revert my hard drive? Say like if when I delete it things get worse?

This is what it said. It had a little picture of a bug and then vendor: Disabled.SecurityCenter
Category: Registry Data
item: HKEY-LOCAL.MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center\FirewallDisableNotify

Doesn't this sound like something that's supposed to be there?
 
Yes, it does sound 'official', but it might be corrupted or infected.
How about leaving it for now, leave malwarebytes running and run the registry tool on CCleaner.
 
DanC said:
Yes, it does sound 'official', but it might be corrupted or infected.
How about leaving it for now, leave malwarebytes running and run the registry tool on CCleaner.
Click to expand...
It can't be 'official' unless BD says it is...:nono:
 
Will do Dan. Turned Windows firewall back on to see if it shows up again. Now the thing is the Norton icon isn't in my tray anymore-and when I try to open it I just get directed to the online help.
 
cybermom said:
OK now what? After a very long scan malwarebytes came up w/this. But is it really a bug? It looks like it's just because I have my firewall turned off? If I delete it will it come back if I revert my hard drive? Say like if when I delete it things get worse?

This is what it said. It had a little picture of a bug and then vendor: Disabled.SecurityCenter
Category: Registry Data
item: HKEY-LOCAL.MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center\FirewallDisableNotify

Doesn't this sound like something that's supposed to be there?
Click to expand...

The reason this showed up is because you had Norton installed. It disabled the Windows firewall so that the Norton one and it wouldn't compete (which is a good thing). If you removed Norton using the removal tool, then you should be clear to enable the Windows firewall and install any other anti-virus program you want.

Might I suggest downloading and reinstalling Internet Explorer? You really can't 'uninstall' it. I've had to reinstall IE on several computers due to corrupt files and it seems to resolve the issues immediately.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/worldwide-sites.aspx
 
Thanks Spaz...I keep forgetting if it multiple firewalls or multiple virus programs you shouldn't have. I actually had turned it off myself. Then I turned it back on thinking I'll re-run the malwarebyes tonight (took over 7 hours) and see what happens. In the meantime I used the ccleaner. It seems to be much speedier now, but still makes me sign into my email w/every session, and is not keeping addresses up in the address window.

Since the connection/speed thing was intermittent, I've got to give it some time to be sure. I do still think it's just the IE 8...because it's absoulutely fine on my notebook. I'm thinking I'll either reload it as you sugested and if that doesn't work I'm going to go back to IE 7 and see if that helps. The computer is a HP Pavillion Media 2005 that we bought in Jan of 2006. I keep hearing that's old for a computer. I'm not up for putting more money into it, but I still think it should be working. The last thing I'll try is to revert the harddrive back to it's initial state. Because I really don't want to have to back everything up and start again. LOL...I may just deal with it the way it is.

Thanks again everyone for all your help! I'll let you know.
 
You shouldn't have multiple firewalls or antivirus software programs running on any one computer. Just choose one of each. Hope it works for you!
 
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