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mommalina
04-06-2007, 08:08 PM
04/04/07 Wed Nite KH Computer Help Desk Chatroom Summary

Interesting chatroom session -- Rich trying to resuscitate a computer,
Lina trying to figure out cause of incessant BitDefender alerts
of Trojan.Clicker.CM blocks, Photolady trying to figure out an
IDE adaptor.

We were 4th and 5th in chatrooms, but that may not have been too
bad. Pi and Red Lion said some of the reported attendees in the
leading chatrooms may have been bots (virtual machines, or multiple
computers at one location with fake users logged on--just a way to
keep the numbers up). Reminds me of election fraud and phony
polls .. :(

With no more questions being asked or assistance being sought, we closed
the room shortly after 12 AM .

WHO WAS THERE

KH MEMBERS - Lina, Photolady, Lawrence, Elliot, Dan, Rich, Rob
(kern), Annie, Pi

VISITORS WHO CHIMED IN - Patrick C, gardengeorge, joanee,
redlion1957, tin man, jfklove (red-dotted; JFK had more class than
that!)


COMPUTER-RELATED DISCUSSIONS

HAIL PHOTOLADY!
Photolady has ascended to the throne of moderator at the *** forum.


SAGA OF LAPTOP / IDE ADAPTOR
I don't understand any of it, but apparently this mystery has been solved.
See thread started by Photolady on KH ......I Was Wondering If...
http://www.kickenhardware.net/forum/showthread.php?t=6600


TROUBLE-SHOOTING A DEAD COMPUTER
Rich struggled throughout the chatroom session, trying to resuscitate a
six-year-old computer he hoped to sell. Six months ago, the computer was
fine. It had serious spyware and virus issues. He purchased restore cd's from HP, and got it up to speed 6 months ago...
for a client who later lost interest and failed to pick it up.

Rich changed the ram, psu, video card, cpu grease, hsf. Many suggestions
were made and tried; all failed. Finally, at 11:39 PM, Rich concluded that
because it had sat unused for six to seven months, the problem was
probably the motherboard. He officially declared the cpu garbage .. :ohwell:
.. nice try!


TV TUNERS
Dan spent day beefing up on tv tuners; he's building a new system to
connect to a HDTV. Tuner has a coax connection for tv cable company.
Check out Hauppage, a leading tv tuner computer hardware company. Dan's
also looking at Leadtek. 125 channels.


ADMUNCHER TO THE RESCUE....AGAIN
A loud, annoying ad showed up again this week on Paltalk, so loud those
of us affected could not hear the oral conversation. Once I downloaded
Admuncher, it was gone! I love watching the Admuncher cow icon in my
system tray open its mouth and gobble ads as I browse the internet! Thirty-
day trial, $24.95 one-time subscription charge....I just hope it does not get
bought out by another company. (Check out our speculations about
SuperAntiSpyware here:
SAS / Something I never thought about
http://www.kickenhardware.net/forum/showthread.php?t=6616 )


HOW TO RUN CHKDSK UTILITY
Visitor joanee was getting error message and needed to run Chkdsk
Utility. Pi has a nice tutorial with pictorial instructions here:
http://pirules.com/xp_chkdsk.aspx.
Rob suggested M$ site:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/chkdsk.mspx?mfr=true


APPLE
Pi reported reading that Apple will be the first to have 8 cores in pc.
3.0 GHz. Xeon quad core x 2. (Pi, the url you gave us doesn't work
for me; maybe you have to be a member to get in that blog?)


TROJAN.CLICKER.CM AND BITDEFENDER
In the middle of the chatroom session, BitDefender inundated me with
constant alerts that it had blocked Trojan.Clicker.CM and that my computer
was not infected. They would not stop!

As the guys advised, I ran DiskCleanup (XP Home); there were 19,155
temporary files even though I ran Disk Cleanup just before I opened the
chatroom! Rebooted, and alerts stopped. Came back to chatroom, and after
a while same alerts started again. Checked DiskCleanup, and there were
some 1,500 temp files in there! Ran DiskCleanup again. No more alerts. I
may be wrong, but I suspect IE and Paltalk allowed that trojan to attack.
Before the chatroom session, I had used IE for a Windows Update; and I
think there is a connection between Paltalk and IE.....but what do I know!


GETTING TO PREFETCH FILES
Press Windows + R and type C:\Windows\Prefetch

Trying to get rid of the BitDefender trojan alerts, I took Pi's advice and
emptied Prefetch Files. Then, too late, others advised not to do it, could be
dangerous. So I left the Prefetch Folders in the Recycle Bin. When there
was no return of alerts the next day, I returned Prefetch Files from the
Recycle Bin to the folder to try to clear up a possible Java problem.

Java problem not resolved, but no more trojan alerts. Go figure!



PC WIZARD VS EVEREST
Photolady suggested that PC Wizard, http://www.cpuid.com/, was better than
Everest for detecting hardware.



OTHER SUBJECTS DISCUSSED

DEVELOPING COLOR PHOTOS
Photolady's dog Tiny was giving her tech support throughout her
Laptop / IDE Adapter problem .. ;) .. She has yet to post new photos of Tiny
because she doesn't develop color photos any more. Color film chemicals
have to be kept at a certain temperature,and she doesn't have all those
heaters and chemicals any more....plus the chemicals are not allowed to be
dumped down the drain, and she has no way to recycle them. (I never knew
it was that complicated! .. :eek: )


Until next week, ciao,


Lina

Pi rules
04-07-2007, 12:07 AM
Thanks for the summary.:)

APPLE
Pi reported reading that Apple will be the first to have 8 cores in pc.
3.0 GHz. Xeon quad core x 2. (Pi, the url you gave us doesn't work
for me; maybe you have to be a member to get in that blog?)
No, you don't have to be a member. Anyway, an 8 core Mac Pro is available now (http://www.apple.com/macpro/), I guess. Anybody want to give me a graduation present? ;)

Trying to get rid of the BitDefender trojan alerts, I took Pi's advice and
emptied Prefetch Files. Then, too late, others advised not to do it, could be
dangerous. So I left the Prefetch Folders in the Recycle Bin. When there
was no return of alerts the next day, I returned Prefetch Files from the
Recycle Bin to the folder to try to clear up a possible Java problem.
I wasn't really trying to get you to dump them, sorry if it seemed like that. I've seen so many articles about why one should or shouldn't remove them I'm honestly not sure which is right, but it seems that they should just be left alone.

btw - did you scan in Safe Mode yet? I'd recommend it to remove any traces of that Trojan.

Tortanick
04-07-2007, 02:45 AM
Why is it bad for a computer to be left alone for 6 months?

mommalina
04-07-2007, 12:46 PM
btw - did you scan in Safe Mode yet? I'd recommend it to remove any traces of that Trojan.

Please don't laugh at me, gurus. I just don't know how to scan in Safe Mode
and haven't done it yet .. :(

I think I would reboot (or is cold start better?), then at some point (when?)
hit F8 on the keyboard (how many times?)........what happens next? Does
everything come up as a normal startup and I can then scan with Ewido?

If nothing comes up with Ewido, can I go on without rebooting and scan
with SAS and BitDefender? Or do I have to shutdown/reboot and get in F8
Safe Mode again for each scan?

I hate to try new things if I'm not sure of what I'm doing .. :confused:

BTW, I just checked DiskCleanup again and there's only one temporary
internet file there.

BTW, there is one new thing amiss-- I can't transfer smilies from the KH
Smiley List to this text box. I can still transfer the Smilies from the
righthand side of the text box.

Thanks.

Lina

mommalina
04-07-2007, 06:14 PM
.................. Anyway, an 8 core Mac Pro is available now (http://www.apple.com/macpro/), I guess.
Anybody want to give me a graduation present? ;)

.

$2,499.00 or $57 a month! I think you will have to wait until I win the lottery,
Pi. Don't hold your breath .. ;)

Lina

Tortanick
04-08-2007, 05:51 AM
wow, scary but I forgot how to boot into safe mode, guess I'm going native with Linux :)

anyway I googled it and it says press and hold f8 and you'll get the safe mode option. or just keep tapping f8 until you get the option.
Once you're in safe mode just run you're anti-virus scan like normal.


As for 8 cores, dreamy! Lets think:
1 core to run Linux with power to spare.
1 core for SETI@home
1 core for cancer reserach
...

mommalina
04-08-2007, 09:35 AM
wow, scary but I forgot how to boot into safe mode, guess I'm going native with Linux :)

anyway I googled it and it says press and hold f8 and you'll get the safe mode option. or just keep tapping f8 until you get the option.
Once you're in safe mode just run you're anti-virus scan like normal.


Thanks, Tortanick .. :) .. I should have thought about googling how to boot
into safe mode.

Will see if Google can tell me whether or not I would have to reboot and
get into safe mode again to consecutively run different scans.

Thanks again .. :D

Lina

Terry Hanushek
04-08-2007, 08:39 PM
Lina

Another reason for scanning in safe mode is so the scan which examines most (all) of the files on your hard drive does not interfere with another process running concurrently (or have another process interfere with it). It is rare but can happen.

That said, I virtually never scan in safe mode and never have had a problem.

Terry

qldit
04-08-2007, 10:01 PM
Good Morning All, yes momma tapping F8 after the preliminary BIOS screen appears usually allows a dos menu to appear, select "safe mode boot" from it and it should boot to safe mode.
In safe mode a lot of things that would normally be loaded to RAM are not called, so it has potential for getting better A/V scans if some of those memory resident programs are not loaded.

As mentioned the newer A/V systems are pretty good nowdays, but when a normal system is shutdown windows saves stuff from RAM, so any missed viral code was a pain to remove, it would keep appearing on reboot.
I had cases where a viral clean was done then simply pull the power plug to avoid the backload.
I don't think this is needed very often now.

I still do heavilly infected machine scans from 'safemode".

It is a good exercise to learn and know about, but in some instances it requires entering the actual program file on the hard drive to access an icon or exe file to start the respective scanner, because they may not be present on the safemode desktop.

Cheers, qldit.

Tortanick
04-09-2007, 05:06 AM
still waiting to here what happens to hardware thats left on a shelf for 6 months.

mylanta
04-09-2007, 01:23 PM
Why is it bad for a computer to be left alone for 6 months?
I rewrote Lina's comments on my battle with the 5 year old HP. It was a badly mangled XP Home desktop which had been cleaned a few times with virus and spyware innundation and I purchased the disks and installed a clean XP with programs. 6 months ago it was running fine but now it had sat waiting for customer pickup.
I haven't a clue what happened, but after restoring XP again, the clean install that would not complete I changed ram, psu, hard drive...unplugged all pci cards and every drive except for hard drive. While I saw no bulges or leakage, it had to be the board there was nothing left to change.

Pi rules
04-09-2007, 09:18 PM
About scanning in Safe Mode - some malware can "hide" in regular mode. In Safe Mode, not as many different apps and drivers are loaded, which sometimes includes the hidden malware. Speaking of which, I'm running a scan at my neighbor's house right now. It's one of the most heavily infected PCs I've worked with. Thankfully, it's mostly adware right now.