Hmph...that was fun :p
Hardware or trojan
Wednesday, July 20, 2005 by tri1ogy | Discussion: PC Hardware
Hopefully my PC in online for good again.
Two weeks ago, my HP (XP) shut itself down for no apparent reason. I had a 7Mb file that I was working on in PS, plus notepad to jot down some notes. I minimized both windows, went to the bathroom, came back to open up notepad again, and poof - hard shutdown.
I tried the power button again. Fans kicked on, HD started spinning, beeps, lights...the normal things. Once my screen ticked (as if it were turning on to show boot process), it would do a hard shutdown again. I finally ended up removing the side and front covers to clean the inside (clean, dry towel of course) and to check for loose connections. Tried power button again...same-o.
Eventually, a neighbor and I were looking at it, and came to the conclusion that it must've been a short in the power button wires (about the only wires not checked). If I played with the wires, I could 'work' between 20 minutes and four hours at a time.
About 3-4 days ago, 2 things happened. (1) I noticed that the ground wire appeared farther from its connector than the others - so I pushed it closer. (2) Norton AV found a trojan hours later (loader.exe), so I quarantined it.
Everything seems to be running fine again. With both happenings occurring in the same day, Im still not sure what the problem was. Plus, after a week of family visiting as well, Im back to skinning. Hopefully from all this info, someone can give some insight about this (more like hardware problems, or 'just' an infection?).
Two weeks ago, my HP (XP) shut itself down for no apparent reason. I had a 7Mb file that I was working on in PS, plus notepad to jot down some notes. I minimized both windows, went to the bathroom, came back to open up notepad again, and poof - hard shutdown.
I tried the power button again. Fans kicked on, HD started spinning, beeps, lights...the normal things. Once my screen ticked (as if it were turning on to show boot process), it would do a hard shutdown again. I finally ended up removing the side and front covers to clean the inside (clean, dry towel of course) and to check for loose connections. Tried power button again...same-o.
Eventually, a neighbor and I were looking at it, and came to the conclusion that it must've been a short in the power button wires (about the only wires not checked). If I played with the wires, I could 'work' between 20 minutes and four hours at a time.
About 3-4 days ago, 2 things happened. (1) I noticed that the ground wire appeared farther from its connector than the others - so I pushed it closer. (2) Norton AV found a trojan hours later (loader.exe), so I quarantined it.
Everything seems to be running fine again. With both happenings occurring in the same day, Im still not sure what the problem was. Plus, after a week of family visiting as well, Im back to skinning. Hopefully from all this info, someone can give some insight about this (more like hardware problems, or 'just' an infection?).
NightTrainthedark
Reply #2 Wednesday, July 20, 2005 7:20 PM
Reply #2 Wednesday, July 20, 2005 7:20 PM
Some info on loader.exe. Might help , might not. Good luck. 
http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary/loader/
http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary/loader/
Jafo
Reply #3 Wednesday, July 20, 2005 7:28 PM
Reply #3 Wednesday, July 20, 2005 7:28 PM
My Neice had that one..... having a 14 year old girl's homepage redirected to 'gays with bigger penises' was not kewl.
I off-loaded her schoolwork and reformatted,,,,
tjesterb
Reply #4 Wednesday, July 20, 2005 7:33 PM
Reply #4 Wednesday, July 20, 2005 7:33 PM
http://majorgeeks.com/CWShredder_Last_Merijn_Version_d4086.html to CWSShredder. Might be of help since that virus is associated with the CWS Hijacker
tri1ogy
Reply #5 Wednesday, July 20, 2005 7:36 PM
Reply #5 Wednesday, July 20, 2005 7:36 PM
Good info Night Train. Nothing like that happened, which leads me to believe it was more hardware related. PSU perhaps??? Thanks for the link and for your help. 
No, definitely not cool Jafo.
Too bad reformatting was necessary.
No, definitely not cool Jafo.
Too bad reformatting was necessary.
Jafo
Reply #6 Wednesday, July 20, 2005 7:40 PM
Reply #6 Wednesday, July 20, 2005 7:40 PM
Wasn't necessary...but was simply...'Dust off and nuke 'em from space....only way to be sure'
BTW....her machine was Win98se ....and it also failed to boot....due to the virus...
tri1ogy
Reply #7 Wednesday, July 20, 2005 7:41 PM
Reply #7 Wednesday, July 20, 2005 7:41 PM
Thanks tjesterb. I have that somewhere, but various scans say everything else is okey-dokey.
tri1ogy
Reply #8 Wednesday, July 20, 2005 7:43 PM
Ah. So true, so true.
Reply #8 Wednesday, July 20, 2005 7:43 PM
| Wasn't necessary...only way to be sure' |
Ah. So true, so true.
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Reply #1 Wednesday, July 20, 2005 6:37 PM