computer probs

[GhostMjr]

Ok for a few months i have had a computer woe! I use to use norton security 2003 and it seemed to be a good program! However after a few days of installing it i could not access the internet using internet explorer. The page cannot be displayed would appear but i could use kazaa and steam perfectly well! To make internet explorer work again i had to reformat my computer! It would then work fine and then the above prob would occur! Then a few months back i started to get net slodowns after a few minutes of dl at 60k my dl and upload speeds would decrease to under 256bytes/ sec! I was still connected to the net but a webpage would take oer 30 mins to load! However if i reset the connection it would go back to speed but then do the same as the above! As i had valuble files i bought a new hdd my 160gb western digital and transferred the data to it so i could reformat my computer again! It still kept doing the above so i decided to chnage to zonealarm for my firewall and avg free edition for my anti-virus! The slow downs still occured! So then i bought a netgear dg834 router with built in firewall! This stopped the slowdowns but now after a few hours of being idle on the net i cannot access any webpages. It now occurs on all programs which use the internet eg steam or msn! I gave one hdd to a friend at school who is very computer literate and he gave it a go and found that a hacker or person had made a partition on my hdd for himself and had made it invisible to the naked eye! He said everytime he got rid of part of the problem it sprouted up somewhere else! In the end he fixed it but now it still occurs with both my drives! could he still access my computer thru my 3 firewalls? (zonealarm, netgear router and windows firewall)


I am very thankful for your help if you have any clue as to what i can do as i don't want to infect ur comps at the lan and therefore this is why i have posted this early to get my problesm resolved before lan vi


Cheers GM

[Benny]

Firstly, well done for bringing this up early, now I know to sit nowhere near you.

Have you checked your services to see what is running? I assume you've run all the usual spyware and anti virus stuff?

Also-----I'll be shrewd here. You use Kazaa, would I be close to the mark if I guessed you were using a non-legit copy of some software?

There are more OS savvy people than me here, but there's your starter.

Oh and when you re-build, low level format your drive....and 2 I wouldn't do that until I knew what was causing my problem.....

ps, any other servers on your local net?
pps, I assume your netgear is set to block ALL inbound traffic? it should be.

[GhostMjr]

Originally posted by Benny@Sep 15 2004, 02:55 PM
Firstly, well done for bringing this up early, now I know to sit nowhere near you.

Have you checked your services to see what is running? I assume you've run all the usual spyware and anti virus stuff?

Also-----I'll be shrewd here. You use Kazaa, would I be close to the mark if I guessed you were using a non-legit copy of some software?

There are more OS savvy people than me here, but there's your starter.

Oh and when you re-build, low level format your drive....and 2 I wouldn't do that until I knew what was causing my problem.....

ps, any other servers on your local net?
pps, I assume your netgear is set to block ALL inbound traffic? it should be.

ok there r no non legit stuff on my pc i have done anti virus scans with avg and online ones with tend micro and nothing has shown up! I have also used adware from lavasoft to remove all spyware! Sometimes after an hour or so it feels as though someone else is using my computer as both the net and computer slows. The computer is the only one on the network and no other computer shares the net in my household

[Benny]

if you really want to be sure, install etherreal and capture your network traffic.

[Anonymous]

Could be that your PC is getting too hot and is trimming back or that you have a hardware fault that doesn't start showing up until the PC heats up (these can happen).

Have a search for Motherboard Monitor (mbm it is sometimes called) which will show you the temps of your CPU etc. Might beworth noting them as you switch on and again after things go slow.

I echo Bennys comments, well done for raising the issue early.

[GhostMjr]

i am not sure bb if it is the mb but i prefer the other option that sum1 is using my comp as a server base or for leeching, as it feels like sum1 is downloading stuff from my pc similar to the probs we have at lan!

[TeaLeaf]

Have you installed Ethereal yet?

TL.

[Barley]

Hit it!

[OldBloke]

Another suggestion ...

Assuming you are going to run XP.

1. Make sure you have local copies of SP2 and the install and updates for your anti-virus and anti-Spyware apps as well as backups of essential data.
2. Using the XP install CD, remove all existing partitions and start a fresh install of XP.
3. When asked to supply an administrator password, do *not* use anything previously used. The same goes for any user accounts you set up. Use 8 character passwords with a mixture of letters and numbers.
4. Do *not* connect your PC to the network until you have applied SP2 and your anti-virus/anti-spyware apps including any updates.
5. Run a full scan. Should be clean as a whistle.
6. Connect to network and update Windows and anti-virus/spyware again.
7. If you're a heavy user of MSN, make sure you've made the answer to your 'secret question' as cryptic as possible and again change your password.

Hopefully, assuming your security was previously compromised, you should now be secure.

If you're happy with the build you now have then it's worth making an image for future rebuilds.

You can now start to install any apps you want - but Steam first, right?

[DarkAngel]

Ever heard of full stops and paragraphs?

[GhostMjr]

Ok i installed tht ethereal program and have tried to find out how it works but with no success! I know it monitors my net traffic but how do i set it up? Thanks for your suggestions OB!