Laptop running slow

>> How do you explain malware as the culprit when every time I >> restart I have to manually hit the button 2 or 3 times before >> it actually goes into loading windows?

You mean the power button? That’s not any malware I’ve heard of. If by chance you live in a humid region, then it could be as simple as slightly oxidized metals in the switch, or in the connectors on the switch wire. Of course, sometimes a power supply will fail, and sometimes in very strange ways. Luckily, they are quite inexpensive and easy to swap out, and most stores even have a return policy, so if you didn’t really need it you could return it. Somehow I missed that in earlier posts, so was not aware of that symptom.

Please don’t view these next comments as negative – they are not intended to be negative…

>> some really super man malware that my avg, spybot sd, adaware >> scanners arent finding. Now, still its gotta get past my spyware >> blaster, spyware guard (sg), and newly added my advanced windows care.

Believe it or not, if you’re running all those there could be software conflicts. And frankly, I’m impressed that you can run Win2000 Pro on a Pentium III with 256MB of memory AND run all that stuff, and NOT see serious system performance degradation. If anything, that’s a testament to the quality of Win2000 Pro.

But the kind of malware that *might* (perhaps unlikely, given all the info) have caused the trouble you had would not have been detected by spybot sd, adaware, spyware blaster, spyware guard or advanced windows care, because it’s not “spyware”. That leaves AVG, and frankly AVG just isn’t that good. It is possible that a rootkit could have caused trouble to both your drives. I’m no statistician, but I am thinking it’s equally possible that some electrical anomaly could also have caused the issue – rootkits are terribly wide spread yet, thankfully. Recent new variants of the old Netsky code are on the loose, however, and that could have been the problem (which is why I suggested the smitfraud software – it cleans up even the September 2007 variants successfully).

>> I dont mechanically understand how malware can mess the booting >> process if its inside of windows and windows hasnt loaded? It can, because malware is not always “inside” Windows. Simply altering the boot.ini file can cause some very odd things to happen. You can read about boot.ini at these (and many other ) pages…http://mirror.href.com/thestarman/asm/mbr/bootini.htmhttp://support.microsoft.com/kb/330184http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289022

There are tons of other tricks that malware can use, and it gets more and more sophisticated every day.

Regarding your software load… Personally, I would get rid of advanced windows care immediately. I have not personally had any problems with it, though I’ve barely played with it so far. But a high number of customers report odd system behavior after using it, and “normal” behavior after removing it. That alone makes me wary of it. And all that other spyware stuff is way overkill. There’s products like ewido, which I have little experience with since the merge with Grisoft, but was an excellent product, so I have no reason to believe it is not still. One thing I liked about it is that you can download the engine and the latest signature files, burn then to CD or other media, and run it on an infected machine in safe mode to do clean-up. It was always very effective. For antivirus, I recommend ESET NOD32. I’ve tinkered with a large number of products, and use NOD32 all my Windows and Linux machines now. It is not free, however.

For the record, I do not work for nor do I have any vested interest in any of the products I’ve mentioned. I am semi-retired, working part time for a place that does computer repairs and clean-up, and web pages for local businesses. Currently, I am learning PHP, and finding it fun! I also do network security consulting on the side. My “home office” has 20 computers, running Solaris, Linux, VxWorks, various flavors of Windows, and they are all networked. I was an embedded systems engineer, and worked mostly on robotic weapons systems, telecommunications systems and various large parallel computing projects for the past 10 years. Prior to that I developed software for guidance systems, geospatial intelligence systems and mapping software for military navigation. One thing I’ve really learned over the years is that the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know. Windows systems really bring that out, too. Regardless of my background, my recommendations are not necessarily “right”, and I understand that many people hold different views. My reasons for liking or disliking any given software are quite possibly different than another persons reasons. As with most things in life, we gather our information and make decisions based on that information. So, as a sometimes cranky old man, I will try to provide information when I’m able, and try to be objective about it. I like these forums because of all the questions. It’s a great way to learn new things.

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