On-line virus scans failure

[Tafia]

Hi folks,

I have had a problem with my PC shutting down completly a couple of minutes or less after start-up and have been advised it may be a virus problem. Friends have recommended Luke Filewalker as an excellent AV product; this is installed and a complete check found no virus. Microsoft Beta search found no spyware problems either

I have tried an on-line virus check from both McAffee and Norton Symantec. Both require that I downoad Active X controls to carry out the check but when I click on "install" after the download completes, both McAffee and Norton begin to download the Active X controls again. I appear to be in a loop and have just retried Norton only to have Active X download 4 times with no progress towards a scan.

Anyone else had these problems?

Cheers.

T

[egomeister]

You could try AVG or Avast for a free antivirus solution, or there is also another online scan by Trend Micro which might throw up something.

[GreenV8S]

The online scanners will all require you to download some sort of control so I suspect that ultimately you do need to resolve this problem. I'd be tempted to flush all the caches, empty all temporary folders, uninstall all the downloaded program files (Internet Options -> General -> Settings -> Objects, or locate them directly using windows explorer), add the site to your Trusted Sites zone and then try again.

[chriswright]

do you get this message?



if so it could be one of the blaster worms

[bigdods]

Hmmm think laterally on this - Most PCs monitor the speed of the system fan and CPU fan. If either one is on the way out (or fails completely) the PC will shutdown to protect itself as soon as it gets warm - 1 or 2 minutes is usually enough. Or the PSU fan could have failed with similar results. Check that you are getting air flow out of the power supply. And do you have noisy fans or had a noise in the past that has now disappeared ? Does the PC make any beeps when it starts to boot ? Some systems will self check and beep when they first start to warn you of a fault.

I have had 3 PCs brought in recently all with this same type of problem - one had 31 viruses (yes it did!) but the other two had faulty fans. Fans are only a few pence and easy to replace.

How did you manage to virus scan the PC if it only stays on for a few minutes ?

I can recommend AVG antivirus , its free and has proved time and again to be a first class product.

Good luck

Dodsy

[petros]

I'm using Avast which is free and excellent, whereas norton fails on trojans Avast stops them dead. I M H O that is !!!!

[HarryW]

Normally with a temp shut down the motherboard has a few coded beeps before shutting down. Dodgy RAM can do also do strange things to the PC. Not always viruses imhe.

[Scraggles]

"I can recommend AVG antivirus , its free and has proved time and again to be a first class product."

Had this running side by side with nod32, paid for nod32 - £50 for 3 years after avg missed several files that I checked and found to be a virus, sort of got infected and avg assured me not to worry as it had not found anything.

[Tafia]

chriswright said:

do you get this message? if so it could be one of the blaster worms

No, no message at all, it just turns off. I switched on this morning and it turned off after about 1 minute. I restarted and it turned off again after about 2 seconds. Restarted again and it is now working OK. So far all the offs have been within a very short time after starting. If it gets past a couple of minutes, then it has been OK. Puzzling

[Tafia]

bigdods said:

Hmmm think laterally on this - Most PCs monitor the speed of the system fan and CPU fan. If either one is on the way out (or fails completely) the PC will shutdown to protect itself as soon as it gets warm - 1 or 2 minutes is usually enough. Or the PSU fan could have failed with similar results. Check that you are getting air flow out of the power supply. And do you have noisy fans or had a noise in the past that has now disappeared ? Does the PC make any beeps when it starts to boot ? Some systems will self check and beep when they first start to warn you of a fault. I have had 3 PCs brought in recently all with this same type of problem - one had 31 viruses (yes it did!) but the other two had faulty fans. Fans are only a few pence and easy to replace. How did you manage to virus scan the PC if it only stays on for a few minutes ? I can recommend AVG antivirus , its free and has proved time and again to be a first class product. Good luck Dodsy

Cheers Dodsy. I was able to try the virus scans as the fault is intermittent. I am using the PC now and it is fine ( after two shutdowns on startup, one very fast; see above)

[Tafia]

Hi folks,

I managed to complete a virus scan yesterday using Trend Micro's Housecall on line scan. It took 90 minutes and of course I was disconnected by Wanadoo with just 14 minutes to go the first time The scan mentioned 12 cookies but no mention of a virus. A check using Luke Filewalker also found no virus.

Thanks to all who have tried to assist. Problem still here. boo hoo

[GreenV8S]

In that case I think a hardware diagnostic would be the next logical step. You should be able to obtain this from the manufacturer's web site.

[Plotloss]

When its failed once, reboot and enter the BIOS.

There should be something called similar to PC Health Status

That will give you the temperature of the CPU and the case.

Find them and post them here.

It sounds more like a heat/power issue than a virus to me...

[Trooper2]

Tafia said:

Hi folks, I have had a problem with my PC shutting down completly a couple of minutes or less after start-up...

I think GreenV8S has got you headed in the right direction, my PC was shutting down all the time and toward the end of the problem, it would do it right after I booted up. It ended up being a knackered Motherboard.

[Tafia]

Plotloss said:

When its failed once, reboot and enter the BIOS. There should be something called similar to PC Health Status That will give you the temperature of the CPU and the case. Find them and post them here. It sounds more like a heat/power issue than a virus to me...

Cheers; I will try this when learn how to it on this PC. In an effort to "make it happen" I have now left this PC turned on for extended periods. Saturday it was left running for 8 hours and again on Sunday.

On both occasions it ran perfectly after it had switched off twice within a very short time ( once about 60 seconds and once about 2 seconds) after start up.