Is this a record

Discussion in 'The Lounge' started by BILLMCC66, Feb 15, 2012.

  1. BILLMCC66

    BILLMCC66 Bionic Belgian

    I have just spent 12 hours cleaning a PC for a young guy who lives close to me and of course we have to start someplace so i finally got it to boot (after 40 minutes) and i ran CCleaner, it found 3,781 registry faults and more than 7 gb of junk files.
    I have never seen so many faults on a PC but with the help of our "run me read me" i have got it back to a workable place.
    Can you believe this idiot had 3 anti virus applications installed (McFee,Norton and Avast,i installed Avast) and he wondered why it was sloooow :confused
    I am now waiting for him to come home from work so i can tear some lumps off him about safe surfing.
    He had also been poking around inside the case becaus the cables were all loose and i know they were tidy before because i built the PC.
    I can not understand people who pay lots of cash for a PC (this is a real powerhouse of a rig and cost almost $1300) and then treat it like s**t???
     
  2. Major Attitude

    Major Attitude Co-Owner MajorGeeks.Com Staff Member

    There is always someone worse but I have not seen that many registry entries, junkfiles and certainly not 3 installed commercial antivirus programs. Most likely not a world record but you would be hard presssd to find a mess like that.
     
  3. LauraR

    LauraR MajorGeeks Super-Duper Administrator Staff Member

    He's lucky you even did it for him. I think my head would explode at that.

    I"m sure if he took it to a shop they'd be telling him his harddrive was bad or something. Seems to be that or the mobo whenever people say they had to take their puter in.
     
  4. COMPUABLE

    COMPUABLE First Sergeant

    >> I have just spent 12 hours cleaning a PC for a young guy who lives close to me and of course we have to start someplace so i finally got it to boot (after 40 minutes) and i ran CCleaner, it found 3,781 registry faults and more than 7 gb of junk files. BILLMCC66 <<

    I know how exactly you feel, Bill. Three weeks ago I went to visit my brother because he rang me up and asked me to come over to take a look at his computer because it was running slow. It was an older model Dell dimension with Windows XP and as it turned out - just needed a basic cleanup. However, after we finished cleaning it up; he asked me to check out his next-door neighbor's newer model Inspiron desktop which was also running slowly.

    Although the Inspiron only about one year old; it had around 3000+ dead registry entries and almost 10 gigabytes of junk files on it. I also ran a full Malwarebytes Anti-Malware scan which found hundreds of spyware/adware on the computer. To top it all off he had so many IE toolbars installed you could barely see what was in the browser window! Evidently his kids were always downloading new games and other useless programs and they just kept clicking "next" while installing them; thus adding the multiple useless toolbars (eight of them, in all) as well as the additional malware in the process.

    Side Note: As for users who simultaneously run multiple anti-virus programs; I am always amazed at how many people actually do this. However I never recommend it because it not only slows your computer down to a crawl (by hogging the CPU usage and memory); but at the same time having the superfluous antivirus programs running together in the background leads to them clashing with each other, invariably inducing program crashes and also causing frequent, totally unnecessary system lockups.

    Good Luck!

    COMP
     
  5. motc7

    motc7 Vice Admiral (Starfleet)

    It's like the person who buys a high performance vehicle and then rags it to a heap.

    Frankly, people like that don't deserve a good rig. I suggest you involuntarily downgrade him to a netbook.
     
  6. Wenchie

    Wenchie I R teh brat

    I tried to clean a computer that had found over 7,000 problems before the virus on it sensed the cleaning software and forced the computer to shut down.

    I think when it was all said and done there were 10,721 virus/malware/trojans, 14,900+ (forget the number) registry errors, and I forget even whatever else.

    It was a work laptop for the literacy volunteers and a family member had borrowed it... it had to eventually be reformatted.
     
  7. Phantom

    Phantom Brigadier Britches

    I was presented with a P.C. today, from a catering Co., that was complaining that the computer was running real slow and that a funny smell was coming from it. "Funny Smell?""...Hmmm - it did indeed smell kinda funky, so as a precaution, I opened it up on the back lawn. It was infested to the brim with big, winged German Cockroaches- Some were fried up in the power supply and a bit char-grilled...Eewww!:yum

    I ended up just plastic bagging the P.C. and sending it back to them and told them I aint touching it any more until it's been fumigated or burnt - I don't care which. So I never did get as far as finding out what malware bugs, or whatever it had, but I don't want touch it EVER again!:crap:puke
    And this Co. does food for the airlines, amongst other things! Geeze! :drool rolleyes
     
  8. justkim

    justkim Private E-2

    1. Smart move to the outdoors!

    2. Cockroaches!?! Catering company? Were it not for privacy rights, I'd insist having the name of this company--so that I know NOT to go there!

    3. Computer bugs...and here I was thinking virtually. Binary bugs. Digital creatures. This company took it to a LITERAL state--and only when they needed help with their slooow funky machine did they decide to move it out the kitchen, and all the time preparing food with essence of German cockroach. Ooh, la la, c'est ce bon! Bon apetit!
    That's just nasty.
     
  9. Phantom

    Phantom Brigadier Britches

    Well Kim, I can tell that this Co. operates "down-under", so it at least won't affect you, unless you fly with a certain, (very), large local airline. The way a lot the food and catering industry operates, (I was an Industrial Chemist for many years), never ceases to disgust me. :(
     
  10. Fred_G

    Fred_G Heat packin' geek

    Aww come on folks, roaches have to eat too.


    :-Drolleyes

    :puke
     
  11. motc7

    motc7 Vice Admiral (Starfleet)

    All roaches must fecking die!
     
  12. justkim

    justkim Private E-2

    Oh, I understand...there are more than a few questionable local dining establishments here too!
     
  13. fleppen

    fleppen Gumshoe

    This takes me back. When I had my own computer repairshop, stuff like this was pretty regular. The worst I've seen is ~8500 registry faults, ~17.800 virii and >35.000 pieces of malware.
    The best part was: I had to save his documents, obviously by using a Linux live disk, and surprise, surprise, after re-installing Windows XP Home (yes, it's been thát long!) and putting his documents back, so were some of the virii. AV didn't catch them all. Oh what a biatch that was.
    Did make a good buck off of it though. I told the guy beforehand he'd be better off buying a new pc, but he insisted ánd paid the bill (some €300,- and we gave him a 50% discount, if we'd have billed all hours, it'd have been some €600,- he'd have to pay).

    Fun part: The loaner we gave him had been infected as well. Luckily we used images for those pc's - lend them out to be abused and when they're returned, they're given a fresh image so there were as few problems as possible.
     
  14. Mimsy

    Mimsy Superior Imperial Queen of the MG Games Forum

    Yes, I can believe that. People are stupid.

    Because people are stupid. ;)

    I get paid to deal with people like this on my day job. If you're not paid a reasonable amount, consider cutting this guy off. Unless f course you're sure he has learned from this. If he hasn't, he's going to create a ton more work for you down the road.
     

MajorGeeks.Com Menu

Downloads All In One Tweaks \ Android \ Anti-Malware \ Anti-Virus \ Appearance \ Backup \ Browsers \ CD\DVD\Blu-Ray \ Covert Ops \ Drive Utilities \ Drivers \ Graphics \ Internet Tools \ Multimedia \ Networking \ Office Tools \ PC Games \ System Tools \ Mac/Apple/Ipad Downloads

Other News: Top Downloads \ News (Tech) \ Off Base (Other Websites News) \ Way Off Base (Offbeat Stories and Pics)

Social: Facebook \ YouTube \ Twitter \ Tumblr \ Pintrest \ RSS Feeds