Am I paranoid or was I hacked?

I had major problems with my computer this morning.

Dell Dimension 2400, Intel celeron 2.4Ghz, 256MB RAM, Windows XP HE SP2.

After booting up this morning the system crashed repeatedly. It would last anywhere from 15 mins. to 5 mins. before crashing. I tried to scan with Avast in both normal and safe modes, but it took to long - and the system would crash 1/3 of the way through.

The reason I think I may have been hacked is: A couple of days ago, I posted here for help about another forum I belong to. It had been hacked and was being held for ransom. Someone eventually interviened and hacked the site back, and now everything is pretty much back to normal.

Last night, when I logged onto MG, I was denied access. It said I had maxed out my log on attempts and I was locked out due to wrong user name/password. I thought this was a fluke and repeated the process a couple of more times. No avail.

I waited the 15 mins. and logged back on with no problems.

This morning there was a note from MG in my e-mail. It explained my lock-out and gave an IP address. I do not know how to check my IP adress other than Zone Alarm. It gives my destination address for blocked programs. The two addresses do not match.

I finally got the computer to stay on long enough to do a system restore. I updated all my protection programs, and re-booted. Then, I ran scans with everything I've got. Everything was negative.

The computer is fine now, and has been running a couple/few hours with no problems.

Was I hacked? Was this a fluke? If I was hacked or do have a problem, does anyone have a suggestion as to what else I should check.

HJT is not an option yet. I am on dial-up, and last I checked HJT was 6.4 MB. It would take at least a couple of hours to download. I do have dll informant, so if there is something I should look for, it is fairly easy to run.

Thanks,

LAIGo

 

Had all you listed and then some, except a2. I will look into that ASAP.

I made no changes during the entire time I mentioned. With the exception of an unsuccessful update to CWshredder from 2.10 to 2.11.

I check ZA alot, and in the other post (Great site hacked....), I mentioned the only thing that looked out of the ordinary. But it was successfully blocked.

All my ZA logs show the same destination IP, so I'm not sure if it changes, but it's good to know it can. I'll use the program you mentioned over the course of a couple of days and see if the IP changes.

Thanks for the advice,

So far everything is fine.

LAIGo