New Computer.... Bad Business!

SandraS · Dec 14, 2006

We bought a new computer (Compaq) for our daughter. After one week it started to freeze up during random times (working on a word doc. or just sitting idle) No pattern. The screen doesn't just freeze the screen image changes to a 2 inch line that repeats over and over from left to right and top to bottom. the screen is solidly filed with these lines (which are different in appearance each time). I called Circuit City and they told me to bring it in. They did a diagnostic on it and said the hardware is fine but they found a spyware and a virus and they recommend doing a maintenance for $109. I asked what kind of maintenance could a brand new computer need and they said that they do something with the factory settings and software that increases the functionality of the computer. They said HP gets paid to put stuff on the computer which actually slows you down etc. We have 5 computers in this house and I have never performed maintenance on a brand new computer. Is this a scam? My kids probably have tons of malware and crap on their computers which we try to clean ever so often and their computers don't freeze up. they may get bogged down at times. This new computer came with Norton. Nice job if it allowed a virus in in the first week. No programs were downloaded from the net. she uses it mostly for homework, photo editing and IMing. I think in the first week the only surfing she did was for a research paper. I am not going to pay the $109 bucks I think they are taking advantage of me. I am going to pick it up today and run some removal programs. We usually use lavasoft ad-aware, spybot-search & destroy and then my other computers have avast for the virus protection (not norton). Are there better choices these days? Do our symptoms sound familiar at all? Do you really have to modify the computer out of the box for it to perform better? Is that something we can do ourselves? Any other suggestions or thoughts? This is really frustrating. I've never had so much trouble with a brand new computer! Thanks for any help!!!!!

DavidGP · Dec 14, 2006

Hi Wow, alot to cover their... best to start with removing any malware that maybe on the PC, this is done by following the below guide, the software in this guide is either Free or a trial which will suffice for the time needed to remove the malware.

Please follow our standard cleaning procedures which are necessary for us to provide you support. Also there are steps included for installing, running, and posting HijackThis logs as attachments.

Run ALL the steps in this Sticky thread READ & RUN ME FIRST Before Asking for Support

Make sure you check version numbers and get all updates.

Very Important: Make sure you tell us the results from running the tutorial...was anything found? Were you unable to complete any of the scans?...Were you unable to download any of the tools?...Did you do the on-line scans as suggested? etc.

After doing ALL of the above you still have a problem make sure you have booted to normal mode and run the steps in the below link to properly use HijackThis and attach a log:

Downloading, Installing, and Running HijackThis

Make sure you also rename HijackThis.exe as suggested in the procedures. Use analyse.exe for the new name. This is very important due to some new infections going around.

When you return to make your next post, make sure you attach the following logs and that you have run these scans in the following order too:

CounterSpy

AVG Antispyware log - ONLY IF NEEDED you were not able to run CounterSpy

Bitdefender - from step 6

Panda Scan - from step 6

runkeys.txt - the log from GetRunKey.bat

newfiles.txt - the log from ShowNew.bat

HijackThis

NOTE: You can only attach 3 files in a single message so it will require that you use two messages to attach all of these logs!

Once you have been given the all clear on malware then yes, new PCs are loaded with trial and software you may not need or use, its best to go through ADD/REMOVE and uninstall anything you dont think you will use, As Norton will most likely be a 30day trial its a good think to uninstall it and install some of the suggestions in this thread How to Protect yourself from malware! , do make sure that you only install 1 AntiVirus, 1 Firewall and 1 Antispyware application that is a live on-access scanner, BUT only start this once your free of malware on the PC.

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New Computer.... Bad Business!

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DavidGP MajorGeeks Forum Administrator - Grand Pooh-Bah Staff Member