Computer help needed!

[Amethyst Hunter]

I'm freaking out and needless to say VERY stressed and upset right now.

My computer has been, shall we say, misbehaving a lot lately and last night was the worst yet. This has all been happening in the space of at least a week, so this is very recent and that's why it's so upsetting to me. I *rely* on this machine as my primary method of communication and window to the 'world'; I'm terrified of losing it and all that I have saved on the hard drive.

What it does is mostly online: I have dialup (unfortunately), which I already accept as being slower than molasses, but lately it's been worse than usual. Pages either take forever to load or refuse to load at all; the computer itself has a tendency to freeze either partially or completely which necessitates me having to literally pull the plug on it and start all over. It takes me no less than ten minutes to start up/shut down, and lately just getting it to start up without it freezing on me is a crapshoot. When it shuts down it often gives me these stupid little error messages like "sprtcmd.exe" or "DSAgnt.exe" - "This program is not responding; try again or end now, blah blah blah" (I can get them to go away just by clicking the 'end now' tab but sometimes even that isn't a guarantee and it'll keep freezing on me).

There is also a problem with the clock. This has been going on since at least a year, ever since I moved back from Florida (I don't remember if I had it when I was living there or not; I definitely noticed it once I went back to the Midwest), but last night it was terrible - twice in the same night, and this morning it did it to me AGAIN. It jumps the hour ahead of the real time, e.g., it will suddenly switch to 11:00 am instead of staying at 10 am which is the correct time. This usually only happens about once every week to two weeks.

Does anyone know what the problem could be and what I can do about it? I'm scared it's going to get worse and I have no idea what's wrong or what to do about it.

Edit: My computer is a 4-year-old Dell which up until now has been mostly reliable and decent to work with. I haven't clicked on any mystery links or opened any suspicious emails or downloaded any stupid crap (that I know of) and I generally limit my browsing to familiar sites. My antivirus, unfortunately, is expired and I haven't had the money in a long time to be able to go out and buy another one.

[Rapscallion]

Best here in tech help. Very likely to get good advice here

Rapscallion

[LostMyMind]

Both of those files are dell support programs. It's probably dell related.

First I would suggest to defrag the hard-drive. See if that helps. Might want to "clean" the drive of temporary files. If that clears it up for you, great.

An expired anti-virus is worthless, it's not really protecting you. You don't have to spend money for anti-virus. There are lots of good free ones. Since you're on dial-up. You can ask someone here that you trust, who deals with anti-virus alot (I don't, I don't even use em anymore) to burn it on a CD and mail it to you.

As far as the clock thing, it's probably the "automatic synchronize" in the internet time tab of the "time/day settings" (double click on the clock on your taskbar)

[Pedersen]

I've seen speed issues like that, and it turned out to be spyware related.

So, in addition to the defrag, check out Avast for antivirus, and Spybot.

Get them both installed and running. Have them check over your machine.

Go through add/remove programs, and get rid of things you know you aren't using (for instance, I know of no one that actually *uses* the Dell Support Center software).

Call up your ISP, and have them walk through the dial up connection settings with you. Make sure that DNS and IP address are being set correctly.

That's the super short version of what I can think of. Good luck with it, and let us know how it turns out.

[Geek King]

Another possibility on the clock issue: Make sure it is up to date with the fix for the new expanded Daylight savings time. This should be on the OS manufacturer's website.

Also, make sure your time zone is set correctly. As LostMyMind mentioned, the auto-synch could be mis-setting the clock due to that.

[marasbaras]

Look into AVG anti-virus. They have a free version and it is quite good.

[Rapscallion]

Hmnm - AVG 8 is a bit of a resource hog. I uninstalled it for that very reason and found a speed increase.

Still, installing once, running it, and then uninstalling is pretty easy.

Rapscallion

[SteeleDragon78]

my 2 cents

it wouldn't hurt to get a startup list pulled and posted to the forum, someone here may see something that doesn't belong. i know that hijackthis does a good startup log and is nice and thin (<1MB) so it should be easy to download, when was the last time windows update was run? ive found that some of the daylight savings patches were a little buggy, that might cause the clock thing.

[Amethyst Hunter]

Update (Or, Why Amethyst Is Going To Go Insane If I'm Not Already There)

Guess what I had?

If you said a MOTHERFUCKING SPYWARE-VIRUS, you get a cookie!

To say that I am fully in the mood for death and dismemberment is the understatement of the month right now.

Thank God, that all of my stuff - fanfics, pictures, etc. - seem to be okay. Bad news is that I'm having trouble figuring out where everything is and accessing it - for instance, I no longer have MS Word, it appears. This is going to be something of a problem, since I used that program to write all my fics. I have something called Open Office now, and it looks like it's a version of Word and (hopefully) may be compatible with old Word documents, so we'll see how that goes. *crosses fingers*

I was told by the repair place that because this shit is so stealthy in embedding itself into the hard drive it's easier to just wipe everything clean and start over - which is what they did, they backed up all my files and stuck them into a big lump into a folder on the desktop, and reinstalled the main OS. Hence my confuzzlement at trying to find everything and figure out how to reorganize it all again. I may well have lost some things that I can't get back, though I'm praying that's not the case (but with my luck, it probably will be). I had to scrounge up an AOHell disc to get online because my PeoplePC one no longer works (that was a program that got zapped when they redid everything; I was told that with such programs they would need to be reinstalled, not that PeoplePC is a big loss because their service sucks ass; it's worse than AOHell and anybody who knows my history with AOHell, well, that's pretty bad). How long I'll be able to use this one, I don't know, but I'm taking advantage of it while I can. (I also have to reinstall my damn Yahoo and AIM messenger programs; in the process of setting up the AOHell one it apparently refuses to recognize my old AOHell screen name so I now have a new one.

In other news, one of my gouramis is dead thanks to his tankmate beating the shit out of him, my brother and his family are having major problems with their drug-dealing asshole neighbors, and my frustration level is nearing its breaking point. To say that this has been a SHITTY past week is the fucking understatement of the month.

In conclusion, I hope your lives are all going better than mine, and may all spyware/virusmakers/etc. DIE IN A FUCKING GODDAMN FIRE!!!!!!!!**





** = Yah, I know the whole deal about CS not condoning actual physical harm and so on. But seriously, I hope the assholes who spend their time making up this shit get their teeth majorly kicked in, karmically if not in reality.

[Pedersen]

Was afraid of that. I'm glad your data is recoverable, at least.

OpenOffice.org is nice, but it is not Word. It'll do most everything that Word does (where it falls down is macros). Ask if you need any help, I know I'll be answering that post.

As for the rest, I'm sorry. And, for the record, I would love to start beating the shit out of every single malware author on the planet. One full strength punch to either face or groin for each and every computer their software has infected.

And, while I'm dreaming, I'd like a pony

[tropicsgoddess]

Just to be safe, put your pics and data on a flash drive as back up. Heck, before my fiance's computer crashed, I managed to get some pics from when Bear was a puppy and the last pics of his old dog Rocky (before he passed on from old age 3 years ago) and posted them on Photobucket as private. Open Office is a great alternative if you can't get the MS Office Suite, and the good thing about it is that you can actually save your files in the .doc Word Format, .xla for Excel, etc.

[Amethyst Hunter]

OpenOffice.org is nice, but it is not Word. It'll do most everything that Word does (where it falls down is macros).

And, for the record, I would love to start beating the shit out of every single malware author on the planet. One full strength punch to either face or groin for each and every computer their software has infected.

And, while I'm dreaming, I'd like a pony

Would you like that pony original or extra-fluffy?

Thanks, Pedersen. I'm not too clear on the whole macros thing, but then I can't say as I've ever used those so oh well. I just care that my fics are intact and that I can get to them safely, so it sounds like OO will work okay. (I hope.)

[Pedersen]

Would you like that pony original or extra-fluffy?

Extra-fluffy, if you please, shaded to be a horse of a different color (a la Emerald City, Oz)

Thanks, Pedersen. I'm not too clear on the whole macros thing, but then I can't say as I've ever used those so oh well. I just care that my fics are intact and that I can get to them safely, so it sounds like OO will work okay. (I hope.)

Very few people use them at home. I've done it from time to time, but I'm weird that way

[RetailWorkhorse]

I also have to reinstall my damn Yahoo and AIM messenger programs

Download either Trillian or Pidgen (<--What Trillian upgraded into) to use multiple messenger programs. I got Pidgen myself, mostly because when my Netscape browser bit the dirt sandwich, it decided to take some of my programs with it. I have Firefox as my main browser now :nod: (EQ made me get it ) but it's still a little odd since I'm used to the options and such being on the other side of the screen.

[Eric the Grey]

Guess what I had?

If you said a MOTHERFUCKING SPYWARE-VIRUS, you get a cookie!

Just for the record, Spyware and Virus' are not the same. Because of this, an anti-virus program will not (or may not) catch spyware. Don't let yourself get complacent about it.

After you've installed your anti-virus (I prefer AVG, but I suspect they each have their good and bad points) make certain you download Spybot Search & Destroy from the link provided earlier and use it on a regular basis. This doesn't do it for you by running all the time (Unless they've changed it). You have to run it every once in a while (I recommend one a week) to keep your system clean.

It's too bad the shop you took it to took the path of least resistance. It's easiest to wipe and reload windows under these situations, but rarely is it necessary. It is necessary sometimes, but those are rare. At least they were able to save your documents first. I'd also suggest making sure you have a backup of them on CD/DVD if you have the ability to do so.



Eric the Grey