Do you suspect that you have a virus? Many signs are obvious and many are simply symptoms that you may not immediately detect. Either way, you should take action immediately if you suspect that you’re computer is infected. Acting right away can give you better protection from the virus if you have one. The instructions below should be run on your computer if you remotely suspect that you have a virus. Even if you don’t think you’re infected, it may not be a bad idea to run them anyway to ensure that your computer is clean and free of virus infections.
The signs of a virus:
- Slow or sluggish computer: This sign typically happens in spikes and may be immediately evident because most virus writers don’t throttle their software
- Program errors and apparent failures of applications
- Unknown pop-up’s and advertisements: These sometimes show up even if you’re not surfing the web
- RPC Errors and a countdown
- Can’t get to antivirus websites or major sites like C-Net or Microsoft
If any of these symptoms are evident on your computer, you may have a virus or malware and you should immediately scan your computer. Follow the steps below to help determine if you have a virus and how to easily clean it to restore your computer to the speed it should be at.
How to Remove a Virus
- Check your antivirus software and run a virus scan. This IS NOT a determination that you may have a virus. Many new infections can circumvent your antivirus software and hide from it.
- Install and scan the following scanning program to detect and clean up the problem. You need to install this program and then boot into safe mode to do the scanning. Booting up in safe-mode only runs the minimum programs to get the operating system running. Nothing else will run or load up which will include the virus or infection.
- Install (but don’t run) SpywareDoctor. This program has won MANY awards and works very well. You can get it here: SpywareDoctor.
- Now that the program is installed, reboot your computer and boot into safe mode. You boot into safe-mode by pressing F8 when the computer is booting. The best way to do this is to keep pressing F8 when the computer is starting up and you will get a boot prompt. You select “Safe Mode” and let the computer start up.
- Now that you’re in Safe Mode, run the malware scanner to determine if you have a virus and take appropriate action.
Now that your computer is no longer infected, reboot your computer. Your infections should be gone and you can enjoy your computer again. If you still have infections, please read other posts and entries on this blog. You may get other ideas.
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