Virus/Malware?

[JasmineMaille]

I have recenty got a second hand computer from someone who had built it themself. It was working fine for the first month or so, but had a few upsets- such as turning itself off occasionally.

Then I started to notice that internet explorer would close due to whatever reason it said (runtime errors, etc). That was all okay even.
But then it started (i think what you would call) hijacking my ie windows and opeing multiple windows over and over, and at that point i could close them and get on top of them.
Then the hijackings got more agressive and was impossible to get on top of, so I ended up logging off and starting over everytime that happened.



Later on the problem got worse.
I would turn my computer off manually and then go to turn it back on, and the monitor didn't pick up any digital signal.
I was able to run it in safe mode at that time.
But then a couple of days later, I couldn't even get it running in safe mode!
Even if it is a virus, how the heck am I supposed to get in there to remove it if I can't see what I'm doing?!

 

[johnb35]

If you got it from someone else and you have the reinstallation cd, I would just go ahead and do a clean installation. You have no idea what else is on that system. Less headaches and less time to just reinstall windows.

 

[aviation_man]

You shouldn't have ignored those issues - if anything like that happens, anything out of the ordinary, check it out immediately or you'll be at risk of losing all your data.

 

[lawson_jl]

Do what johnb35 says. The first thing to do when getting a second hand computer is to format the drive and reinstall the OS. This will also help you verify that you got a legit copy of Windows on the PC and not a pirated version which will cause you trouble down the road if you do.