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General discussion

dies only during virus checks!

Sep 13, 2004 12:56AM PDT

My husband has a laptop (I'll get specs later if you need them) that dies only when he runs Norton antivirus. It dies at different places during a scan so there's no clue there. I had him run McAfee Virus Scan and guess what...yes, it dies during a McAfee Scan. Any ideas??

Thanks in advance. Linda...

Discussion is locked

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Re: dies only during virus checks!
Sep 13, 2004 1:57AM PDT

Try this. If it has the SPEEDSTEP feature http://www.bay-wolf.com/speedstep.htm then you can slow the machine down and hopefully, if its a heat issue, you can complete the scan.

If not, look to a DOS BASED SCANNER like FPROT to see if it finds a pest.

In closing, NO DETAILS about the laptop, operating system and not much else means I can only offer generic advice which may be unuseful.

Bob

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Re: dies only during virus checks!
Sep 13, 2004 2:22AM PDT

presumably you haven't made any rescue disk made by norton!! - however, with some later versions you can boot to the norton virus instalation CD and run the DOS based virus scan from the CD (thats if you can boot to a cd with your laptop)
Also make sure you hard disk doesn't have any errors by running scandisk in "my computer".
Peter

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Re: dies only during virus checks!
Sep 13, 2004 5:47AM PDT

Linda...

1. Two anti-virus applications (these two) cannot exit together. Uninstall one of them.

2. Prop the laptop off the table, anything will do, by a couple of inches.

3. Boot into safe mode and run your virus scans.

I've had scans stopped by viruses and have found Safe Mode the only way to complete the scans.

Bill
.

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Re: dies only during virus checks!
Sep 14, 2004 3:09AM PDT

I forgot to get the specs of his laptop before he took it to work this morning. I'll do that this evening and try your suggestions and see what happens. Of course, he's campaigning for a new laptop :-}

I'll get back to ya tomorrow! Thanks so much.

Linda...

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Re: dies only during virus checks!
Sep 14, 2004 8:47PM PDT

Hi,

Well, my husband tried most of what you suggested last night,including trying to run Norton's Antivirus in safe mode which shut it down as it has in the past. As in the past, as he restarted it, the disk scan said everything was okey dokey.

My husband is not a patient man when it comes to computer things and since the laptop is 4 years old and the case is cracked and the screen flickers (insert list of things to justifiy new laptop here..), he's decided that he WILL buy a new laptop tonight.

I'm hoping to get his 'old' laptop (an HP Pavilion 5400L with 512RAM and a Celeron processor) and then I'll run the rest of the tests! LOL

Thanks! I shall return but probably not for a few weeks!

Linda...