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General discussion

Virus? Battery failing?

by ralphehowardjr Jan 6, 2004 12:16PM PST

Windows 98 SE. AMD K6 233, 128 Meg RAM. No virus checking on my PC. Symptoms:
1) My keyboard and mouse seem "sticky" and "balky". The cursor hangs in the same spot for about five+ seconds after I perform some action (press Enter, click on a button/link) before returning to my control.
2) My computer has been running slowly--it takes an inordinate amount of time to switch between web pages.
3) My clock has been losing time.
4) I have been unable to perform a Trend Micro online scan to check for viruses. I keep getting an Error 16 when trying to load the pattern file. It gets to 95% complete and then gives me the error message.
5) When I press Tab when trying to move to another field/text box on a web page, I get switched to another program running in the taskbar, rather than simply moving to the next selectable item on the page.

Could this be a virus or is it symptomatic of a failing battery? Thanks in advance.

Discussion is locked

3 Posts
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It is unlikely the 'battery'.
by Cursorcowboy Jan 6, 2004 8:13PM PST

Read, then perform the steps in this forum link.

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Re:Virus? Battery failing?
by Grif Thomas Forum moderator Jan 7, 2004 2:02AM PST

Ralph,

In addition to Cursorcowboy's good information for cleaning things up......

You indicate: "No virus checking on my PC". If you don't have an antivirus program installed, make sure to run either, or both of the free online scans from the links below:

Trend Micro's Housecall Online Scanner

Panda Antivirus Online Scanner
____________

Eliminate some of the unnecessary start up programs on the computer and clean out the hard drive by following the Parts 1-4 of the link below. It may take a while, but should clean out the computer and free up resources so it runs smoother.:

http://reviews.cnet.com/5208-6122-0.html?forumID=44&threadID=2966&messageID=35611

Just another thought. If the computer is much over 3-4 years old, a new CMOS battery isn't a bad idea. It's cheap and easy to replace, even though it's probably not causing your issue.

Hope this helps.

Grif

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Re:Virus? Battery failing?
by Willy Jan 7, 2004 9:16AM PST

You can replace the CMOS(that battery?) for a few bucks just for sake of mind and eliminate that. Make note of the bios setting in order to reset them back.

Next, look into this:

I use this combo of pgms. to catch many "malware" in the act. They are Ad-Aware and WinPatrol. Once found take the apportiate action to delete the little buggers.

Found here...

http://www.winpatrol.com (winpatrol)
http://www.lavasoftusa.com (adaware)


Both will run under win9x/Me/W2K/XP but it maybe necessary to pick the proper version pgm. for the OS.

As always you should update your virus scanner before and after ridding of found malware.

good luck -----Willy Happy

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