Now a very long Intel splash screen dwell.

[Richard Lane]

Today I received ~30 mail returns from people I have never heard of
(mainly in Italy). I ran SpybotSD and found numerous intrusions, removed
them, ran Ad aware and found one which I removed.Subsequently when I
boot from cold the Intel splash screen remains for some 2 mins before
the normal boot sequence continues. I am running NAV 2007. Should I
suspect a connection between the inadvertent mail transmissions and this
now long dwell splash screen?
Dick

 

[Leonard Grey]

Yes.

 

[Richard Lane]

Yes.

Leonard,
It is my understanding that "what is happening" during splash screen
period is hardware checking, RAM, drives etc so I thought it might be
some failure in check sum and couldn't see how a malicious intrusion
could cause that. Are there some processes running that would point to
the problem? Incidentally the returned e-mails were labeled with my IEEE
alias not my isp address.
Thanks, Dick

 

[Leonard Grey]

1 - The boot sector of a hard disk can be infected.
2 - Successfully removing an infection can cause damage to the machine.
(Some success, huh? ;-))

 

[Guest]

Leonard, I don't agree with your first statement that a Trojan, Virus, or
Spyware can cause the delay in POST Screen.

Richard, as said by Leonard in his second statement:

a. Hard Disk could be one reason of delay.
b. A Bad CD in your CD-ROM can also cause a delay.
c. In BIOS settings there is an option called "Quick Power On Self Test". If
it is disable then cause a long delay.
d. A device which is not properly connected or not getting the correct power
or data sources can cause the delay. E.g. your CDROM may have loose cables.
e. Last but not least, wrong BIOS Settings. Like you don't have a Floppy
Drive in your system but mentioned in BIOS.


Let us know!

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

On Tue, 26 Jun 2007 18:54:00 -0700, RajKohli

Leonard, I don't agree with your first statement that a Trojan, Virus, or
Spyware can cause the delay in POST Screen.

Agreed, though it can appear to do so if POST doesn't "sign off" when
done, so anything that happens before the OS's first sign of life will
appear to be happening during POST.

It really depends at what point the boot is stalling...

Richard, as said by Leonard in his second statement:

a. Hard Disk could be one reason of delay.
b. A Bad CD in your CD-ROM can also cause a delay.
c. In BIOS settings there is an option called "Quick Power On Self Test". If
it is disable then cause a long delay.
d. A device which is not properly connected or not getting the correct power
or data sources can cause the delay. E.g. your CDROM may have loose cables.
e. Last but not least, wrong BIOS Settings. Like you don't have a Floppy
Drive in your system but mentioned in BIOS.

Those things are true for delays in POST, and the scariest possibility
is a HD that is taking many retries before it responds (especially if
you hear clankings or motors spinning up again and again).

If that failure pattern progresses, as it inevitably does, it
generally transitions directly from "works OK" to "utterly stuffed, no
data recovery possible" (e.g. as opposed to a gradual increasing
number of bad sectors and slow-down due to bad sector retries)

This may not be related to your malware and spam, tho. In fact, it is
unlikely to be so related; pre-OS boot code infection is rare today.

Now there's where we need to dig.

I think respondents have assumed this is the pre-OS POST-phase splash
screen as hoisted by BIOS. However, it could also be a splash screen
within Windows, e.g. as Intel's network driver blobs start up, or
other bundled Intel stuff (e.g. hardware monitor, display utility)

Condolences.

Depends on whather this is before Windows begins to boot (inj which
case, check your hardware, esp. HDs) or after (in which case, there
may be malware or related factors).

Clarify in your reply and we'll take it further ;-)

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