Virus that prevents ethernet jack being plugged into??

[JohnK.]

Hey guys, i'm suffering a strange case of computer blues which i
suspect a virus/worm/trojan/whatever is at teh root of....

first of all quick system specs:

amd 2500+ barton
asus a7n8x deluxe
512 ram ddr 3700 buffalo
etc etc... system has been running fine for months.....

windows xp pro fully updated as of oct 2003

2 days ago... i rebooted after i tried installing f-secure.....

i suffered a REALLY slow boot up once i got to the log=in screen,
after teh boot-up screen with the scrolling bar....

after a number of reboots and trial and error i found that whenever i
had my ethernet cable plugged in, my 'System' CPU usage went up to
99%...but no other progarms were using any of the CPU Usage other
thanthe normal ~3% from task manager and what not.....

i tried reinstalling mobo drivers, ethernet drivers, tried both of my
mobo's ethernet ports, (one is a 3com the other is the nVidia nForce2
one) ad naseum.......

i've done repair installations of windows xp 3 times with no
difference

tried a system restore the first time around with no effects.....

another bit of information...

whenever i tried to update drivers.. i would get a "Access is denied"
error message, so to be technically correct, i havent been ablet ot
reinstasll drivers, for anything,........


I've had Kerio Firewall up the whole time and never got any strange
messages requesting information to be sent out or come in, i checked
my rules too....

i've had updated spybot scan to no avail....

i didnt have any antivirus software (now i see my foolishness of
course)

i tried: isntalling norton anti virus but it was only updated to
08-2003 and it did detect a worm in one file, then i had another worm
in my system restore directory which i just got rid of by clearing my
system restore by turning it off then on again.....

i cant get f-secure to install without my ethernet connection, or any
other AV program thats up to date via internet download, since they
only let you download an installer program....

anyone have any ideas?

thanks!!

 

[kurt wismer]

JohnK. wrote:
[snip]

i cant get f-secure to install without my ethernet connection, or any
other AV program thats up to date via internet download, since they
only let you download an installer program....

i'm not sure your cpu usage has anything to do with a virus, but to get
an av installed without being online, you could try f-prot for windows
(http://www.f-prot.com) as that allows you to download the entire
installation rather than just some installer stub...

 

[Gabriele Neukam]

On that special day, JohnK., ([email protected]) said...

2 days ago... i rebooted after i tried installing f-secure.....

i suffered a REALLY slow boot up once i got to the log=in screen,
after teh boot-up screen with the scrolling bar....

after a number of reboots and trial and error i found that whenever i
had my ethernet cable plugged in, my 'System' CPU usage went up to
99%...but no other progarms were using any of the CPU Usage other
thanthe normal ~3% from task manager and what not.....

Did you first un-install F-Secure to rule out the possibility that it is
hogging the resources? (of course while being off line)


Gabriele Neukam

(e-mail address removed)