Promlem with Laptop. Care to assist??

[Immortal Love]

ALright, I have a question for all you computer experts.

My Boyfriend's Internet has been acting up. It won't let him on anything except G-mail. He has tried over and over, but it still won't work. I told him to try to get a Anti- Virus protector, like AVG, but he can't, and this happened after his computer got a virus.

So, if anyone has any clues as to how to help, please tell~

[darkwoon]

Hard to say, because of the lack of details. First thing I'd try is to boot Windows in Safe Mode and check if you can reach the external world from there.

If you cannot, try installing another browser (who knows? It may be browser-related) - download Firefox, Opera or Chrome from another computer, and transfer using an USB key.

Also, you'll need an antivirus, a malware cleaner and a system fixer. Avast! does a decent job for a free antivirus; Malwarebyte Antimalware or Spybot are good for malware hunting; Iolo System Mechanic is not free, but it does a very good job of putting back a system on its track, and there is a free trial version available that will help you in that specific case.

If nothing works, then you have only two options left: the first is to try repairing Windows using its installation CD/DVD. The other is to fully reinstall it after a hard drive reformat.

There could be other, more specific solutions possible, but those above are generic enough so that you can try them before posting more details.

[TheMatrix]

the reason he can only use gmail is that the virus(sounds like spyware) has been harvesting login info. expect some spam.

try the safe mode thing. it will hopefully work.

[VoidZN]

If you haven't solved the problem yet, could you please tell him to post or attach a complete DDS (http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/anti-virus/dds) log or OTL (http://www.itxassociates.com/OT-Tools/OTL.exe) log here?


I'm sorry to say, but there's too little info to work with here. We need more info to be sure what's going on here. It's probably a malware, but again, with almost no info, we don't know.

Of course, even without detail information, we can take a few shots in the dark and still have a good chance of solving the problem. Could you please ask your boyfriend whether he wants to do that? Please reply to this post if he does; so I can post the instruction then.