Rex writes in with a virus question:
Q. My Norton anti-virus did not detect when I scan my USB flash drive then when I proceed doing my project I saw my desktop some rectangular Spot when I refresh my PC. Then I think there was a problem my system became slower. I have software called SIMETER it can detect all my running application and the usage of my PC including memory.
When I saw my SIMETER and my CPU usage became 100% w/o opening any applications nor software that are installed. That time I became curious. I told my cousin what happened. Then he told me that I should use an ANTIVIRUS so I installed it and scanned my PC then the Antivirus Detected the virus and the virus name is a Trojan virus. Then when I type REGEDIT in my RUN what's happen is my REGEDIT disappear in turns black the letters are jumbled and full of ASCII code. But before that I can used my Task manager before I installed my ANTIVIRUS.
A. It definitely sounds like you have some sort of virus or malware. I would do the following things. Update your virus program and adware programs.
Start the computer in Safe Mode to make sure it is loading the minimal software to get Windows running.
Check your startup items using msconfig and uncheck anything that's not needed which will be most of what's checked except your antivirus program.
Uninstall any strange looking software using Add/Remove programs.
Look for any strange sounding services that are running using Task Manager and end them if you can get into Task Manager. I think there is something running in the background using up your CPU time. If you go to the Processes tab you can pick out items that are using a lot of memory as well and terminate them.
