My hard drive light stays on and is runs for 5-10 minutes after the Yahoo page loads do I have a virus?

Question

When I turn my computer on the hard drive runs for what seems to be an extremely long time (5-10 minutes) after the Yahoo home page is loaded and I am off on the web. I have spybot, adware and Norton running currently. What can I do to find out if there is a virus and if my computer is being used to send out spam?

Answer 1

no, more than likely other programs/files are running and it could be cache loading.

Answer 2

Probably not. Try this first:

Cleaning your computer.

Clean your Browser Cache:

Tools>Internet Options>General tab>Delete Cookies, Files (check mark the box for OFFline Content in the window that appears) and Clear History buttons.

Go to the Sites button by Temp. Files and change the number to 50.


Check your HD for Defragmenting:

Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools> Disk Defragmenter.


Clear Temp. Windows Files:

Exit all running programs, including browser, except your AV and AS programs. Exiting these might be necessary later (not usually).

Start>Run> type "%temp%" (no quotes)>OK>in the menu bar go to "Edit" click Select All>in the expanded menu select Delete or right click on the pane with the files highlighted and select Delete. When finished Close window.


Clear clutter in DSL modem (If used) and RAM:

Turn off the modem, monitor and computer in this order. Wait a minute or two and then restart in reverse order. Turning off he computer clears the RAM of clutter.

Answer 3

Stinger is a free trojan virus scanner from McAfee and can be found at http://vil.nai.com.

To see if you have internet activity you can click start/run and type in ncpa.cpl & hit enter. Double-click on your network adapter and look at the sent and received numbers. Typically, a system doing nothing will not see much activity in the sent numbers. If the numbers climb dramatically, you may have a virus or some program uploading information to the internet. Typically the sent will be MUCH smaller than the received.

There are very few "free" programs on the internet. Usually these "free" programs come with a license agreement that states that if you use this "free" software, you have to let us see where you go on the internet (for marketing purposes). This may not show up as spyware, cause you have to agree to it by clicking yes to the license agreement.

GL.

Answer 4

Sounds like you have some unnecessary processes running. How you can tell is hold down the CTL & ALT keys, then hit delete.

It will bring up a window - select Task Manager, then processes. Double click the CPU header and see which processes are using up your resources.

HINT: Sytstem Idle process is natural as are many others. You have to selectively eliminate what's not needed.

Good Luck

Answer 5

Yes. First you need to make sure you are allowed to install your copy of XP on more than one system. If that is an issue. Otherwise, if your XP cd is bootable, then make sure the system is completely turned off, and the cd is in the cd drive. turn on the system, when it asks what you want to boot from, choose cd. During the setup you will be asked if you want to format the drive, and/or add/del/erase partitions. Make sure you delete the current partition, and create a new one, using maximum amount of space allowed, and install XP. Good luck.

Answer 6

yes right click on the Norton and then scan should work
remove adware should have only one
clean hd go to all programs and then accessories and then system tools and click on the disk clean up will work better and delete your cookies and old files .
hope i have helped

Answer 7

Try this, reboot your computer in safe-mode. and run your anti-virus program. if it is up to date it should tell you if you have any viruses, worms, etc