What are the signs the most obvious signs that your Computer has a virus?

Answer 1

If when you turn the computer on it locks up in POST for longer than 30seconds you have a virus. This is basically a BIOS orientated bug that sits in the Master Boot Record of your hard drive.
If however your computer boots up fine and then freezes, you have a virus. This time you're faced with a more insidious kind of bug, a worm. This bug hides in plain site and is impossible to remove short of a complete and utter reformat of your system.
However if your computer boots up fine and appears to run properly until you decide to go online where you find yourself faced with innumerable pop-ups, computer freeze, browser freeze or even a system crash dispite you having a running anti-virus program, you have a virus. This virus is browser based and can be as innocent as that toolbar at the the top of the window.
Other less obvious symptoms include:- Computer slowdowns,
files being deleted without your knowledge, e-mail accounts being used without your consent, files being created then being mysteriously moved about, your Outlook Express program is writing memos to some mysterious sender, your computer settings get readjusted without your intervention, the computer takes longer than usual to shutdown, some mysterious program constantly running in the background hogging resources, a file you send is reported as not being sent, you keep getting a mysterious e-mail in your Outlook despite having an onlilne e-mail account. You're browser goes where you don't want it to go and gets stuck whenever you try to close it. There are many more symptoms of virus infections and all are potentially dangerous. You're best off with having all your e-mail accounts online and using a browser other than Internet Explorer since this browser is reknown for security vulnerabilities which have yet to be fixed.
Another step to take is to apply for online storage of your most critical information including your passwords and usernames and investing in good anti-virus software. Don't download anti-virus software. Buy the CD and install from that. It will update automatically during the install.
But if your computer is infected then you will have to do a complete install of the operating system as running anti-virus scanners will not get rid of the problem. Just make sure you format the hard drive first. And don't just pop the CD in and click install. Do a DOS format and then install.

Answer 2

Malware signs:

Popups
Firewall alerts that a strange program is trying to access the Internet
Slowness
Pages redirected
Your home page changes.
The internet connection is busy but you are not using it and nothing is updating.
Computer crashes
Strange files/directories appear.
Your computer is sending emails on its own

Think you're infected with malware?
Check the common symptoms and take action
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/community/columns/malware.mspx


Some have no visible symptoms.
If I were a criminal and I wanted to spy on you to steal all your account passwords I would want something that has no signs it was there. I would prefer it be a rootkit so none of the files or processes would be visible to you. Best would be if after I got all your information I could have it remove all traces it was ever there.

Answer 3

Well there is a few signs. The most obvious, as you said, are the deleting of files, slowness and sometimes your computer refusing to open any file whatsoever.

Answer 4

The following are the obvious signs

1) Ur system slows down.
2) Unwanted and Unknown Hidden files keep appearing.
3) Page file usage increases to a very large extent.
4) processes tend to be in a deadlock
5) unwanted .ini files(auto run files) will be generated

Having an antivirus in place will resolve most of the problems
U can also use "Mcafee Site advisor" to know whether a site is secure or not
Good luck

Answer 5

mainly viruses effect your computer's memory and slows down your system, it all depends on the kind of the virus, some would infect the bios, some just your operating system, some are torjans and open ports and download spyware on your system or worms and crupt your files.

Answer 6

Computer running extremely slowly
Random windows popping up (in Internet Explorer)

Answer 7

The indicators of an epidemic are unusual or unusual behavoiur on your pc. diverse viruses will show up of their very very own way, so a definitive answer is impossible. on your case are you able to let us know what the sign is announcing, then a answer can get carry of on your difficulty. sturdy success!!

Answer 8

Your virus program goes off and tells you that you have a virus.

Answer 9

computer slows down and programs lock up. I find the best way to check is by using 'bitdefender' its up to date on the latest bugs and free on the Internet to scan your computer

Answer 10

your system slows down I beleive is the most likely pointer. But I think Pradeep has got it pretty much right and I don't think I can improve on his answer, give him the 10.