Expert: Brian Benosky - 8/21/2009

Question
Hallo Brian.
Not sure if you can help me with my problem but hope you can, the problem is that when I download anti-virus software my computer becomes very very slow and often freezes up and I have had the situation that I was not able to do anything with it, esc would not work Ctrl-alt-delete did not work and it would not turn off so I had to pull the plug out. I have tried every anti-virus going but it just wont work, any tips or advise on how to remedy this problem will be very welcome indeed.
Kind regards.
Adrian Poyner. Netherlands.

Answer
Hi Adrian

The problem may not be virus related, which is why no anti-virus software will help.  However, let's first totally eliminate infection as the cause.  Please submit a HijackThis log according to these instructions:

Please download HijackThis to your desktop from here:
http://www.trendsecure.com/portal/en-US/_download/HJTInstall.exe
Make sure you close EVERY open window and ALL browser windows. The only thing that should be open is the HijackThis program.
Double-click on the file you just downloaded.
Click on the "Install" button.
Upon install, HijackThis should open for you.
Should it not open, go to C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\HijackThis and double click on HijackThis.exe
Choose 'Do a system scan and save a log file'.
Copy the text file which opens in Notepad and paste it in your question here.
   * Do not fix any entries in HijackThis, as they may be harmless.

Brian