I'm quite sure its a virus and not a hardware problem. My computer was infected roughly ~2 weeks ago. I could write out a long descriptive list of all the very very obvious signs but I dont feel its necessary. It was very obvious. I wasnt worried at the time because I used a different user on the computer which worked but it got so bad and started to crash my computer I finally decided to completely wipe my hard drive and reformat my computer. Well it wasnt that easy.
Here are some screenshots of what my computer screen looks like at all times:
My computer looks like this before, during and after wiping my hard drive and reinstalling windows. I've done a bit of research. From what I understand, its not a hardware problem so buying a new motherboard is an absolute last resort. Also, the second to last resort is "flashing" the bios. I didn't even know what this was until today. I've read a lot about it and it seems quite complicated and dangerous with many opportunities for me to completely fuck my computer. I've also read a certain instructional saying I could potentially reset my BIOS to factory standard by pulling out the CMOS battery. I obviously would attempt to do this immediately except I'm confused on why these long winded instructional how-to articles don't suggest this immediately when giving advice on how to remove viruses from the BIOS. Is pulling out the battery bad advice? Could this lead to permanent problems?
I think this is my motherboard model: ASUS Striker Extreme 680i
Anybody have any suggestions? any advice would be really really appreciated.
And how exactly did you get a virus in your BIOS? Also, given that you think this is the case, I'm not sure I trust your ability to diagnose, so why don't you list the symptoms. Or do you not want us to find out what you were trying to download?
I've never once had any issues resetting the cmos by removing the jumper, but I'm no expert. I've removed it at least 5+ times because I've messed up overclocking and my shitty ram wouldn't let me get to bios otherwise.
On July 01 2011 09:27 JingleHell wrote: And how exactly did you get a virus in your BIOS? Also, given that you think this is the case, I'm not sure I trust your ability to diagnose, so why don't you list the symptoms. Or do you not want us to find out what you were trying to download?
Well what else could it be besides the fact that the virus is not located on my hard drive? And I don't know how I got it or I would have told you obviously.
On July 01 2011 09:27 JingleHell wrote: And how exactly did you get a virus in your BIOS? Also, given that you think this is the case, I'm not sure I trust your ability to diagnose, so why don't you list the symptoms. Or do you not want us to find out what you were trying to download?
Well what else could it be besides the fact that the virus is not located on my hard drive? And I don't know how I got it or I would have told you obviously.
How about saying what it does? IF it actually is a BIOS virus, (they're kind of rare because they're kind of specific) flashing the BIOS may not be possible, so knowing what it is will help figure out what you can do to fix it, or if you can.
Anyways, how do you know it's a virus? What's it doing that proves it's a virus and not hardware?
On July 01 2011 09:27 JingleHell wrote: And how exactly did you get a virus in your BIOS? Also, given that you think this is the case, I'm not sure I trust your ability to diagnose, so why don't you list the symptoms. Or do you not want us to find out what you were trying to download?
Well what else could it be besides the fact that the virus is not located on my hard drive? And I don't know how I got it or I would have told you obviously.
How about saying what it does? IF it actually is a BIOS virus, (they're kind of rare because they're kind of specific) flashing the BIOS may not be possible, so knowing what it is will help figure out what you can do to fix it, or if you can.
Anyways, how do you know it's a virus? What's it doing that proves it's a virus and not hardware?
Well when using my computer, I continuously got linked to a big "Your computer may be infected!" popup and then it would redirect me to a site to get it cleared. It also did this when I tried to enable my firewall. Thats just one specific detail I remember. I read that BIOS viruses are rare and one particular BIOS virus does indeed do exactly what I just described. I guess thats my best example
lol dude... your hardware is going to hell...... its not your bios bud..... as far as I know there has only been 1 virus that has ever targeted hardware, and it was for a specific motherboard.. a long long time ago...... but yeah somethings going out in ur computer, I'd venture to say graphics card
oh also I should probably list qualifications to just straight up drop some knowledge like this right? haha
-GCFA certification -ACE certification work as a security consultant currently
I do incident response for fortune 500 companies every day, and see a lot of malware on a daily basis...
also I had an old computer that did this exact same thing.... I threw it off of a balcony... heh
Can you atleast give us a link to the virus you think it is.....? Giving us half the info and expecting us to fix it isn't really the best way to help yourself.
On July 01 2011 09:27 JingleHell wrote: And how exactly did you get a virus in your BIOS? Also, given that you think this is the case, I'm not sure I trust your ability to diagnose, so why don't you list the symptoms. Or do you not want us to find out what you were trying to download?
Well what else could it be besides the fact that the virus is not located on my hard drive? And I don't know how I got it or I would have told you obviously.
How about saying what it does? IF it actually is a BIOS virus, (they're kind of rare because they're kind of specific) flashing the BIOS may not be possible, so knowing what it is will help figure out what you can do to fix it, or if you can.
Anyways, how do you know it's a virus? What's it doing that proves it's a virus and not hardware?
Well when using my computer, I continuously got linked to a big "Your computer may be infected!" popup and then it would redirect me to a site to get it cleared. It also did this when I tried to enable my firewall. Thats just one specific detail I remember. I read that BIOS viruses are rare and one particular BIOS virus does indeed do exactly what I just described. I guess thats my best example
Ok, yes, that's a sign of some sort of malware. If you found info on a BIOS virus that does that, and that's what you think it is, then follow the instructions for removal that came with that diagnosis.
Flashing your BIOS is no fun, but if it IS a BIOS virus, that's probably your only real option. I guess you can try clearing CMOS first, but I'm pretty sure that's only motherboard temporary memory.
It's just that BIOS viruses are incredibly rare, because they target small sectors, and nobody wants to target a small sector.
On July 01 2011 09:39 Sir.Kimmel wrote: lol dude... your hardware is going to hell...... its not your bios bud..... as far as I know there has only been 1 virus that has ever targeted hardware, and it was for a specific motherboard.. a long long time ago...... but yeah somethings going out in ur computer, I'd venture to say graphics card
How do you know its not my BIOS from the given information? Is it just a coincidence that I got about a half dozen symptoms of a virus at the same time as my computer began to crash?
On July 01 2011 09:44 Madoga wrote: Can you atleast give us a link to the virus you think it is.....? Giving us half the info and expecting us to fix it isn't really the best way to help yourself.
I read about ~10 articles on BIOS viruses and BIOS flashing. I'm currently searching for the article which referenced to a virus that does what I experienced. Thats the only reason I didn't reference it is because I currently cant find it
edit: This is one of the articles I've read that describes the virus I was experiencing:
The most commonly known BIOS viruses are those that create warning messages that say the computer is infected by a virus. These messages are followed by the automatic opening of a Web browser and the loading of a page for fake virus scanning and removal software. Presumably, the creators of the virus stand to profit by tricking computer users into entering their credit card information into these websites.
On July 01 2011 09:39 Sir.Kimmel wrote: lol dude... your hardware is going to hell...... its not your bios bud..... as far as I know there has only been 1 virus that has ever targeted hardware, and it was for a specific motherboard.. a long long time ago...... but yeah somethings going out in ur computer, I'd venture to say graphics card
How do you know its not my BIOS from the given information? Is it just a coincidence that I got about a half dozen symptoms of a virus at the same time as my computer began to crash?
He's not entirely correct, there's been a few, and there was a vulnerability that allowed for a little bit of cross-motherboard compatibility.
It seems like it could just as well be a graphics card problem. If you have another graphics card laying around, you could try to hook your monitor up to that one and see if the problem persists.
Something similar happened to me a couple years back, it was actually my GPU. If you are using a PCI GPU and have onboard video as well, try removing your card and using the onboard video. If things are still messed up, then it could be a BIOS virus I guess.
On July 01 2011 09:39 Sir.Kimmel wrote: lol dude... your hardware is going to hell...... its not your bios bud..... as far as I know there has only been 1 virus that has ever targeted hardware, and it was for a specific motherboard.. a long long time ago...... but yeah somethings going out in ur computer, I'd venture to say graphics card
How do you know its not my BIOS from the given information? Is it just a coincidence that I got about a half dozen symptoms of a virus at the same time as my computer began to crash?
He's not entirely correct, there's been a few, and there was a vulnerability that allowed for a little bit of cross-motherboard compatibility.
Even so, this is just plain rare, and hardware is much more likely to be an issue. And yes, there are coincidences like that.
1 because IT IS a coincidence.... and start testing it, grab an old graphics card toss it in.. problem will be fixed.... or you can simply pull out the CMOS battery like u hinted at earlier... simple... quick... and when you plug it back in and it does the same thing my point will be proven
now onto the next comment... let me rephrase that there has been one HUGE outbreak of a virus affecting the BIOS, but the conditions have to be right with a specific hardware type, the user has to be an idiot and run as administrator, and they have to also not password their bios.... Also, so lets say you finally find that one system, with the right BIOS and version, and you have a virus on there..... and they are running the specific OS version that you are targetting.. what now...
literally this is all theory craft, there has only been one major outbreak of any virus affecting a systems BIOS, the rest is proof of concept, and honestly doesn't matter... its to hard to pull off, and there is no point in an attacker going after hardware and potentially damaging a machine, for instance an example, why would the US government take down a terrorist forum when instead we can just use it to glean information.... I mean come on.... post some actual viruses in the wild, and what they do... instead of posting to some "tomshardware" site...
On July 01 2011 09:39 Sir.Kimmel wrote: lol dude... your hardware is going to hell...... its not your bios bud..... as far as I know there has only been 1 virus that has ever targeted hardware, and it was for a specific motherboard.. a long long time ago...... but yeah somethings going out in ur computer, I'd venture to say graphics card
How do you know its not my BIOS from the given information? Is it just a coincidence that I got about a half dozen symptoms of a virus at the same time as my computer began to crash?
He's not entirely correct, there's been a few, and there was a vulnerability that allowed for a little bit of cross-motherboard compatibility.
Even so, this is just plain rare, and hardware is much more likely to be an issue. And yes, there are coincidences like that.
1 because IT IS a coincidence.... and start testing it, grab an old graphics card toss it in.. problem will be fixed.... or you can simply pull out the battery like u hinted at earlier... simple... quick... and when you plug it back in and it does the same thing my point will be proven
now onto the next comment... let me rephrase that there has been one HUGE outbreak of a virus affecting the BIOS, but the conditions have to be right with a specific hardware type, the user has to be an idiot and run as administrator, and they have to also not password their bios.... Also, so lets say you finally find that one system, with the right BIOS and version, and you have a virus on there..... and they are running the specific OS version that you are targetting.. what now...
literally this is all theory craft, there has only been one major outbreak of any virus affecting a systems BIOS, the rest is proof of concept, and honestly doesn't matter... its to hard to pull off, and there is no point in an attacker going after hardware and potentially damaging a machine, for instance an example, why would the US government take down a terrorist forum when instead we can just use it to glean information.... I mean come on.... post some actual viruses in the wild, and what they do... instead of posting to some "tomshardware" site...
"some 'tomshardware' site..." Thanks for admitting your claimed qualifications are a load of shit.
Anyways, other than that, you're arguing against me agreeing with you that it's probably coincidence and a hardware issue that he's misdiagnosing. I already said that they're incredibly rare due to terrible saturation. I'm just not going to bother telling him not to try what he's set on trying.
On July 01 2011 10:03 billyX333 wrote: Well what do you recommend I do from here? I dont have any spare parts around to test anything. Whats the cheapest solution?
Do you have onboard video and a PCI video card (which you are currently using)?
your GPU memory is probably dead or dying. find a friend or someone that lives in your area that has a spare old graphic card he is willing to borrow to test the theory.
On July 01 2011 10:03 billyX333 wrote: Well what do you recommend I do from here? I dont have any spare parts around to test anything. Whats the cheapest solution?
Do you have onboard video and a PCI video card (which you are currently using)?
No I don't otherwise I would be testing it out right now
On July 01 2011 10:03 billyX333 wrote: Well what do you recommend I do from here? I dont have any spare parts around to test anything. Whats the cheapest solution?
Do you have onboard video and a PCI video card (which you are currently using)?
No I don't otherwise I would be testing it out right now
Just double checking. Any spare computers in your house you could take the graphics card out of or put your card into to test? Or like someone else mentioned see if a friend in the area can spare a card to test.
The second picture reveals the real culprit of the issue; you happened to accidentally install Dwarf Fortress into a key system location. Find the folder, uninstall and you should be set.
Reminds me of all the times my laptop motherboard was fried. I had a 4-year warranty, and each time it was the mobo. It's got to be the mobo/gpu, not a virus.
Yea, that looks a lot like a fried graphics card. I should know, I once decided it would be a good idea to hardware volt-mod my 7800GT back in the day when that was a high-end card. The mod worked, but NOOOO, that wasn't enough for me... I wanted to hook up variable resistors and a voltmeter to the front panel so I could adjust voltage on the fly.
Jackass friend decided to "fiddle with the nobs" on it... ended up turning the voltage WAY TOO HIGH, and the thing started artifacting just like what you got there. The moral is, don't allow for unregulated voltage control of your hardware through the front panel.
You might have viruses as well on your computer, which is responsible for that "you are infected" garbage.
If you boot up the computer with a CD of anti Virus software or the windows backup/ instaler disk. What you have is a ROOT virus and is one of the most difficult Viruses to get rid of. Hopefully that will do it. If it doesn't IDK what to tell you anymore :/
New here so HI. But I wouldn't dismiss a dodgy fan either. I've seen allot of the fans on cheaper graphics cards just fall off or start hanging by a thread after a while. So another cheap solution could be to just open the case and point a desk fan inside, it's been a temporary fix that has saved my arse a few times.
The best of those was when the fans in our DB server fried and started failing, had to run down to the data centre with a desk fan, pulled it out of the rack and put the fan over the top of it. Got us through 3 back to back AFL games without missing a beat.
One thing you could try and do to prolong the life of your computer is to sacrifice a bit of performance and underclock the graphics card. As electronics age they degrade some and if they degrade too much something like what you're experiencing can happen. I'd try to lower the RAM clocks on the GPU by ~20% and see if it'll help with the issues. It's worth a shot before you go and splurge on a new setup.
On July 01 2011 10:03 billyX333 wrote: Well what do you recommend I do from here? I dont have any spare parts around to test anything. Whats the cheapest solution?
Borrow a graphics card from a friend to test. Or buy the cheapest one you can find.
On July 01 2011 09:27 JingleHell wrote: And how exactly did you get a virus in your BIOS? Also, given that you think this is the case, I'm not sure I trust your ability to diagnose, so why don't you list the symptoms. Or do you not want us to find out what you were trying to download?
Well what else could it be besides the fact that the virus is not located on my hard drive? And I don't know how I got it or I would have told you obviously.
How about saying what it does? IF it actually is a BIOS virus, (they're kind of rare because they're kind of specific) flashing the BIOS may not be possible, so knowing what it is will help figure out what you can do to fix it, or if you can.
Anyways, how do you know it's a virus? What's it doing that proves it's a virus and not hardware?
Well when using my computer, I continuously got linked to a big "Your computer may be infected!" popup and then it would redirect me to a site to get it cleared. It also did this when I tried to enable my firewall. Thats just one specific detail I remember. I read that BIOS viruses are rare and one particular BIOS virus does indeed do exactly what I just described. I guess thats my best example
Do you know what site it is? You could stop your computer from going to that site if you go to C drive/Windows/System32/Drivers/ETC/Hosts ( edit "Hosts" via notepad with administrator and then add "127.0.0.1 WebpageHere" ) but that's all it'd do might be useful in the future
Malware doesn't do this. The red/blue/color stuff could be from a virus, it could only be a virus if it does it immediately before shutting down or rebooting.
Viruses don't affect start up in terms of display.
That stuff your seeing is either your graphics card or Monitor, or the plug/cord in between the two.
On July 01 2011 09:27 JingleHell wrote: And how exactly did you get a virus in your BIOS? Also, given that you think this is the case, I'm not sure I trust your ability to diagnose, so why don't you list the symptoms. Or do you not want us to find out what you were trying to download?
Well what else could it be besides the fact that the virus is not located on my hard drive? And I don't know how I got it or I would have told you obviously.
How about saying what it does? IF it actually is a BIOS virus, (they're kind of rare because they're kind of specific) flashing the BIOS may not be possible, so knowing what it is will help figure out what you can do to fix it, or if you can.
Anyways, how do you know it's a virus? What's it doing that proves it's a virus and not hardware?
Well when using my computer, I continuously got linked to a big "Your computer may be infected!" popup and then it would redirect me to a site to get it cleared. It also did this when I tried to enable my firewall. Thats just one specific detail I remember. I read that BIOS viruses are rare and one particular BIOS virus does indeed do exactly what I just described. I guess thats my best example
Do you know what site it is? You could stop your computer from going to that site if you go to C drive/Windows/System32/Drivers/ETC/Hosts ( edit "Hosts" via notepad with administrator and then add "127.0.0.1 WebpageHere" ) but that's all it'd do might be useful in the future
This actually sounds like one of those malware programs that associates internet file extensions with its own executable such that it runs every time you open up firefox or IE or whatever. They usually have some sort of random-looking name as its running process.
They're easily thwarted by simply removing the registry keys associated with it, but of course, I don't know if this is actually the malware problem.
As for your graphical issues, I don't have anything knowledgeable to say, but if the vast majority of the forum is telling you that it's your GPU, you should probably take their advice :<
I've had very similar looking artifacts in the past. Replaced my graphics card and all was good again.
The thing with malware these days is that the vast majority of what is actually in circulation is made by someone who actually wants to gain some form of profit from it. Which is why it tends to stay hidden instead of doing things that would be immediately obvious, like distorting the screen. So any problem that occurs which is very hard to miss is already unlikely to be a malware infection. The "your computer is infected" warning popup on the other hand, is definitely some form of malware that you picked up at some point, but it doesn't need to settle in the BIOS. It's just a regular piece of malware on your harddisk using the Windows registry to ensure it's executed at the right time.
yes thanks for all the advice. I've definitely accepted the GPU or video card to be the culprit now I just need to find my warranty.
It actually crashed about 4 times over the course of the week with the same glitchy graphics except it was always temporary. It did cross my mind that it was the GPU but my frustration at the virus on my computer at the time overrode that suspicion apparently. Now I'm just worried that something is functioning incorrectly to have allowed my GPU to gradually break down perhaps? I don't know enough about computers to really do anything about it though.
That is not a virus. That is a broken GPU or motherboard. Try reflashing your bios first, you can probably find instructions and the firmware on your motherboard manufacturer's site. If that doesn't work, replace your graphics card and see if the problem persists, if it does, you are likely looking at having to get your motherboard replaced.
Just to be sure, also check the monitor and the cabling, however, looking at the screenshots, that seems very very unlikely.
its pretty common for graphic cards to die after some month of life these days. dont worry, there should be no other problem with your pc. if you have warranty, fine. if not, before you throw it away you can actually bake your graphic card in an oven at 200° for about 5 min, no kidding. most of the time graphic cards die because of too much heat deployment, so the pins expand and constrict over and over again until a connection is broken. when baked, the solder my be able to melt end expand, so the contacts close again. http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-general/529271-bake-your-graphics-card-oven-fix.html wont help on broken RAM though, but worth a try.
I had this same issue on a laptop. I replaced the the video card and that resolved it. However a couple months later, it happened again. This time the motherboard and video card were replaced. It has worked ever since. So, the video card was fried, however the motherboard was actually at fault frying the video card. I suspected the motherboard was made around the time a bad batch of capacitors was going around to motherboard companies.
Go ahead and try the troubleshooting you are thinking. There's absolutely no harm in removing the bios battery for a few minutes and putting it back. It will just reset the bios settings. Go ahead and flash the latest bios. Think of it this way: Your computer is already unusable. What are you going to do? Break it? Use this as a chance to play around and learn how these things work.
However, I believe it's a hardware failure between the motherboard and/or video card.
Yeah, honestly sounds like you have both a hardware problem and a virus. You might as well remove the possibility of a BIOS virus by flashing a new one but don't expect any miracles.
Actually, if looks like your using Integrated Graphics(IGP) and one of your Ram sticks went bad (the easiest way to test bad RAM is to use a IGP because IGPs use your RAM).
I wouldn't boot into windows even if you could because any HD writes might be corrupt. I would just take out 1 stick (you prolly have 2) and use 1 stick at a time to figure out which one is bad.
If you have a GPU, your VRAM may be bad. Either way, its a memory issue either with your main board memory (cheap to fix) or you need to RMA/buy a GPU if you have a GPU.
On July 01 2011 17:37 billyX333 wrote: yes thanks for all the advice. I've definitely accepted the GPU or video card to be the culprit now I just need to find my warranty.
It actually crashed about 4 times over the course of the week with the same glitchy graphics except it was always temporary. It did cross my mind that it was the GPU but my frustration at the virus on my computer at the time overrode that suspicion apparently. Now I'm just worried that something is functioning incorrectly to have allowed my GPU to gradually break down perhaps? I don't know enough about computers to really do anything about it though.
the virus you were experiencing through the OS was definitely malware, just speaking out of experience, I don't know the exact science to it as to what it does to your computer, but it can be taken out easily by running one of the various freeware programs out there, such as "Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware."
unluckily i didn't document when i experienced it and how exactly i found a solution, i'm not sure if the malware continuously pops up to the point where you can't even browse through your programs regularly.
i don't think you're at fault though when diagnosing it as a bios virus, just a little too hasty. every time you experience display errors always look for video card-related symptoms, from whether or not the video card itself is bad to the connection between the monitor and card itself. best way as the majority said is to just find a working video card and switch it with your old one to find out for sure.
Iv combed through the thread and I have to agree from the pictures and information provided that it is indeed a GPU problem. If your motherboard has on board graphics try taking out your video card and booting up.
On July 01 2011 21:28 adelise wrote: A BIOS virus rofl
Ever hear of an SMM rootkit?
It is possible, but it's still not what we call likely.
Yes, it's possible but the way he said "A BIOS virus, rofl" makes me think he believes they don't exist.
But based on the pictures and posts, I'm 99% certain it's a graphics card problem and that he has a rogue AV on his system, both easily fixed.
Yeah, pretty much. Although I pretty much reacted the same way in my first response, I just put it into useful words. The tl;dr version of my first post would be something like "A BIOS virus, rofl".
On July 01 2011 10:04 Sir.Kimmel wrote: pull the cmos battery to verify that I'm right... then buy a new graphics card...
This! You may want to think that there are people using significant amounts of their time writing viruses for the very BIOS you have just to fuck with people like you but you'd be better off just buying a new graphics card and accepting the fact that hardware errors produce some pretty weird effects.
If you are using an onboard chip, just buy a new mobo.
On July 01 2011 20:16 cari-kira wrote: its pretty common for graphic cards to die after some month of life these days. dont worry, there should be no other problem with your pc. if you have warranty, fine. if not, before you throw it away you can actually bake your graphic card in an oven at 200° for about 5 min, no kidding. most of the time graphic cards die because of too much heat deployment, so the pins expand and constrict over and over again until a connection is broken. when baked, the solder my be able to melt end expand, so the contacts close again. http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-general/529271-bake-your-graphics-card-oven-fix.html wont help on broken RAM though, but worth a try.
While I've never personally baked my graphics card, I can attest to the fact that this can work. If your card is about fried and you're just gonna throw it out, give baking it a try. You have nothing to lose and you can possibly fix your issue. If I were having your issues I would bake the card and clean your computer out (i.e. format and reinstall everything or get malwarebytes or something and try to get rid of all the accumulated crap). If the card baking doesn't work I'd then go out and buy a new graphics card or just start with a new build.
If it is ram and not GPU as suggested above a good test is to get a Linux live CD with Memtest 86 on it, boot into that before you go to bed and run the test for 12-24 hours, the longer it runs the higher chance you will hit an error and find the dodgy stick.
It could have been an easily fixable loose internal earthing wire in the chip of LCD if it wasn't for image 2. Almost certainly an GPU mem problem when we look at gibberish of second image.
If you can, take it to a computer heath center (someitmes a simple shop will do). Those viruses can sometimes be eliminated from the bios (assuming it is a bios virus), with another virus, but those are normally made but computer freaks that end up working at a pc store.
Some computers have a bios reset/flash option, but if you dont know if yours has or how it works, better dont toy with it.
artifacts are common to graphics yes..i had a similiar problem with mine, almost same exact thing. It was an onboard IGP i had. RMA the board 3 times to come back perfect. Turns out it was the ram.
use same ram, new graphics. use new ram, same graphics.