Parents computer problems...

[tranger2]

My parents were having a problem with their computer mouse that quit working. Went and bought another one that worked for a week or so then it quit again. Bought another one that worked for a short time.

About the same time, a program started popping up that said they had a trojan virus. For $79, their program would remove it.

They took the computer to Best Buy and was charged over $200 to find the problem and repair it. After analyzing it, they said the hard drive was defective and did not try to repair it. For a total of over $300 plus they would install a hard drive and transfer the files from the old drive to the new. They could buy a new computer for about another $100 more than they've already got into it.

Two questions for the computer geeks:
1) To me, it seems like they need to run a malware or other programs to try to remove the virus/trojan/etc. (they run AVG freeware antivirus). Can a hard drive be part of the problem.

2) If they need a new computer, where is the best deal? They only use if for email, internet, light word processing, etc (no games, media, etc.)

Thanks for any help.....

 

[bsmith918]

Best bet is to have them save any files they need and then do a factory restore. If it turns out to be the HD and they need another computer anyway, just watch the Sunday ads or slickdeals for a inexpensive one. I could go more in depth with the removal of the malware/virus, but it would probably be easier to just restore it. PM me if you have any questions.

 

[VitruvianDoc]

Sounds like a mix of things. Could very well be a fake anti-virus that acts a trojan doing weird things and tries to trick people into paying for the software it advertises to remove it...

Could be hard-drive issues, too, but that usually presents with sectors going bad on the harddrive (occasional blue screens naming this and that sector) etc.

Best buy ripped them and I am sorry. If you want a trusted opinion, take it to three geeks in edmond off of kelly between 2nd and 15th. I did some weekend work for them and they are a good business.

My personal job would be to first and foremost, back up everything that you need (or can). Next, run disk check. Can be accessed from the accessory and system tools. It will reboot the computer and take a while to run. If it finds bad sectors, it will attempt to fix them. If it continually finds them, more than likely a failing harddrive.

In addition, download Spybot - search and destroy. Best, free, anti-spyware out there.. It catches any and everything that paid software does. See what it finds (as far as adware and malware). It won't detect straight up virusses however due to being only anti-spy/malware.

Report back with results. When I did repairs, I charged a $50 diag fee and then charged a per job charge, not an hourly rate. Hourly rates kill you with computers. Best buy ripped you in my mind, but again if its over your head, head to three geeks!

 

[flatwins]

Sounds like a mix of things. Could very well be a fake anti-virus that acts a trojan doing weird things and tries to trick people into paying for the software it advertises to remove it...

Could be hard-drive issues, too, but that usually presents with sectors going bad on the harddrive (occasional blue screens naming this and that sector) etc.

Best buy ripped them and I am sorry. If you want a trusted opinion, take it to three geeks in edmond off of kelly between 2nd and 15th. I did some weekend work for them and they are a good business.

My personal job would be to first and foremost, back up everything that you need (or can). Next, run disk check. Can be accessed from the accessory and system tools. It will reboot the computer and take a while to run. If it finds bad sectors, it will attempt to fix them. If it continually finds them, more than likely a failing harddrive.

In addition, download Spybot - search and destroy. Best, free, anti-spyware out there.. It catches any and everything that paid software does. See what it finds (as far as adware and malware). It won't detect straight up virusses however due to being only anti-spy/malware.

Report back with results. When I did repairs, I charged a $50 diag fee and then charged a per job charge, not an hourly rate. Hourly rates kill you with computers. Best buy ripped you in my mind, but again if its over your head, head to three geeks!

Unfortunately in my work I have to deal with these issues almost daily and the above advice is quite good.

 

[Go_Ordnance]

Do they live in the OKC area too? Honestly, I'd tell them to get a Mac. Either a $999 MacBook or $1199 iMac. Pay the extra for the AppleCare warranty.

My mom has a PC. I'm always on the phone with her trying to figure out and fix what she screwed up. Last go round was malware that wouldn't let her do anything on power up. I gave up and told her to take it to the local geeks.

My 78 year old dad wanted a computer. I gave him an old laptop, but he couldn't figure out windows (too many prompts asking if he was sure he wanted to blah blah, and too many notifications). I was always on the phone trying to explain stuff. I formatted it and installed ubuntu, and configured the desktop so all he had was mail, internet, and help icons. I got more phone calls.

I talked him into trying an iMac, and bought him OSX for dummies (seniors edition). He does everything on it.

If there's an apple store close to your parents, they can get free help and repairs there. I gotta hand it to them, they're customer focused. The AppleCare warranty has 3 years of technical support as well as hardware. To me it's worth the premium in his case. He can pester them, and they continue to put up with his "how do I google" questions.

I hate "get a Mac" as a standard answer for PC issues, and I'm not a Mac guy (although I have an ipad and the wife has a MacBook). They are a better choice in certain instances.

 

[Powerman620]

Go to this site and download program, it will fix problem for free. Great little malware program !
http://www.malwarebytes.org/

 

[okietool]

Computer Hope. I reasonably computer savvy, but, I got a bad virus and this is where I got the most help.

 

[okie_gunslinger]

Spybot Search and Destroy

Here is a link to the download page for Spybot Search and Destroy. Like VitruvianDoc said it's a really great program for removing and preventing spyware.

It sounds like your parents got rolled by Best Buy I had them look at a laptop I bought from them a couple years ago because the keyboard went out, they sent it off and told me it would cost over $300 to replace the keyboard. Since that would have decimated my gun money I went to the computer manufactures website and had a new keyboard shipped to me and changed it myself for the grand total of $35.

 

[RickN]

Download both Spybot and Avast anti-virus. Run them in safe mode and it should take care of the problem.

Go to my site in my sig and at the bottom of the navigation bar is a link to our free security software page with links to both.