Does my computer have a virus?

[Diz]

We have been having problems with our computer for a few weeks now, a week yesterday it decided it was not going to stay connected to the internet for any period of time (wireless), we took it into a local PC World for a Health Check and collected it yesterday, they said that the problem had been sorted and that a report would be on our desktop. When we got home we immediately switched on the PC and found it to be in a worse state than when we dropped it off at PC World, there is no report telling us what has been done. We can only connect to the internet using a cable through our router and no pictures appear on any web pages or emails. After a short while the PC suddenly plays some eerie music and starts talking about taxes then promptly reboots. I am not saying PC world have done anything to our PC but I don't think they have looked at it either, we are going back tonight to complain but I wondered if anybody had any ideas what could be going on.

[tigersam258]

it does sound as if some errant piece of software is kicking in. I would recommend taking it back to PC World and ask them to show you where the report is before you leave the shop.

[ZXR]

Losing your wireless connection is one of the main drawbacks of being wireless. Best bet is to connect using a cable.
As for your virus problem the thing to do is to download and run either Avast or AVG free. Both are free to use. Don't install two anti virus progs though, just choose one or the other as it will cause you more problems having both running at the same time.

Next I would download a an anti spyware prog, there are many good free ones to choose from such as Ad Aware and Spybot.
If you don't already have a firewall prog I would recommend you get a copy of Zonealarm, again it's free for the home edition and won't cost you anything.
Some links

http://free.avg.com/download-avg-anti-virus-fr ee-edition

http://avast.uk-s0ftware.com/?s=gouk&a=avastuk &gclid=CIOv-N2x15gCFQ2ZQwodeAPNdw

http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free .php

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

The basic firewall ( far right ) is free to download
http://www.zonealarm.com/security/en-gb/compar e-anti-virus-spyware-software.htm

[Diz]

Thanks for all your help. Been back to PC World they have cleared all of the viruses off our system but think that one of them may have damaged one or some of the System 32 files, they suggest doing a full system re-start/boot, unfortunately we do not have copies of the pics on the pc and cannot find the re-start/boot disk that comes with a new pc, we got an ex-display and we are not sure we even got a disk with it. Hopefully we will find it and sort it out otherwise its saving for a new pc! Never mind worse things in the world.

[YvonneM]

I have had a virus in system32 which AVG did not pick up look in your WINDOWS -system32 - then drivers - see if there are any exe files in there. This is what happened to me the virus even stopped my task manager from working .