laptop advice

[fluffyfeet]

can anyone tecno minded recommend a decent laptop,this one is full of viruses and sick spending £50 to get it fixed all the time plzzzzzz btw its a compaq thanks

[sophie_1003]

any laptop will get viruses if you don't have an anti virus programme, download avg anti virus, it's free and works well.

[fluffyfeet]

thanks sophie have avg on it but somethings got through it

[Jumbuck]

Have you considered saving all your private data, and using the recovery disk to get the laptop back to a pristine state from which you can start again? If you buy a new laptop that's where you would have to start from anyway.

[tamborine]

Just feed youroriginal Windows CD back through it. Most should be restored - mine was.

[Huderon]

You are paying that much to keep getting it fixed ? Good grief ...

http://www.free-av.co...ir_rescue_system.html is free. Download, burn to a CD or DVD, boot from the disk and run the AV scan.

When it's cleaned up, check for malware with either Malwarebytes or Superantispyware (or both, and don't forget to get the latest updates before running a scan), then use either GMER (www.gnmer.net) or A Squared free (http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/) to check for and remove any rootkits.

Then think about using OpenDNS as your DNS service - that will block you from going to a lot of sites which automatically install malware on your machine. You have to sign up for it, bit it is free and there are instructions on the site to tell you how to set everything up (including wireless routers).

Finally, if you are running XP, download Tweakui and use it to disable autorun (that should take care of infections from CDs/DVDs/USB sticks that people lend or give you things on. Sorry I don't know of a convenient way to do it in Vista.

You won't be 100% protected with all that lot done, but you will be more protected than you seem to be now

[TTG]

Download and run Spybot as well for any spyware. Like AVG, it's freeware...works well and the updates are regular and free. Update AVG and run a full scan.

If you have XP, select Start, Run, then msconfig. You can see what's starting up on the Startup tab. Seach for any of the ticked items on the internet. Untick any suspicious ones.

[Hammer]

Any new laptop will suffer the same fate. It's not the laptop itself but what you are doing with it that's the problem. As mentioned above, get decent anti-virus and anti-spyware programs and be careful what you download and what websites you visit. If you fileshare, check anything you download before you open it, but remember that is how lots of viruses circulate.