First of all, my PC screen goes off randomly sometimes after 10 minutes sometimes after half an hour. It flashes up on the screen saying 'NO SIGNAL' before the screen going off completely just leaving the flashing LED on the bottom of the monitor.

 

Secondly the laptop picked up some spyware/malware shite so downloaded malwarebytes or something like that, it worked a treat and got rid of the problem, but now the internet wont even attempt to connect, either internet explorer or firefox. Just says 'cannot connect to internet'

 

Any ideas please guys? :surrender:

obvious answer to the screen but have u checked the cables are plugged rite in?

me mum phoned me the other day saying her screen was all pink, push the cable in properly then i said......... hey presto it worked. same with the internet cable.

failing that take the side off the base unit and make sure the graphics card etc are all securely in place

that first one isn't a screensaver/power saver is it?

Its a gay porn alert! It turns the monitor off at random intervals to save you from going blind, Mikey Bean had this problem last week

Tough ones baz, the first is probably a cable issue BUT could easily be the monitor on its last legs. Best way to test is to swap it over for another screen if you have one or can borrow one and see if that does anything similar.

 

If the second screen does do the same it could be your video card, quite often they overheat if the fans fail or heat sinks get blocked and simply switch of in order to save them selves from rear damage. As you might imagine it makes it difficult to see whats on screen :)

 

As for the laptop, assuming that the network connections (is it wireless or wired?) are working properly it sounds like its further infected with crap. If its so bad I would personally back it up and reinstall windows. Another quick fix option is system restore, doesnt always work but if you restore it to a time when all was well that can often fix these isssues.

Assuming its XP - Start - All Programs - Accessoreis - System Tools - System restore

 

HTH

The screen could be one of three things, monitor dieing, graphics card turning itself off or dieing, or it could simply be a cable issue, which could be a whole realm of things, dodgy cable with cracks in the wires, dodgy ends not connecting properly to either the computer or the screen, you haven't screwed it in right, etc. etc.

 

The laptop I think Quavey is right, better off to wipe it completely. System restores and stuff are very unreliable, even on the latest versions of Windows, and trying to remove spyware and malware from a rooted machine is pointless, if it's XP, I suggest buying yourself a copy of Windows 7 (If the machine is powerful enough to take it) or get used to Ubuntu Linux. Windows XP is now getting fewer and fewer patches and bug fixes from Microsoft, and eventually there will be none at all, so better to move now, than later.

 

When I was an IT engineer, before I decided to see the light and become a developer, half my time was spent cleaning up XP machines that were getting rooted by malware, I decided long ago that Windows XP is now dead in the water, I'm far from a Windows person, my entire network is Linux, even my 15 year old daughters laptop, but not everyone can get to grips with it easily.

 

If you fancy trying it, just download the CD image from http://www.ubuntu.com and then burn it to a CDR, then boot the laptop up with the CD in the drive (With laptops you may have to tell it to boot from CD) and you'll be able to try Ubuntu on for size, without overwriting or even affecting your hard drive, it just runs from the CD itself and changes nothing on your machine. It will run slower of course because it's running from the CD, but it'll give you a feel for the Operating System at least. Plenty of help and advice on ubuntuforums.org too.

yeah it was a right pain in the ASS. lol. mid jossle and screen would go blank. i had no choice but to think of daz to get me through;)

:winkiss:

dirty boys!

 

thanks for the advice guys, if I do a system restore will I lose my pics etc?

dirty boys!

 

thanks for the advice guys, if I do a system restore will I lose my pics etc?

 

No you shouldnt do, but you could always back things up just in case!

if your going to do a system restore you have the option to restore it to a set checkpoint as long as the pics where on there at that point in time you will keep them

 

you can also create system checkpoint for future :)

sounds like the gfx is getting hot.

System restores only work if:

 

1) You've set a system restore point previously

2) Your system was set up to automatically set a system restore point previously

 

Unfortunately in most cases, neither of these are likely. In the unlikely event that you have a system restore point to restore to, you WILL Lose any files that were not on the drive at the time you set the restore point. As I mentioned earlier, System Restores are not a good thing to do, far better to wipe and start again. Besides everything else, if the virus has nestled itself into a file that was on your system at or before your restore point, then restoring to that point in time will do nothing to get rid of the virus, because it'll delete any and all files not in the restore point information, and leave the infected file there to do it's bidding, it doesn't restore the files to their previous states, it would never have enough information to do that, it simply deletes the files and applications that didn't exist at the point the restore was set.

 

As for your files, if you've ended up with a virus, and it won't go away, it's likely disguised itself and hidden somewhere amongst your files. Backing up your files, restoring or wiping your system, then moving those files back, will do nothing more than give the virus a new playground. You need to do things properly, move the files to a USB disk, scan them on an offline computer, with up to date spyware and malware/virus detectors, preferably a Linux one, then only move them back to your restored/reloaded computer, when you're ABSOLUTELY positive they are not infected files.

System restores only work if:

 

1) You've set a system restore point previously

2) Your system was set up to automatically set a system restore point previously

 

Unfortunately in most cases, neither of these are likely. In the unlikely event that you have a system restore point to restore to, you WILL Lose any files that were not on the drive at the time you set the restore point. As I mentioned earlier, System Restores are not a good thing to do, far better to wipe and start again. Besides everything else, if the virus has nestled itself into a file that was on your system at or before your restore point, then restoring to that point in time will do nothing to get rid of the virus, because it'll delete any and all files not in the restore point information, and leave the infected file there to do it's bidding, it doesn't restore the files to their previous states, it would never have enough information to do that, it simply deletes the files and applications that didn't exist at the point the restore was set.

 

As for your files, if you've ended up with a virus, and it won't go away, it's likely disguised itself and hidden somewhere amongst your files. Backing up your files, restoring or wiping your system, then moving those files back, will do nothing more than give the virus a new playground. You need to do things properly, move the files to a USB disk, scan them on an offline computer, with up to date spyware and malware/virus detectors, preferably a Linux one, then only move them back to your restored/reloaded computer, when you're ABSOLUTELY positive they are not infected files.

 

 

 

Sadly not true, system restore points are created automatically. Using it is reversible, and does not always mean you will loose any files created. Documents should not be lost, it will however remove software.

 

As I said they can be reversed so you have little to loose by trying it.

did you go into 'control panel' and check it wasn't the screen saver/power off timers?

 

and just so you don't feel alone..my internet went last night (so missed the brilliant cricket). it was all down to useage tho. seems ever bugger was at home boxingday requesting the gay porn, so its back on today (cos ever bugger has gone shopping instead).

I had exactly the same issue with my screen going off, and it was that my PSU was failing and not putting out enough to run the card. might be worth a look? also as allready mentioned your card could be getting hot. best bet is to get another screen and see if the same happens. as for the laptop, what windows is it running? have you tried disabling your network adapter driver and re enabling to see if that helps?

Well I've got the internet working again, did a system restore to November but it still didnt work. I went to Internet Explorer and clicked on 'Diagnose Connection Problems'. It muttered something about incorrect proxy settings, so I went to Internet Options > Connections > LAN settings > then unchecked Use Proxy Server. It now works, but is it going to cause me a problem doing it this way?

No it shouldnt do, you shouldnt have had use proxy server selected anyway really, unless the machine is setup to run on a network with a proxy server? Do you use that machine for work at an office?

as Quavey under home broadband use it should be unchecked :)