Reformatting and upgrading

[joeydtx]

My old clunker is going on a little or more four years, still runs pretty good though. I was thinking though, of reformatting my system and upgrading a little more ram and maybe a better video card into it so that it can serve me a bit more until my new system is built and I can convert it to a media/browsing system while im online gaming or maybe even dual box.

My question is, would reformatting help it? Currently I have a little popup window that says "Your computer is infected" in a little red box and then says click it to find some protection software... from a friends browsing it got on here one night. Looked for how to remove it but cant find the file or programs, once in a while takes me out of fullscreen online on a game. anyhow, back to the question, and also will I need my OEM code, or will it be autoprogrammed when I reformat and install? Or should I write down the number found when you check computer information on "My Computer"?

So would a reformat and slight upgrade help this system? Currently, if you play WoW, my character seems to freeze a lot entering a city and quite annoying, so I wanna know if its lag or my memory/graphics cant handle it.

K7V Dragon +
Nvidia Geforce Ti 4200
512 MG 2100 DDR ram

Any ideas on a video card update as well? Anyway, thanks again for your help... this has been the best place when I have a computer problem and very helpful people here :)

JD

[Zero Tolerance]

joeydtx....

Your machine is indeed infected....and the popup is practically blackmailing you to buy their removal tool.

I have NEVER had any luck removing this infection and have only been able to rid a machine of it by removing the partition WINDOWS is running on...reformatting and then reinstalling the OS.

It has been quite a while now since I have seen this so there may well be some removal tools available.

Now, as far as your system. There really isnt much to upgrade. You have one of the best graphic cards for that motherboard already ( I had that same mobo /gfx card at one point)....and you have "adequate" RAM. However you dont say what CPU you are running. I think that the largest CPU that the mobo will support is a AMD 2500+, so if you arent already running that CPU and you are running something like a 2000+ or 2200+....upgrading the CPU isnt really gonna help you much either.

What I would do is remove your current partition...reformat and install your OS fresh. You could upgrade your RAM to a gig...but again 500 has served you well for such a long time...I dont think that doubling the RAM at this point will show you a great deal of improvement. I do however know that ridding yourself of that infection will show you more improvements than anything you could do to the hardware.

goodluck

[lmnobs]

You may be able to get rid of the pop-up by doing a Virus Scan in SAFE MODE and be OFFLINE and or by some of the sugestions found here at MS
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/community/columns/malware.mspx
I like all the memory I can get or that the board and processor will handle if its not too pricey .You probablly won't be able to reinstall your os unless you have the original oem disk or the complete disk set that comes with some new machines so a reformat may not work for you .

[Zero Tolerance]

I would guess that if its a Soyo Dragon mobo and TI-4200 gfx card that it is a custom built box and not a prefab....unless it was an alienware or nukeproof buy.

As far as this particular infection goes. I have seen it 2 times....with the most recent about 2 months or so ago and I could not get rid of it.

The malware it installs makes itself look very much like genuine windows information icons and it will pop up from your system tray and tell you that you are infected. THis is the only thing I have experienced that looks quite like this and I am ASSUMING what is wrong with the machine in the above post.

The soyo Dragon I think is only capable of a gig of ram...maybe a gig and a half. So IMO pumping it to the max wont show alot of improvement. It will show improvement...but not enough to get excited about....and most likely will be a dissapointing investment.

again, goodluck! :D

[AnthonyCea]

If you have not scanned with Adaware and Spybot I would try that first, there are free download links here along with a 30 day free trial of NOD32 AV (http://www.searchwars.squarespace.com/free-software-downloads/), click on the NOD32 link and then go to the bottom of the page and click on Download for the 30 day free license.

Make sure you configure it properly (read the instructions) and run scan and clean, you might get lucky if you run this AV program along with Adaware and Spybot scans.