[danSOS]

Hi Guys

I've posted this post in Malware/Viruses, but the lads there tell me to ask in here. Link here

I've been tasked with sorting out an issue one of my friends had with their laptop, it would appear to me like some sort of virus .... on bootup it litters the screen with red smiley faces, and once loading windows has black lines accross which almost renders totally unusable.

I've formatted the PC several times, and it may go for 5 minutes max, but then re appears.

Is it likely to be hardware related?

Ive attached a picture of how it looks even when running through formatting it.

Thanks in advance guys!

Attached Thumbnails

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Hi danSOS,
Have you tried hooking the laptop up to an external screen via the VGA port? You may need to toggle between screens by using the Fn key and one of the F1 to F12 keys to get the external screen to work/display.
If you have done this already what happened?

[phillpower2]

Hi danSOS,
Have you tried hooking the laptop up to an external screen via the VGA port? You may need to toggle between screens by using the Fn key and one of the F1 to F12 keys to get the external screen to work/display.
If you have done this already what happened?

[danSOS]

duplicate post, please delete - sorry!

Edited by danSOS, 09 February 2011 - 04:12 AM.

[danSOS]

Hi danSOS,
Have you tried hooking the laptop up to an external screen via the VGA port? You may need to toggle between screens by using the Fn key and one of the F1 to F12 keys to get the external screen to work/display.
If you have done this already what happened?

Hi

I have just tried, and exactly the same thing happens - would this suggest it is not hardware related, and is still a virus issue?

Thanks guys

Dan

[phillpower2]

on bootup it litters the screen with red smiley faces,

If this description of the display is accurate I can understand you suspecting a malware issue.

and once loading windows has black lines accross which almost renders totally unusable

Suggesting onboard video chip failure, a very slim chance of a driver issue.

would this suggest it is not hardware related, and is still a virus issue?

The Malware Techs would have assisted you from start to finish in order to resolve the issue before suggesting you post here.

[Log2]

if you have an extra hard drive try hooking that up, sounds like something has taken over ring 0 of the hard drive. It could also be something implanted on your BIOS chip, less likely.

Here are my suggestions:
1. Install windows, update the Graphics card, if it says the drivers are up to date, rollback the drivers to an older version and install a new version.
2. Update your BIOS on the dell web site.
3. Try disabling the hard drive and using an external hard drive or usb stick with memtest or something on it, this will test to see if it's the hard drive or not, because memtest86 should take a while to run, plus it will test the memory, two birds with one stone.

If none of those work, ask your friend is they tried to overclock the GPU, I had this problem happen to my 8600GT once, if that is the problem, respond back, and I might be able to help you with that fix