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Laptop bombing my network with packets (pt2)

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doodler85

Member
Hey guys,

I've had an unresolved issue for about five months now regarding my roommate's laptop. He seems to have a virus, worm, or something of the like that's been bombing out packets at an insane rate even after we reformatted the thing.

After being plugged in for, oh, six hours, it's already sent 48 trillion packets out. He's currently running an up-to-date ZoneAlarm, and an up-to-date NOD32, XP SP2... etc.

No antivirus program we've tried has detected the source of this crapstorm, and all assistance thus far has not worked.

Any ideas? I was thinking drastically to the point of buying a new HDD... but that seems foolish in consideration of the fact that it's a software problem, and I hope you guys have a way to fix it.

Thanks a lot.

David
 
If NorthBear's tip doesn't work, try updating the NIC drivers if you haven't already. The Toshiba M100's at work had that problem until we switched to a newer driver.
 
NIC means "network interface card." Is all of his software, including Windows, antivirus and other apps, legit software and not warez/etc? Rootkits can make stuff invisible to antivirus software, so if anything's not legit... 😛 Sorry for asking if it is way off target.
 
I'm pretty sure most of his software is legit... I think the only warez he has is MS Office, but I have that installed too and I've not had a problem.

I updated his modem and chipset drivers using a Gateway utility, and the problem's still there. Regarding an earlier suggestion - how could it be a broken LAN card? Should we try purchasing... say... a new wireless card (he could use one anyway) and test that for the same problems?
 
Sounds like a massive infection of spyware or a trojan acquired from a web site. Some of these cases have only one good solution - FDISk, reformat, reinstall Windows.
 
If you reformat and reinstall make sure that before you connect to the internet your behind a firewall/ have antivirus installed. You can update the antivirus later but make sure either your router has a firewall (and it's turned on) or you have a software firewall installed BEFORE you plug it into the internet. Especially if you are installing SP1.

Also you said hes running zonealarm. what happends if you tell zonealarm to stop all trafic? Do the packet transmissions stop?
 
Originally posted by: NuroMancer
Also you said hes running zonealarm. what happends if you tell zonealarm to stop all trafic? Do the packet transmissions stop?
Click to expand...

Well it's a relief that that that works - before we formatted his computer and tried that, the packets still went through. At least Zonealarm has some control, now.

Also, when we reformatted, I made him install NOD32 and Zonealarm ASAP - before connecting to the internet. He still ended up with the bastard, and we're behind a firewalled router as well.
 
Try it again from the top without the warez. OpenOffice is free, if he needs an office suite.
 
He's refusing to reformat.

Erm... Any other suggestions? He seems rather stubborn about the issue, but it's bothering my geeky innards, and his computer crashed the network (or at least slowed it down) on previous occasions.

Curses.
 
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