At Computer Pc Medic, a Fort Collins Computer Repair and Business IT company, we have compiled the following list of common symptoms of a computer virus infections. By no means is this list exhaustive. If your computer is operating in a way that it hasn’t before, then your computer may be infected and needs to be fixed as soon as possible. Computer viruses are similar to human sickness, in that if you ignore the symptoms, the virus will get worse.
- Your computer is much slower or you are getting blue screens.
- You cannot connect to the Internet.
- A professional looking antivirus screen displays and appears to be scanning your computer. It tells you your computer is infected and you need to buy a product from them. (DON’T DO IT!)
- There are strange popup message boxes flooding your desktop.
- A message box pops up telling you that your computer is having hard drive failure or you need more memory.
- You cannot start any of your application programs. They start and then exit immediately.
- Your attempts to go to a specific website are met with a redirection to another website.
- Your computer will not boot up to the operating system.
- Desktop icons, personal data, and most recently used programs and files lists are missing. The “Start Program” folders might also be empty.
- You can’t get into the “Task Manager”.
- Your antivirus program has been disabled and any attempt to enable it is closely followed by it being disabled.
- The computer locks up.
- Your firewall has been turned off and can’t be turned back on.
- An official FBI banner totally covers your screen. There is no way to get to your desktop. It warns you that you have been caught at child porn sites and your picture has been captured. Your web camera might even be turned on. This ransomware instructs you to buy a money pack, for a specific amount, and enter the number in the FBI screen fields provided. Don’t do it! NOTE: There are many variances to this FBI warning screen. They even claim to be protecting you. It’s a lie!
- Any attempt to click on a Word, Excel, Power Point, etc. document tells you that the file has no program associated with it, and fails to open.
- Clicking on a program icon fails to start the program.
- When you attempt to start the Task Manager it is terminated.
- You can boot up in Safe Mode, but get blue screens in normal mode.
If you suspect that your Windows computer has been infected with a virus, do not try to fix if yourself. Why, because you could make it much worse and even cripple the operating system. At Computer Pc Medic, our technicians are trained at computer virus removal. We know how to save your personal data from loss and repair the damaged caused by the computer virus.