Virus?

[life_isgood]

I loaded Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne, and my friend called me. So I'm having a conversation, idling my computer. Next thing I see, my screen turns a solid blue. I tried to Alt-Tab and nothing happened. So I reset the computer, and it booted up fine. The volume was off, because I was on the phone, so I don't know if it made a beeping noise or not.

Just recently, a day or two ago, I had received a message from a friend of mine on msn (actually it was Pidgin, a client that can utilize the msn protocol/port) saying, "OH i found a photo album, let me dig it up and send it to ya, 1 sec" next i get the file transfer request (photo.zip) to which I accepted.

After the transfer was complete (instantaneously) I smelled something fishy. So I searched my computer for the file, and couldn't find it.

Just the other day I had posted on this forum about a power failure, that caused my computer to shutdown during a windows session. I wonder if that file caused the blue screen or not?

by the way: the screen was all blue, with no words.

[ItemFinder]

Lol.

[life_isgood]

Lol.

What's so funny?

[killoverme]

might be, just format your comp

[board123]

Just recently, a day or two ago, I had received a message from a friend of mine on msn (actually it was Pidgin, a client that can utilize the msn protocol/port) saying, "OH i found a photo album, let me dig it up and send it to ya, 1 sec" next i get the file transfer request (photo.zip) to which I accepted.
That's a virus that has been going around recently. Infected people message me like that all the time. As long as you don't run the EXE file inside the ZIP, you're fine.

[life_isgood]

I doubt it's the virus, because my client is not spamming my friends with the virus. Any other reason why my monitor would go all blue?

[ItemFinder]

Asking why a Windows system blue screens is like asking why Mac users are so pompous. It's a fact of life and it can't be avoided. Blue screens can be a result of many things including memory problems, failing hardware, driver conflicts, etc. As stated, viruses have no power unless they are executed.

[chiumanji]

if you're really concerned about getting to the bottom of this, write down the BSOD error code next time and search the web for some results.

in the meantime you can use some online scanners to let you sleep at night.

Any online scanner from the various companies should suffice but I'd reccomment

Trend Micro House Call(will clean infections found) and Kaspersky Online Scanner(does not clean, just reports).

Go to the forums at safer-networking > malware removal > and read their instructions on how to find out if your computer is infected

http://forums.spybot.info/

I've gone there whenever I've had infections or thought I might and the people there know their stuff and there are some very helpful information to be found.

This link shows you some steps you should do to discover if you're infected (http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=288)

[life_isgood]

I think you guys fail to understand that it was a plain blue screen... without all that mombo jumbo writing of codes... it was all BLUE.

so where do i get this BSOD code you speak off?

[life_isgood]

Asking why a Windows system blue screens is like asking why Mac users are so pompous. It's a fact of life and it can't be avoided. Blue screens can be a result of many things including memory problems, failing hardware, driver conflicts, etc. As stated, viruses have no power unless they are executed.

Hence my worries, I never executed the file. And this wasn't the infamous blue screen of death, because there wasn't any text...

Just wondering if anyone has heard of/experienced this before...

[ItemFinder]

BSODs don't always have error codes. It may have froze before an error could be spit out. I still wouldn't worry. Just do a virus scan and see if that puts your mind at ease.

With regard to the missing file, you're probably just not familiar with where Pidgin stores received files.

[terrybear]

I had the virus ... had no choice but to format .. lucky I had just did a backup 2-3 weeks earlier :P

[itcareer]

Might want to start with
http://www.dslreports.com/faq/13616