View Full Version : A Virus?
Hey Guys, recently ive had some kind of mess-up with my WinSPMBT. When i start playing it, after about a minute the screen messes up and loads of the in game graphics turn to brightly coloured VGA-type pixels (especially smoke hexes and buttons) and stay like that. If i minimize the screen and then return it, it goes back to normal, but after a minute or so it ****es up again so i have to keep minimizing and restoring all the time in order to be able to play normally. It only started doing this a week ago and it is seriously pissing me off (Deuce, it is due to this problem that i still havent finished playtesting your campaign). Has anyone encountered this problem before and if yes, how can i fix it? If not, then do you guys think its a virus or something? Any help would be appreciated, thanks.
maybe you try a virusscanner on it and then install again
I did two different anti-virus scans, (Norton and McAffe) and the only virus they detect is an "trojan.elitebar32" or something like that, which for some reason neither programme can remove, but in the description it states that the only thing the virus does is launch pop-ups of advertisements on my desk-top once in a while (which i have indeed been seeing pop up on my screen). Thing is, when my laptop is connected to the net, the pop-ups come up and they dont mess up the game at all (well, the occasional transition to VGA pixels does occur for smoke hexes etc.) but the problem is when the laptop is not connected to PC because then the game just becomes unplayable as it depixelates into bright VGA spots practically once a minute... And it's only WinSPMBT that does this... I just dont know what to do.
I have this exact issue.
I don't know what causes it. The only thing that fixes it is if I run SPMBT with most every "non-essential" service shut-down.
I think it is a driver issue.
Did you recently install a new piece of hardware, or update a driver?
I asked about this at the forums and the response was "we always recommend playing with everything turned off that is non-essential".
Here is what I posted and the response:
I'll add my info to this thread...
I have 2 different hardware profiles set-up on my machine (running win xp sp2). The first is normal and it loads all the various services that run under Windows. The second profile is my "gaming" profile that turns off pretty much every unnecessary service (if you scroll down to the chart called "power user" here http://web.archive.org/web/20041128084144/www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm you will see which services I turn off).
When I play SPMBT under my gaming profile, it works like a charm, the only exception being an occasional blink that very infrequently sends me back to the desktop (but game is still running fine, must just hit the button again -- equivalent of alt-tabbing out).
However, if I play under my normal hardware profile, almost every time the game at some point flashes in a highly pixalated and weird color scheme. All smoke changes from the white/gray to colored pixels that look quite kaleidoscopic. Sometimes the entire screen changes to that state, sometimes it just remains the smoke, the text and the borders.
As noted above, I am using Win XP (Home) SP2. My vidcard is a Radeon X800 (AGP). My drivers and Direct X are all up to date and operate fine.
It appears quite strongly to me that the problem is one of these services that is running. While its not a problem for me (I simply reboot into my gaming profile), I would be willing to provide further information if you think it would help you troubleshoot the issue.
Response:
We already state in the manual to turn off unecessary programs and background tasks.
It may be useful though to figure out which common background tasks cause problems, if any.
A standard one that causes the game to go slow and jittery for me at least is Norton's sheduled weekly anti-virus scan. (the clue whn playing full screen is the hard disk starts chittering away like crazy !. This anti-virus scan does NOT seem to realise that the end user is currently playing a full screen DirectX game (I have had it go off when playing e.g. the Sims2).
the other suspects I have is thewindows disk catalogue function (A worthless item one can turn off). This trolls your hard drive to make searching for items allegedly faster (though I have not noticed any speed decrease since I turned it off).
To turn off this catalogue function. Open explorer, find the drive and right click, under properties (General) is a check box for "Allow indexing service to ... for fast disk searching" - uncheck that, and you have better general performance, with only a slight (IMHO) slwdown in searching.
Xp tends to do these things in "idle" mode - and it seems to consider a full-screen DirectX game "idle mode" (it is blind to the process?), whereas 98 did not.
Cheers
Andy
Hope that helps ....
Thanks Pepper, ima give that a go.
try bitdefender
Just tried it, it keeps crashing during scans, so its no use. Does anyone know any good free trojan remover software?
spysweeper
Tried this, it detects the presence of the Elitebar trojan, but cannot remove it for some reason...
try to find on google there a multi program's to remove it
Double Deuce
23 Feb 06, 08:21
Have you tried "Hijack this"?
have you succes with remove that virus?
did you try shutting down your unnecessary services? serious, I have the exact same problem unless I do that ...
I have downloaded and tried spy-doctor, and it has removed the virus completely (you should give it a go Pepper). However, with the crack for that program, i seem to have contracted some other virus/file, which is some kind of porn thing called "Members Access Area" (has a woman on the desctop icon), and this program pops up a set of Terms and Conditions on my screen every minute (which is very annoying), and everytime i delete the mother****er (excuse my french) it always comes back 5 minutes later. Neither Norton Antivirus nor Spy-doctor detect this as a virus (must be in form of a programme) and cannot remove it... Talk about from the smoulders and into the fire...
my computer is completely adware, spyware and virus free. truly.
the issue is caused by a conflict from some service running, perhaps its a printer driver, or even a DVD player driver.
as for your new issue, sounds like the "fix" you used was itself a vehicle to deliver even nastier spyware. Unfortuantely thats very common.
HijackThis, recommended by DD, is great if you are comfortable using it. You have to be pretty aware of what you're doing, lest you bork your system.
EDIT: I went through my bookmarks and found this site, that I successfully used back when I did have a spyware issue. You may want to try it. What you do is submit your HijackThis log, and it will tell you what is safe to delete and what is not.
http://hjt.networktechs.com/
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