For the past two weeks, my computer has undergone a tragic downfall so to speak.
- Feb. 2 (Tues.): IE 7 got hijacked by fake antivirus prompts multiple times. Apparently at the same time, some undetectable trojan was slipped through the mess.
- Feb. 4 (Thurs.): Computer started locking up randomly. As in, everything freezes, keyboard, mouse, power button don't work at all; if there are any sounds playing, it starts stuttering. Never recovers. Forced to pull the plug each time.
- Investigation: Conclusively I found out through the next week that apparently this trojan caused the BIOS settings to be reset to defaults (for safety). I tried using memtest 86 and Windows' diagnostic tool, but there were no errors. Also, CPU usage and RAM meters (Windows Sidebar gadgets) did not indicate that sudden high usage bursts happened at the time of the lockups.
- For the week, I also tried several antivirus programs (including Dr Web CureIt) in regular and safe mode. They did not detect the cause, or the computer locked up during the scans.
- Feb. 6 (Sat.): Updated Vista to service pack 2. Unfortunately, this removed all my System Restore points!
- Feb. 13 (Sat.): Computer got bricked because during a legitimate BIOS update, the computer locked up.
I am planning to take it over for service on Tuesday, but they'll obviously wipe off the hard drive if they go through with it. This means that I may have to return to my old Win ME computer, and all my random YTP videos will not be returning.
