E-Machine Dilema

[IIwhitexb0iII]

I purchased an M-5305 from tigerdirect.com. $1,000 512 MB memory and a 40 GB harddrive. That's not the problem though.

I've been running my machine without a virusscan. I've already slapped myself for this...so please flame me if and only if you have a good suggestion to remedy my problem. I am connected wirelessly to the internet via an 802.11g conecction and DSL service and I believe I have contracted a virus. When i connect to my computer it immediately restarts itself. Sometimes it will let me be on for awhile before it restarts.

That is all the information I can think of that would be necessary to tell you. If you need anything else, please let me know.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

[clawhammer]

Get a virusscanner, clean it up, and get microsoft antispyare.

[my3rdskyline]

clear your master boot record. reinstall your operating system. install antivirus software. update it. update your OS. and be sure to do all of this behind a hardware firewall.

[imtheoneandonlyD]

do you get a little message saying, "Your PC will be restarted in X:XX"?

i had that one....was a bitch cause i had to go online to download the virus update. Everytime i got online it would start the countdown

[Plastic_Fork]

Probably either the MS Blaster worm, Welchia worm, or Sasser worm. Do you get an error where the RPC shutdown is triggered or something similar? If so, that's it. While it's counting down, click on Start, then click on Run. In the Run box, type "shutdown -a" (without quotes) and click OK. This will abort the shutdown process. I suggest you enable a firewall first and reboot so you don't have to do this. You can always turn it back off later.

Make sure you enable your firewall in XP (or another firewall if you have it). Then go to Windows Update and install the updates and then download the tool that's there to scan the PC for the virus variants that cause the issue and remove them. If you don't install the updates first, it'll just come back after you remove it and reboot.