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Sometimes it is obvious, other times you’re still not sure, but here are some clues or symptoms that your computer is infected:
- Slow internet connection or slow computer especially if recently either was much faster
- No internet connection even though the system says you are connected
- Dire warnings that you have a virus or many viruses
- Exaggerated notice of computer problems such as a bad hard drive or loss of data
- Warnings that you will be in trouble with the police or some other official organization if you don’t pay a fee , this includes alleged penalties for downloading free music or programs or false claims you have child pornography on your computer and will face legal action including incarceration if you don’t pay with a credit card
- Web browser redirections, for instance you are trying to go Google or other website and your browser takes you somewhere entirely else such as a strange search engine or shopping site
- Pop-ups
- Normal system programs or functions unavailable such as Task Manager, Control Panel, Msconfig
- Unexplained errors
- Program failure
- Disappearance of icons, programs, or files from desktop, start menu, or user folders
- An RPC error, sometimes with a window with a restart or countdown to a restart
Unless you have a lot of computer expertise, you’ll need a computer professional to remove viruses, if your computer has the symptoms listed above.
Ducktoes Computer Services can remove viruses without reformatting. We also do remote virus removal if you don’t live in Calgary.
Some of the symptoms may happen with hardware failure such as hard drive corruption but most are virus-related.