The internet is apparently made of fucking poison.

[stunt_muppet]

My laptop broke.

I'm not sure how, but it broke bad - it doesn't even want to start in Safe Mode, so even the basic drivers must be borked. I've never heard of a virus doing damage that deep, but given that my computer went from "normal internet browsing" to "frozen" to "effectively a paperweight" I'm left to assume that a virus it is

Comments

[rainbowstevie]

What a wonderful description of virus-writers. Seriously, creeps.

[stunt_muppet]

It's just malice for malice's sake and it pisses me off, let me tell you. >:(

[quadruplify]

Or your hard drive could've just up and died -- that's what happened to me two years ago, without warning. Did the laptop have any virus protection? Even if there wasn't, something tells me it wasn't a virus; if it were, you would've had a lot of sudden pop-ups and a huge slowdown before it died. Again, that's just from my experience, though. Good luck getting it fixed. >:

[stunt_muppet]

The only reason I didn't think so right away was that my computer's only two years old; that doesn't seem like long enough for the hard drive to die. I don't think I've been abusive to it.

I was using Avast for virus protection, but I only had the freeware version, not the registered version. I did have a little slowdown before it died; I got a message about Flash having problems, then Firefox stopped responding, then I had to hard reset because even Ctrl+Alt+Del wasn't working. And then nothing.

Thanks for the advice, though - I hadn't seen anything like that before, so it helps having some outside input. I hope it's something fixable, at least.

[quadruplify]

Hmmm, I'm no computer expert but that sounds to me like a hard drive dying than a virus -- a virus wouldn't necessarily do that much damage. And my first laptop had its hard drive die after a year, so that's not entirely implausible (then again, I was pretty abusive to it).

I hope you can fix it too -- though if this is a hard drive thing like I think it is, you might have to get it replaced, which means losing everything you had on it and starting over (unless you're willing to pony up for restoration).

[stunt_muppet]

I suppose I did a lot more downloading on this machine than I did on my old laptop, so the hard drive giving out after two years is probably not as unlikely as I thought. :( I do have almost everything (at least, everything important) on a backup drive or two, so replacing the hard drive wouldn't be a huge disaster aside from the expense, but if I've managed to kill my computer in two years, this probably means I have some serious internet behavior modification to do.

[bluegoddess21]

Eeek! That's unfortunate. Not sure what kind of computer you have or anything, but does it even detect an operating system on there?

[stunt_muppet]

I use a Dell PC, two years old, so I hadn't expected it to die this suddenly - which is why I suspect viruses. But I don't know if a virus can get to my computer that extensively. It won't start even in safe mode, so I'm not sure if it detects the OS.

I hope it's something that can be fixed. :(

[eyesmadeofjade]

mine broke when I was with my family in florida, the screen just went black. I was like fuck, I had the damn thing for almost two years, but it had my itunes, my thesis and various school papers, sigh.

[stunt_muppet]

I had a virus scare a couple years ago; since then I've kept everything on at least two different backup hard drives and made sure to keep them updated whenever I download or write something important. If you can, I'd invest in a couple of roomy flash drives at least - they're worth it for the anxiety they save you.

[kayliemalinza]

The hard drive could be it, or the motherboard-- which is an expensive part to replace, but it doesn't wipe any of your data.

My condolences; I hope you can get it fixed!

[stunt_muppet]

I hadn't even thought about the motherboard; I figured it wouldn't even turn on if that broke. Fortunately Dad tells me the computer's still under warranty, so even if we do have to replace the hard drive or other hardware (which is what it's looking like at the moment) it won't cost us much.

I hope so too. :( I miss my baby.