Where this spyware removal service call was: Diversey and Ashland, Chicago

Paul’s computer was virtually crammed with spyware. He admitted that when it was time to renew his Norton Antivirus subscription, he thought that he didn’t needed that, so he uninstalled the antivirus protection.

Soon, spyware, viruses and malware were installing without asking on Paul’s laptop, displaying ads he didn’t want and popping internet explorer windows with even more unwanted advertising. He bought a McAfee subscription, but infested as it was, the antivirus couldn’t do nothing but to pop up notices with “virus detected”, adding more to the annoyance that it didn’t successfully manage to delete the viruses.

Location for this network repair service call: Chicago – Lakeview, near Clark & Addison.

Sorin contacted A+ Service Computers from service request page of our website.

My laptop indicates a very good connection to my wireless router; however, I keep on getting error messages when I try to open Internet windows. I tried a number of things, but I can’t get it to work.

His laptop had an Atheros wireless network card, which didn’t have a very user friendly setup program. It supported WEP, but it was named “PSK” (from Pre-Shared Key). I set up the wireless network connection with a 128 bits WEP key, a standard supported by the network card and router, and the computer connected and got an IP address.

Where was this network repair service call: Ashland & Roosevelt, South Chicago.

Basically the intermittent network problems were affecting the productivity in the company for two weeks. A $60,000 network printer was printing one moment, but giving timeouts the other moment.

I discovered two problems and fixed them:

1. The RJ45 plugs were badly made and not making good contact. Any professional network technician could have seen and solved that.

1. The second problem was a little bit trickier. The printer had the address 192.168.0.8, assigned statically from the its control panel. The router was assigning IP(Internet Protocol) addresses dynamically by DHCP to the other computers. Sometimes, not always, the router would assign the IP 192.168.0.8 (the printer’s address) to one of the network computers. Solution: moved the printer’s IP address to a arbitrarily chosen higher address.

Where was this computer repair service call: Diversey and Lake Shore Dr, Chicago

If your Internet explorer keeps crashing after viewing a few pages, chances are that you have some spyware or malware programs that are causing that.

My client already got an estimate from another computer repair guy, who said that he needs to re-install windows.

When I unchecked “Enable third party browser extensions” from Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced, Internet Explorer was working perfectly.

I found the the browser extensions that were causing the problem and removed them from the registry.

Where was this service call: (Belmont and Lake Shore Dr.)

That can be easy fix, if you know what’s causing the problem. My customer could not login in any of his accounts, not even in safe mode. He tried with his own account, the guest account and the administrator account. As soon as he was logged in, he was dropped back to the login screen.

The common cause for this issue is the fact that c:\windows\system32\userinit.exe is deleted by either a spyware program, or a anti-spyware program that tries to clean your computer. This is documented in detail in a Microsoft Knowledge Base: You cannot log on to Windows XP after you remove Wsaupdater.exe

Charles’ computer wasn’t getting any internet connectivity after a automatic windows update. It turns out that Zonealarm Firewall was the culprit in this case. When Windows started, Zonealarm always died with an error message.

1. I uninstalled Zonealarm
2. Activated Windows Firewall
3. Disabled File and Printer Sharing and other useless services from the network interface
4. Tweaked the “exceptions list” on the Windows Firewall
5. Installed a free antivirus and detected and removed two trojans
6. Updated Ad-aware and scanned the computer

1. In the end, I needed to clean manually a spyware by removing it from the registry

Steven desktop computer was booting up only in safe mode. He already tried to use computer restore, with no results. When I arrived the computer was not displaying anything, not even in POST or windows safe mode.

It turned out that the video card had two popped capacitors, the ones that are near the heatsink. No point in repairing when a new card is so cheap and can give you warranty and extra performance.

I had a chance to fix a problem with his laptop too. We wasn’t getting any network connectivity from his Netgear router. Quick fix: I set TCP/IP settings to manual and… wow! _“The In