Video problems and spyware ?

[westy]

Lately, I have been having a load of problems with my new Abit Siluro Geforce 4 video card.

My screen will flicker on and off and my cursor gets all fubar. When I load different games, it will flash on and off (black to normal) and back and forth a few times. I've had a Geforce 3 burn out on me, and I don't think the G4 is burning out. I thought it could be overheating, but I installed heat sinks on the memory and a Thermaltake cooler on the G4 chip, so unless the Artic Silver is going to pot, I don't think it would an overheating issue. I have overclocked the card, but nothing big. I took the chip from 250 to 275, and the memory from 513 to 550. That's about all it would do without cutting out. I'm running stock settings now.

I came across an article on spyware in PC Magazine this afternoon and thought I would see if anyone out there has had similar issues that might have been due to spyware and what you did to fix the problem.

What it mentions is that Kazaa (which I use) can install (or I suppose it could be stashed in a download) a program named BDE/BrilliantDigital.

What it does is:

Shows 3D ads. Causes instability and crashes with some graphics cards. May also install company's AltNet software without warning.

I have installed and ran Adware 6 and will re-run it tonight but thought I would post this and get some ideas or comments !


:mad:

[Shagster]

Interesting.

Just to check have you done the following..

-got the latest detonators...43.45
-flashed to latest bios
-have latest chipset drivers installed

Just a thought

[Norm]

Uninstall kazaa, and BDE projector from add/remove in Control Panel then use a spyware apps like adaware and spybot to scan and remove all the spyware.

Then go get yourself kazaaLite. Same as Kazaa but no spyware.

Kazaa can cause all kinds of problems, as it installs about 5 different spyware apps along with it.

[westy]

Shaggy,

Yupper, using the 43.45's. The original Abits were 41.04's. Do you mean the G4 BIOS ? I see Abit has one to download, but it's older than the one that came with the card. I haven't flashed the BIOS on my ECS mobo yet. I was kinda dreading that move........

[Jstyr]

No offense to anyone that likes KazaaLite but it STILL has a random pop-up generator. Maybe that isn't spyware or doesn't mess with anything but it's annoying as hell.

[westy]

I was using Kazaa lite, but made the mistake of saying yes to the upgrade. I never completed the upgrade but it musta done something ! Now I get an additional folder named Kazaa right before my Kazaalite folder. I've deleted it a couple times but it keeps showing up. I'll try uninstalling ALL Kazaa tonight before I slap in my old G3 and see what happens.

I'll post after !

Thanks !

;)

[Shagster]

Originally posted by westy
Shaggy,

Yupper, using the 43.45's. The original Abits were 41.04's. Do you mean the G4 BIOS ? I see Abit has one to download, but it's older than the one that came with the card. I haven't flashed the BIOS on my ECS mobo yet. I was kinda dreading that move........

I was talking about mobo bios. It is safe. But if your scared dont do it. How about the chipset drivers?

[westy]

Again, I assume you mean the G4 "chipset" BIOS. No, but as I said, the one on Abit's site is older than my current one.

[westy]

Well, did the Kazza uninstall and same old, same old.......

Time to swap out video cards tonight to see if that's the problem.