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Pretty sure I have a computer virus....help

O

off in the wood

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 12, 2007
105
0
ok so here's the deal

Everything as of late is running so slow, just opening up MacRumors takes forever! I can't take it, it's almost painful. My iphone loads it quicker than my imac.

Trying to add pictures to a word document is next to impossible. The transition used to be flawless. But now, just adding the picture can take anywhere from 3-5 mins (I clocked it). And then...resizing it....it's ridiculous.

I've also noticed a general lag in time when:
- opening any website in safari or firefox
- opening/viewing photos in iphotos

some computer information:
20' imac
2.16 ghz
osx 10.4.11


fyi, it's not any of my connections
my mba and pos dell do not have any problems doing any of the above tasks

so, I guess my first question is there any way of finding out if it has anything (free???)

I have other questions but figure I better save them until I know for sure.

Thank you so much to anyone who can help me out in this process!
 
Haven't really heard of too much regarding viruses for macs yet. I would have to say really depends on the types of sites visited and e-mails opened. As long as you go to trusted website and open trusted e-mails you shouldn't have a virus.

My only opinion would be try a program like Onyx to clear your caches and try some other things. If that doesn't work, possibly a reinstall of mac os x.
 
Slow Performance

There are alot of things that can slow down a system. Try doing these:
1) Empty the cache folders in both your user library folder and your system folder.
2) Delete and unnecessary startup and login items.
3) If specific programs are running slow, pull the plist for them.
4) Run disk utility from the Tiger installation disc 1

Doing these steps should increase the speed of the system significantly
 
How does one empty the caches and is there anything to be careful of when doing so? what kind of info do these caches hold?
 
off in the wood said:
ok so here's the deal

Everything as of late is running so slow, just opening up MacRumors takes forever! I can't take it, it's almost painful. My iphone loads it quicker than my imac.

Trying to add pictures to a word document is next to impossible. The transition used to be flawless. But now, just adding the picture can take anywhere from 3-5 mins (I clocked it). And then...resizing it....it's ridiculous.

I've also noticed a general lag in time when:
- opening any website in safari or firefox
- opening/viewing photos in iphotos

some computer information:
20' imac
2.16 ghz
osx 10.4.11


fyi, it's not any of my connections
my mba and pos dell do not have any problems doing any of the above tasks

so, I guess my first question is there any way of finding out if it has anything (free???)

I have other questions but figure I better save them until I know for sure.

Thank you so much to anyone who can help me out in this process!
Click to expand...

Use Menumeters,install and look how your processors are used.
Maybe they are running at 100%.
If so You can then find the culprit by looking which process uses all of their juice.
Good lkuck
 
how much ram you got under the hood? and am i the only person who uses onyx (do you delete alot of files? this will help)? how large is your HD and how much room is left (and do you run multiple drives)? the list goes on and on of what combo you need or what you need to do to get back up to speed.
 
Ya, MacRumors can be slow sometimes.

It really sounds like your harddrive is the cause - not to say its broken. When your drive becomes full Spot Light becomes an incredibly large resource hog. Try freeing up some space.

Another thing to check is your SWAP usage. If you open up Activity Monitor and see that you are using a ton of SWAP space (like 200 megs +) then you are short on memory (RAM). If that is the case, close of some applications / turn off some startup applications. If you really need that stuff open - buy more ram.
 
When was the last time you shut down or restarted your computer? Doing this will help speed things up because Macs can be left on for long periods of time with no problems, but every so often you need to give it a break. :)
 
Tallest Skil said:
No, that's just MacRumors as of late. I am 100% certain that you don't have a virus.
Click to expand...

Even though there are no "Virus's" for mac's, there are macros, which will in fact hurt your os/software. Mainly they are in word, and can be installed from just opening an infected word file from another computer that has the same macro thing going on.

A macro is pretty much a script, I'm a mac tech and all that fun stuff, soo someone brought a mac to me that was macro infected. I couldn't believe it was possible since I had never seen it before, but google,gmail,yahoo etc, wouldn't upload their attachments since they included a 'virus'. Had to install Norton or whatever the mac version is named onto it, clean it, and it was good as new.

But they received the macro from one of their prof sending them a doc.
 
Use Onyx X to keep your system running clean.
http://www.titanium.free.fr/index_us.html

The most likely cause of a lag that long is bad sectors on you startup disk. Because you have an iMac you only have the one disk for caching and such.

Onyx X will tell you if there are bad sectors on your startup disk. If it needs to be repaired, run Disk Utility from your original OS disc and "Repair" the disk and the permissions.
 
Be careful. My experience with OS X is that when it becomes impossibly slow, the computer's hard drive may be nearly full or failing. You might want to run Disk Utility and check your drive's S.M.A.R.T. status.
 
Alloye said:
Be careful. My experience with OS X is that when it becomes impossibly slow, the computer's hard drive may be nearly full or failing. You might want to run Disk Utility and check your drive's S.M.A.R.T. status.
Click to expand...

i was running with only 800mb left on my main drive till i finally found a refurbed 120gb for my aging g4 and as long as it was maintained properly, it'd run pretty good for that little of space.

seriously, onyX is good.
 
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