FernCrest
asked on
Hacked?
Greetings,
I have a small home network. Four PC's all running WinXP which access the internet through a Netgear router (all PC's are wired to the router, no wireless) and then a cable modem (static IP address). About two weeks ago one of the machines began to turn on by itself, occasionally, no more than once per day. At the same time the boot went from; going straight to the desktop, to, having the welcome screen pop up with only the single icon for the user(no password).
Last night one of the other machines on this network was manually turned on and went to the Welcome screen with the single user icon rather than straight to the desktop.
I have run Adaware, Spybot, and have the current McAfee antivirus running on all machines, all scans find zero problems. In additon the WinXP firewalls are all enabled.
I am feeling a bit paranoid. Is there something else I should be looking for? Have I been hacked and how do I find out?
Thank you for taking time to read through this.
I have a small home network. Four PC's all running WinXP which access the internet through a Netgear router (all PC's are wired to the router, no wireless) and then a cable modem (static IP address). About two weeks ago one of the machines began to turn on by itself, occasionally, no more than once per day. At the same time the boot went from; going straight to the desktop, to, having the welcome screen pop up with only the single icon for the user(no password).
Last night one of the other machines on this network was manually turned on and went to the Welcome screen with the single user icon rather than straight to the desktop.
I have run Adaware, Spybot, and have the current McAfee antivirus running on all machines, all scans find zero problems. In additon the WinXP firewalls are all enabled.
I am feeling a bit paranoid. Is there something else I should be looking for? Have I been hacked and how do I find out?
Thank you for taking time to read through this.
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SOLUTION
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For some ideas on registry corruption troubleshooting see this article.
http://www.windowsitlibrary.com/Content/313/3.html
or there are also a bunch of applications which provide this type of functionality out there as well .
http://www.windowsitlibrary.com/Content/313/3.html
or there are also a bunch of applications which provide this type of functionality out there as well .
Hi,
Have you had any power bumps recently?
Cyan990
Have you had any power bumps recently?
Cyan990
You can also try a check of your NICs, their settings, including in BIOS. Some come with a white wire that should be disconnected. BIOS can enable boot from LAN, or WakeUp on LAN. Those you should be able to disable in CMOS, or maybe they were, and the battery is getting old. How good are they at keeping time? There've been problems reported before in the hardware TA, and it being a form of hardware issue. Other than reconfigure, you may need a bios upgrade.
Possibly some recent upgrades were made, or copies of files were moved from one machine to another.
Possibly some recent upgrades were made, or copies of files were moved from one machine to another.
done
PDQ
ASKER
Thanks for the response. Nope not a typo. The computer will occasionally self start. This "appears" to be from full off.
Registry corruption might be a possibility. Is there a way to check for it?