Help with probable virus

Viruses and worms
1

Hi guys,

I’d appreciate any help you can give with what I am assuming is a virus on my laptop. I haven’t had any problems until this afternoon, when I booted up the computer and found that the keyboard was not functioning. A few letters worked, others functioned incorrectly (ie I would press the i key and it would show a o on the screen - this is just an example), and others gave me no response at all. I started a full scan with avast and while the avast screen was up I saw some infrequent blinking of a few letters on the screen at random places - another bad sign. Then a few minutes later the screen went to black. I hit ctrl-alt-delete and the normal help screen came up, but the screen was completely flipped upside-down. It remains like that, even after pressing ctrl-alt and the arrow keys. I restarted the computer which did nothing, and I’m started the full avast scan again. It has been going for about 30 minutes and hasn’t found anything yet although its only about 10 percent done. I also tried to do a system restore, where it restores the computer to an earlier point, and it said that I don’t have any restore points saved. I thought the computer made the restore points automatically at periodic intervals but I guess not…

Anyways, I’m typing this from a hotel computer…I’m actually traveling in istanbul and my laptop is usually my only link with the world so I’m slightly freaking out. I really appreciate any advice you can give.

Thanks,
Ben

2

Sorry I forgot to add I’m using an emachines e725 running windows 7.

3

Alas to me that sounds like a hardware problem - possibly keyboard, can you access a USB keyboard to try out ?

4

Yeah, I just tried plugging in a usb keyboard and while it seems to work better than my laptop keyboard it still only gives the correct key about 1/2 the time. The other half it gives an incorrect character on the screen or no response.

5

Well now I tried plugging in the usb keyboard and pressing ctrl-alt-arrown, to flip the screen back, and it worked. And now when I try trying with the usb keyboard everything seems to be accurate. With my laptop keyboard I get not much though - the numbers work with the exception of 1, 3 and 4, when I press backspace it gives me o, and none of the letters work. So are you thinking this could be a hardware problem with my keyboard? That still wouldn’t explain the weird letters blinking on the screen nor the fade to black of the screen followed by the screen flip…no? And if it is just keyboard what would cause it just to give out all of the sudden? And would it be fixable? Thanks…

6

As the USB keyboard works OK then that is the logical dection

With laptops hardware problems are not as easy to fix as on a desktop. It may mean a big repair bill I am afraid