HawgsHead

[color=Purple]A few monthe ago you advised me to do a total re-install of the software on my rigs and it would run faster.I went a little further and completly tore both rigs down,cleaned and dusted them.Then re-installed Windows and the rest of my software.Much improvment on both rigs!I will do this every 6 months or so from now own.......Much thanks!
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Rig specs to the left in the boxes....X-Box 360 w/Hitachi 42" HDTV....If Darwins theory of evolution is true then why are monkeys still monkeys?It takes much more faith to believe in Darwin's theory over the Genesis account of creation.

Judas

yep.... you hit the 6 months mark.. but that might be a little excessive.

Possibly every 6 months to a year should you take compressed air and completely blow out your system, 1-2 years it may be a good idea to pull everything apart and clean it it.... Now for format and reinstall.. do it as often as you feel , got a virus, blow it away using a format and reinstall.... better then seriously messing up a system using norton or any other "top" virus scanner software that ends up sucking 50% of the system resources on startup. And corrupting the hell outa everything.

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HawgsHead

I blow them out w/canned air every 2 weeks or so.As far as Norton,I learned a year or so ago that that stuff is pure SHIT!

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Rig specs to the left in the boxes....X-Box 360 w/Hitachi 42" HDTV....If Darwins theory of evolution is true then why are monkeys still monkeys?It takes much more faith to believe in Darwin's theory over the Genesis account of creation.

Judas

i learned that norton and any antivirus program is "pure shit" before i even loaded it before (but was forced to show someone how useless it is)

Well the blow out is all dependant on location. If you have pets, have candles burning... you name it. Someone that smokes around a machine, well, the film that covers everything can only be removed by 2 means... and the first is the only typical solution.. lots of q-tips and pure alochol

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HawgsHead

What do pets{I have 12 cats and 1 Golden Retreiver....inside}candles & the like have to do with it?And what exactly do you do with the alcohol?

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Rig specs to the left in the boxes....X-Box 360 w/Hitachi 42" HDTV....If Darwins theory of evolution is true then why are monkeys still monkeys?It takes much more faith to believe in Darwin's theory over the Genesis account of creation.

Judas

Spelling isn't my best tallent... but alcohol is a good cleaner to use on computer parts... it's the only way to really cut through the greasey residue that smoke leaves on everything... litterly smothering it....

Pets are fury, but they shed a ton, computers tend to suck up everything around you.... sometimes you'll be surprised just how much will end up wrapped up around fans (crital fans even) causeing them to slow down or even stop, basically frying your machine if it doesn't shut down itself properly. It also causes wear and tare on the machine which is unnesary.

Candles/(smoke... it just plain bad around anything electronic... its attracted to it and it's leaves residue that is both hard to get off, and very bad for it. with the right combination of things, it can end up shorting things out, burning things up.. and completely frying them all. Smoke + Electronics = BAD.

Monitors that acted up after working flawlessly for years tend to be related to smoke issues, they sometimes appear brownish around the cover, this is usually when things get packed full of smoke then dirt (as dust/dirt tend to stick to that stuff).... causing it to get warm... basically heating the cover up enough to make it turn color. BAD

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daedal

Hmm.. I need to get some canned air.

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PangingJr

i hate being in the middle of your conversations and don't mean to be a troll, but the comment that you made there sounds like you trust your own experience and judgment far more than you would on any automated virus detection and removal program which's supposed to be good comment, but it's not and is more like an irresponsible comment (i always think you are a responsible person.) and is just plain wrong.
you are wrong about what you've learnt.

note-- i removed "norton" from the quoted because there are a lot of antivirus products available today, and don't have to be norton.

Necrosis

Screw canned air.

http://www.homedepot.com/prel80/HDUS...gnk.0&MID=9876

CDsDontBurn

screw generators......it's all about air compressors!!!!!!

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Judas

in what manner am i wrong? I know you've got alot of experience.. but alot of these easily purchased programs like norton and whatnot are actually quite useless.. always a little behind.. and completely useless if your on dialup or extremely slow net connection. It causes more corruption in windows... loads more garbage, and in the ends makes a computer fall appart. I've seen so many computers where norton was fully updated.. and saposedly working, and they are so full of viruses. People then ask me why didn't nortan catch them, and really i couldn't explain it to them all the various ways it could have EVEN when they mentioned that they would manually do scans per week and it would run auto scans every day. Simply put... i know antivirus progs are a nessity for business systems. No doubt about that. But they get a better Corporate eddition or higher class version of Anti-virus which runs more reliably.

A typical home user, should keep a disc backup of there most important data... Antivirus for them in the end will cost them more money.

There reason i know about how bad norton was before i even got my hands on it.. as i've seen computers utterly fall appart before hand.

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CDsDontBurn

don't mean to pick sides or anything, but i have to side w/judas on this one. a person should keep a backup of all their information elsewhere other than their primary hard disk. any antivirus program is there to help against incoming viruses, but they won't stop all viruses from entering a computer. an antivirus program can quarantine and/or remove the virus from the system, but that still doesn't mean that the machine is still infected or has remnants of that virus. really, the best way to remove a virus from any machine is by reformatting and reinstalling the operating system. i tell customers at my work that they can get it and it will help, but not stop viruses from entering.

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PangingJr

Judas,

first of all, i don't use norton antivirus. the version 5 was the last version that i actually used.

as for "in what manner am i wrong?"
when you said the AV program is useless.

AV program is not useless. one thing that it can do well is help detecting virus that comes with emails. the person who sent the emails may not know anything about the virus and gateway computer may not detect it. the person who has recieved the emails would want to make sure that files that comes with emails are cleaned and the AV program can help him. How can you say it's useless.

PangingJr

who says anything about removing virus?

do you think an AV program is useless?

CDsDontBurn

so what's the point of having AV software if it doesn't remove a virus when detected?

i'm not saying it's useless, i'm just siding w/judas on the point that they hog up all kinds of system resources.

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PangingJr

the point is/was the AV program is not useless, and not all AV product is just pure shit?

and who said anything about having and AV program installed that cannot remove virus?

Judas

yes but... i've encountered on numerous computers.. where a known virus has come in through the mail and it wasn't able to detect it.

But i refuse to acknowledge an Email with any form of attachment or any form of subject line, even from friends enless i know in advance that they sent it.. i've kept one around just in case it's been legit.. checked to make sure the person actually sent it.. then open.

I NEVER open attachments enless it's absalutely nessary. Anything that says FWD on it .... instant delete.. anything even slightly suspicious i delete.

If i ever have a concern that i may have a virus, or any computer may have a virus.. i usually shut down the local virus scanner first.. then log onto say PCPitStop.com and run there virus scanner. It has detected viruses a fully updated norton 2005 virus detected didn't.. (even if i forced it to scan the suspect file, it still say it was clean)

Another problem is that these viruses are getting so clingy, and so smart... they are so embedded that you can't effectly clean them out, They are as bad as rootkits for example.. they intergrate right into the main system files in a manner that no typical or rather good tech could effectively restore it back to working condition. Either they try and fix it up, without completely reformating.. and the result is a slower/more unstable machine, barely able to keep windows up let alone anything else usually.

Now Depending on what you do, where you surf.. what you download... I can see anti virus being useful, no doubts, But generally, i see way to many people, out buying the newest version of norton only to find out that there machine is infected anyways. A typical user, doesn't benifit much from anti-virus program as they typically, just aren't ahead of the virus game at all.

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PangingJr

i knew you would saying that about not open any attachments easily.

how about you are in the position that you have to open them?
call the person who sent you that email and ask him?
how this person will think about you when you're not even know how to check your email?
even that he will not know about the virus in the email.

even the most experience Windows user i have even know/seen is still need and use an AV program on his personal computer. this guy was a gamer, tweakers and overclocker.
i saw the guy's computer and the AV program icon that sat on the system tray when he brought it to my place. i taught this guy how important and useful of an AV program on a Windows operating system and how it could help him when he was in Windows 15 years ago. i paid for his scholl and university. now, he knows computer system on both hardwares and softwares a lot more than me, he is now a big boss and have been making a lot of income working in computing fields in both hardwares and softwares.

Necrosis

That is what I thought I linked to.

http://huskytools.com/husky/Category.../Product4.html

69.99 @ Home Depot.

Necrosis

However, there are AV progs out there that don't hog resources. There has been a few times when I've had a few hijacks blocked /w the AV I use. Honestly folks the days of Win98 are over. If you're running a top of the line system, do you really care about 35meg of your memory being used?

Zardon

There seems to be some quite ill given information in here.

Pangingjr is TOTALLY right, any serious computer user right now on broadband without an AV scanner is just asking for trouble.

I had a friend who thought along the lines of Judas, and ran no antivirus software. He would constantly brag about the fact he didnt need one because he didnt surf "dodgy" sites, he wouldnt open email attachments and had done so for a year. So one day I was round at his machine and he was surfing the net and I noticed when he opened his home page it was referring to some unusual website .i mentioned this and he said "nah its just some glitch"... so after another 10 minutes I noticed his machine was performing rather sluggishly for such a high end rig, again I mentioned this and he argued the point.

So I brought around a CD and installed norton corporate 10, rebooted and it found 256 viruses on his machine. Installed microsoft antispyware and it found another 56 running processes he wasnt aware of. He now runs anti spyware software and an antivirus client.

The moral of the story is this, you guys arent running OS X, you arent running a linux build, you are running windows XP, this operating system is the target of every script kiddie, hacker and virus writer out there, to be even contemplating running your system without protection is not only extremely bad advice it is insane.

I would also like to address this common misconception of "norton is evil, it hogs 500 meg of ram and makes my games run at 10fps even with a X1800XT". This guys is utter crap, yes the HOME version is bloated, it has a high gloss interface and consumes a little too much memory, but ive been using the corporate version for years. This version gets faster updates, has a lower memory overhead and doesnt cause any issues of slowdown." Trust me on this. I have ran tests over the last year with it installed and uninstalled. I even built two rigs exactly the same, one running it and one not running it. Both recorded exactly the same framerates in games and one was wide open to millions of viruses and exploits. This is not coming from a third hand source or because I read it on the internet, this is first hand experience of MY OWN. I appreciate not everyone has the faith in norton corporate as I have, but there are many great free or relatively expensive applications out there which will protect systems.

So I would really appreciate those older members on this site would seriously think about their commentary before posting on the forums "its cool to run no antivirus software on Windows XP, its useless anyway". We have kids coming into the forums who will take this information as gospel, and its wrong information to be handing out.

I honestly would have expected a higher quality of information posting from guys with thousands of posts.

Necrosis

The only reason I'm not running it now myself (Norton Corp.) is because I don't have a legit version.

Judas

I had mentioned before, enless you can afford it, yes, get the corporate edditions of the anti-virus. What is it now, 8 minutes on a highspeed connection lands you with a pile of viruses/hackings. I don't doubt this, the minute i get an IP, my router sees anything from the simplest echo request to a full blown hack attempt at various ports. I've even gotten some kinda of weird DOS attack. But my router can't stop everything, if i choose to surf the net and download something, there is a small possibility that i may end up with a virus due to it. Or perhaps leave some ports open and let a hacker in.

My point about Anti-virus is that generally, the norton/mcafee, all those figured to be top, and built for the home users generally end up letting those viruses in. And you can't exactly take the product back after several months. I myself am in a position that i know what services are running where, when, and how. I know what i can and cannot view. I know how to surf safe and i know how to fix a problem if i blow it. I myself have never gotten myself a virus, but i've had other use my machine, only to come back and find it loaded with maybe 1 or 2. In which case, do a few searches, find the solution, fix it, reboot, check, recheck with 1 or more online virus checkers. I personally have found that with so many machines with all various types of anti-virus programs, have failed to do there job, catch a virus through e-mail. I've ran myself, on highspeed for up to 3 years now, my sister i've built a machine for has been running for nearly 5 years. Maybe we are just purely lucky, but neither of us have ended up with a virus. I keep all my machines well controlled, well protected, well maintained and thoroughly check things.

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temeteus82

Must say few things about Norton, (Symantec) I've been using NIS 2006 NFR for two months now and I haven't seen it using huge amounts of memory. It's around 50 Mb in total. And during the beta testing it was made clear to symantec that the earlier betas used a lot of memory but they got it fixed. So I don't see the point what everyone is saying that it uses a lot of mem....

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PangingJr

if you actually knew me you will know that i also have that too, or probably twice your standards.
even that, my AV program still catching some of virus-like attacks from time to times.

i only keep things in online hard drive when they are not important. i also use the external storage devices so any important file that i like to keep is required virus scan.

if you still worrying about the Windows system resources, it'll take a long time to explain about this things so all i can tell you now is that your're using Windows and the lacking of system resources (not always but from time to time) comes with it, and there is nothing to worry about.

there are many AV products out there you just have to check them out to see which one is suitable for your computer system. not just thinking that it's useless because it's not.
and as you can see, the point is about having an AV program installed on your Windows system is always better than not having it at all.

PangingJr

Thank you Zardon.

Drakon

Where can you get the Corporate version of Norton?

Judas

panging, by no means was i saying that you don't do anything as i do, if i have any questions related to windows i still come to you. I'm refering to the Typical John Doe out there, the everyday mindless computer user.

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temeteus82

Well geting your hands on leagal version is hard. Since they only sell it to companies.

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Zardon

Well I think "mindless" is perhaps a little harsh. the average user (if there is such a thing) needs as much automated protection as possible. If they run into problems they are less skilled in solving them. Rule of thumb. Free antivirus client and a free antispyware client, goes a long way to helping most people.

I really said all I needed to in the last post. I will not recommend anyone on windows XP runs without an AV client, especially on broadband.