What’s a good Anti-Virus to use?

We wrote this post in response to a com­ment on another post. We most often rec­om­mend Avast, AVG, and Zone Alarm. Our choices are based on prod­ucts that are effi­cient in pre­vent­ing virus infec­tions, semi trans­par­ent, unob­tru­sive, and user friendly. And FYI. if you see the image below when copy­ing files, you may have a virus.

Avast free and Avast Pro:

Avast pro­vides a free Anti-Virus, how­ever we found it to be a lit­tle intru­sive and irri­tat­ing. Avast seems to pester its free users with con­stant pops and related to their paid product.

Their paid prod­uct how­ever is a dream to use. The only time Avast Pro will ever pester you or slow your flow of work and surf­ing, is if you encounter a mali­cious script from a web­page, down­load mali­cious soft­ware, a viruses, or any other prob­lem you may have.

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Jun 25, 2009 | Computer Repair and Networks, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave A Comment »

No USB After Bios Update, Intel Desktop Board D845GVSR

After updat­ing to the newest bios on the Intel Desk­top Board D845GVSR, we lost our USB. The prob­lem was that the CMOS map was changed to include the “USB Enable/Disable” func­tion. In order to get back your USB, you must use the pro­ce­dure listed below.

1. Shut down the com­puter safely and remove the chas­sis cover.
2. Move the BIOS Con­fig­u­ra­tion jumper to the Main­te­nance posi­tion. Aka; the CMOS jumper.
3. Power on the com­puter and enter BIOS Setup (press F2 dur­ing boot).
4. Go to the Advanced > USB Con­fig­u­ra­tion menu.
5. Enable the USB Func­tion.
6. Go to the Exit menu and select Save Cus­tom Defaults.
7. Save and exit the BIOS setup.
8. Turn off the com­puter.
9. Move the BIOS Con­fig­u­ra­tion jumper back to the nor­mal mode posi­tion.
10. Power on the com­puter and enter the BIOS Setup again to ver­ify that the Advanced > USB Con­fig­u­ra­tion menu is now back to normal.

Hope this helps some­one Let us know if you have a questions.

Nov 24, 2008 | Computer Repair and Networks | 5 Comments »

After I Uninstall Norton 360 I Can Ping Websites, But Not Browse The Web

I’ve never been a big fan of Nor­ton. Their prod­ucts always seem to slow sys­tems down, and seem to cause more prob­lems then they resolve. This sys­tem was no dif­fer­ent. Nor­ton 360 had been unin­stalled through add remove pro­grams. Nor­ton ended up leav­ing bits and pieces of itself all over the com­puter. Which left the machine in an unus­able state. Using a com­mand prompt we could ping google.com, which means DNS is ok. We then attempted to rebuild the Winsock, which again didn’t work. It was at this point we knew the prob­lem had to be Nor­ton. After a bit of google­ing we found “The Nor­ton Removal Tool” After we ran this lit­tle gem the com­puter restarted, and we were back in business.

After the repair we loaded on Avast Pro­fes­sional. Avast is an excel­lent anti-virus that’s uses far fewer resources than Nor­ton. We also rec­om­mend AVG anti-virus.

Nov 22, 2008 | Computer Repair and Networks | Leave A Comment »