Self Closing IRC Client

Ok, I may have a bit of a problem here. Noticed this morning that our bandwidth was way lower then it should be: around 200kb/s on a partial t1 line. May or may not be related to the problem i'm having now. When I open mIRC, it closes itself almost immediatly. I browsed to the mIRC folder through My Computer, and as soon as i double clicked the mIRC folder, the explorer window closed itself. I thought this was rather odd, so I uninstalled it, deleted the directory, rebooted, and re-downloaded it. This is where it gets wierd. When i run the setup for mIRC, the setup closes itself aswell. I updated my ad-aware and McAfee and scanned with both, but came up with nothing. I am running windows XP pro. Any ideas or mabey you guys can think of other things I can check?
Hope you can help

Sure sounds like a you have contracted a virus.

But Mcaffe doesn't come up with anything.

My only suggestion would be to try another AV and see if it picks a virus up. Other than that I can't you out much more. Sorry.

thanks for the advice. I'm dling Sophos to run a secondary scan of my system, i'll let you know if it turns anything up.

I'll say as cheyenne said try another AV and also i'll try tauscan to see any trojans or things like that maybe is a good idea if you include a Firewall for your computer.

I agree with what has been suggested so far.......I would suggest that you go to the PC-cillin website and run their free online check called "housecall"......I use PC-cillin on a couple of boxes and would say that it is on the "sensitive" side of AV products, in thjat it finds things my McAfee does not. The online scan is up to the minute regarding pattern files.

You might then try Panda software's site (a Spanish outfit) and run their online scan. It might sound odd. but AVs can be very regional in the short term...so try one from a different continent.

You might then look for SpyBot search & destroy, as this is a pretty good spyware/trojan finder.

Another one you can get a trial version for is Bug Patrol..............in theory not much different from SpyBot and Ad Aware...but might be worth a try.

I take it that you are running a firewall and have had no strange connection messages?

I would also recommend some software that tells you what is booting/running on your box..there are plenty about and I have a couple of tutorials that refer to some.

A quick thought is "Karen's Window Watcher" by Karen Kenworthy...not sure if it runs under XP?

Link: http://www.karenware.com/powertools/


Hope this helps

Thank you all for the replys. I have scanned with House Call, Sophos, Mcafees, and numerous adware programs. Still havent found any trace of anything anywhere.... I am probably just going to format my computer. If anyone has any other ideas, please feel free to suggest!

Thanks again

If it isn't malware...and that's the way its looking....could be some kind of conflict/deadly embrace?

Also, is your ISP having problems......check on another box, with other local users, maybe just ask them?

You might try the Windows repair facility in XP Pro (sorry...just moved house, and haven't even found my XP Pro box yet...got to admit that I haven't been trying very hard though :D )

The reloading bit does make me suspect that there may be some sort of Registry corruption ? I have had this sort of problem before, but with NT4/2K.

I am afraid that I do not feel confident enough to recommend a Registry cleaner for XP....anyone got any suggestions?

Cheers