First of all, this shouldn't be in the tutorials section but in the newbies area... Neg will probably be nice enough to move it, though, I'd imagine.

Second of all, isn't there a setting in "zone alarm" to shut the machine down if it can't log or something of the like? (memory's a big poor on that one) If so, perhaps making sure it's off would be a good start? But virus scanning's always a good thing... I'd probably find another scanner, too, just to be sure.