[Inactive] Laptop virus - scrambled video, fake bullet hole (??)

[star-gazer777]

OK, I'm guessing that my company laptop apparently caught a virus. But if so, I'm not sure how, since I strictly observe not to visit websites other than those needed for work (I have my own custom home desktop PC for that).

The laptop had been working fine up until I went out on errands around 8PM. When I returned home, my personal desktop was shut down cold; my company laptop was in a typical sleep mode.

When I powered up my personal PC, the screen came up that asks how I want to boot up; I chose "Start Windows normally." From there, it booted up just fine and I see no problems at all, except that it had shut down cold while I was gone.

When I tried awakening the company laptop, the video was scrambled with vertical and horizontal multicolored lines, and was jumping slightly up and down. At the upper right near the edge was what appeared to be a fake bullet hole graphic, with a nearly black hole and cracks radiating out from it. It was too much like a real bullet hole in glass to be random scrambled graphics. (It obviously isn't a real hole in the screen).

Below the colored horizontal and vertical lines, I can see where the word "Windows" and occasionally the two icons for account login, but I cannot seem to "land" on one to open things

Is there a virus going around that does this? I don't know how I'm going to get help or fix things, as I can't even see any normal graphics to even select Safe Mode, do screen shots, run a virus scan or post scan results.

This of course is much worse as it is on my company laptop. Any help or suggestions/advice would be greatly appreciated.

David Gates
Provo, UT

[fink]

Try booting into safe mode (with networking) and see if the strange graphics still appear.

To me it sounds more like a prank application than a virus (although you could argue that a prank is a virus). Would anyone have had access to the computer while you were away?

If you can boot into safe mode have a look in msconfig and see if there's any odd looking startup programs listed and uncheck it. Also disable or switch your screensaver in case that's what was changed.

Otherwise if you can get into safe mode then you can start running the scans listed in the sticky at the top of this forum and post the log files below.

http://discussions.virtualdr.com/sho...ated-4-1-2014)