Anyone have experience with these programs/problems?

[Herokight]

I've been using my cousin's laptop for awhile now (Dell Inspiron 1526), and it has been absolute shit. Last computer i had that was this bad didn't stop having problems until I swipped the hard drive and stopped using the software that was causing it, but there's no way she'll agree to swipping the hard drive because my aunt is way too hell bent on the software that came with it being so fantastic. It was like this when I got it, but she's blaming me when the only thing I do is facebook, SMD, and youtube.

The software I'm questioning is Viper Internet Security and WinCleaner One Click. Never heard of either, and neither of them seem to be doing their job. They came with the computer when my aunt bought it from QVC (I don't know why she bought it from them either, don't ask).

Problems:

- Computer is always hot. Sometimes too hot to touch.

- Slow. All the time.

- Constant notifications from Viper of a trojan (sometimes the same one over and over until there's 50+ notifications lined up) trying to open and that it's been quarantined.

- Cookies are turned on in every browser, but no website requiring them can be opened.

So far I've:

- Run the virus software countless times, same thing every time. Exact same viruses, exact same number of them, exact same action being taken.

- Checked every browser to make sure cookies are activated.

- Tried the WinCleaner, but also run the disk cleanup to make sure.

- Keep history cleaned out and disks defragged.

The problems never change no matter what I do or how often I do it. I've never seen a computer running in as bad of shape as this one. The only thing I used to do to my laptop was run AdAware, clean the history out, clean disks, and defragment and it ran smooth as silk. Anyone have any advice for how I could somehow fix this shit box of a pc?

[Skullz]

It's a dell.

Software bundles just suck the life from them till you do a clean sweep and put a real os on them.

EDIT: If quicktime is enabled i would disable it and see how it goes.

[Herokight]

I've never had to turn quicktime off. How do i go about doing that?

[Ashunte23]

Sounds like somebody downloaded a virus. Get yourself a usb stick download Malwarebytes run it in safe mode. And is the software viper actually Vipre Antivirus?

[Herokight]

Yeah it's SUPPOSED to be antivirus. Doesn't seem like it's working though. Yeah, she tends to click yes on every pop up she gets without reading it

[Herokight]

I also forgot to mention it turns itself off, mainly when it's closed. I can close it for five minutes and it'll be turned off and have an unexpected shut down message when I open it back up and turn it on, but sometimes it stays closed all day and is still on when I open it again. It's totally random. However, when I try to shut it down or restart it it won't do it. It stays on. The only way it'll turn off is by holding the power button down, which (I found out) is the only way that my cousin and aunt have been turning it off ever since they got it a few years ago. Hopefully I can get my own computer soon so I won't have to put up with this anymore, but it still bugs me that I can't figure out what the problem is and can't do the only thing I know of to fix it because my aunt won't let me. Just figured maybe you guys might have some other options.

[BoomZoom808]

Run malware bytes as suggested you can also run Glary Utilities that will clean up junk files clean up registry. It also has modules to remove IE add ins. Another program I use is Auslogic Disk defag it works pretty good and will shut the computer down automatically when it is done.

Good luck.

[Maxim]

Uninstall both the programs you mentioned in the first post. Download Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and run a full scan on the machine. It should catch and remove any viruses/malware/trojans on the machine. Malwarebytes is one of the best and the fact that it's free and easy to use is just icing on the cake.

After Malwarebytes has done it's thing reboot the machine. Once you're back into Windows, download and install Microsoft Security Essentials. Malwarebytes is amazing for manual system scans but the free version isn't really suitable for real-time antivirus. MSE is built by Microsoft, is 100% free, extremely simple to use, and isn't nearly as bloated as AVG, Avast!, and several other free antivirus programs.

Once MSE is installed, download CCleaner. Use it to analyze the system for all the left over junk files from the programs we uninstalled and the remnants of the antivirus scans and then run the cleaner to wipe them out for good.

This should get the machine cleaned out of an viruses or malware that are causing issues and keep the machine clean moving forward.

Download links:

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware: http://www.malwarebytes.org/

Microsoft Security Essentials: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security-essentials-download

CCleaner: http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download/standard

[Herokight]

I'm running malwarebytes right now. I'll get around to the others when it's done. It'll take some convincing to get her to let me delete the others is the main problem right now. They're not very computer savvy, so they believe everything they said on QVC about how awesome the programs are. Frustrating as hell.

I hope this clears it up. I even talked to a friend that's an IT tech and she hasn't even heard of Viper or WinCleaner and the only thing she knew to do was swipe it clean, which I would totally do if this was my computer. I'm only using it because my laptop was stolen and the desktop is in storage.

Thanks for the advice, guys.