Virus shutting down internet usage

[bumble-b]

OK, gotta ask this question as I think someone is trying to scam my niece. She has a Toshiba laptop, came with XP. She is away at college and things were working fine. At some point, the laptop was unable to access the internet. She took it to a reapair shop and they told her

"the internet isn't working because there is a virus shutting down internet usage. The hardware is completely fine). To fix it I was told I need to take windows XP off and reload it, and that I probably need to upgrade my memory to support it better also"

They are wanting to charge lots of money for this. Has anyone heard of a virus like this or is someone trying to scam her? If so, is there a fix for the virus?

Thanks so much!!

Beth

[rjfvillarosa]

"the internet isn't working because there is a virus shutting down internet usage.
It's possible the virus has screwed up the internet connection in order to turn the machine into a spam relay machine or something similar.
Toshiba's come with reinstall disks, does she have them?
What model of laptop is it?
Did she take it to a reputable repair shop?

[Negeva]

OK, gotta ask this question as I think someone is trying to scam my niece. She has a Toshiba laptop, came with XP. She is away at college and things were working fine. At some point, the laptop was unable to access the internet. She took it to a reapair shop and they told her

"the internet isn't working because there is a virus shutting down internet usage. The hardware is completely fine). To fix it I was told I need to take windows XP off and reload it, and that I probably need to upgrade my memory to support it better also"

They are wanting to charge lots of money for this. Has anyone heard of a virus like this or is someone trying to scam her? If so, is there a fix for the virus?

Thanks so much!!

Beth

The bit about the virus shutting down the internet doesn't make much sense - what's the point of infecting a machine if you stop it talking to the outside world? Even with the worst of infections the internet will still work for; even at a reduced rate for the owner as the rest of the bandwidth is used for nefarious means.
It is possible that the virus might have been removed (by an anti-virus suite if she had one installed) and in the process damaged the Winsock layer; WinSockFix will sort that out.

She might be able to remove the infection herself; if there was/is one. Even though she hasn't got 'net access I'm sure there will be a friendly soul that will aid a damsel in distress and lend her some 'net access.

Toshiba normally either supply recovery CDs or a partition, so she can recovery the OS that way, at no cost to her apart from some time.

Regarding the memory (RAM), if it's lower than 512MB then upgrading it might be an idea. Just note that laptop RAM is slightly more expensive than the desktop equivalent, plus the PC shop will charge a fee to install it - so take that into account.

[bumble-b]

Thanks for the info!! I never thought of a winsock fix!!

Here is her situation.

A few years back, she purchased a Toshiba laptop (Satellite 1115, I think) and had it a few months and spilled water on it, lots of water!!

OK, so she goes to Ebay and purchased another identical laptop with no OS. I am assuming she installed the OS from her old laptop, using the product key from the old laptop. So at least all is legal. I have her memory from the old laptop, so can put that in, no problem. She is away at school, about 6 hours away and I am not sure what repair place she took her laptop to, so cannot answer that one.

The first thing I am going to do, however, is have her run winsock fix to see if that takes care of the problem!!

Thanks again. I always know I can find the answers here!!

Beth