Suspected Malware infection: Monitor in Power Save mode.

Solved/Closed
BringMeTheAmity Posts 4 Registration date Friday January 30, 2015 Status Member Last seen February 1, 2015 - Jan 30, 2015 at 06:48 AM
BrianGreen Posts 1005 Registration date Saturday January 17, 2015 Status Moderator Last seen September 30, 2021 - Feb 2, 2015 at 04:03 AM
Hi,
I've seen a lot posts written by people having this problem and I've been trying for about 3 hours now to figure this out but I've had no luck.

What I believe led to this was me trying to play a game. The Sims 3 to be specific.

Also before I continue, I have 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate, and a Radeon 6970 Graphics card. I have two sticks of RAM, each 2gb.

Anyway, I had installed new mods, and for some reason at the first loading screen, the music would freeze, as would my computer, and the display on the monitor was all messed up e.g. tiling the Sims 3 logo.

I couldn't get anything to work, so I shut down manually. I logged on, then tried removing the mods and running the game again. Same thing happened, however this time when the computer restarted, it showed the windows log in screen and as I began to type my password, the monitor went into Power Save mode. I moved the mouse around, fiddled with the keyboard, but no luck.

Another thing that could have possibly happened was that I could have nudged the side of my case, causing the detached piece to unseat my Video card, however I don't believe that's likely, seeing as the screen went into Power Save mode as I was sitting in my chair typing in my password.

So now I've been sifting through posts about how people's monitor's are all stuck in Power Save mode, so to save you the trouble, I'll list what I've tested thus far to try and fix the problem.

I've tried:

- Reseating my Video card
- Dusting Video card
- Pressing Fn and F5 during start up
- Pressing Numlock
- Connecting a different monitor (LG), which also went into Power Save mode
- Taking out a stick of RAM
- Using a different display cable (VGA with a DVI adapter, because Video card has no VGA slot)
- Restarting my computer numerous times
- Taking out the monitor's power cable and letting it settle for a few minutes
- Jumped CMOS

I also have two USB ports on the Dell monitor itself, so as a hunch I tried plugging my mouse into it to see if it would wake up the computer since it was directly connected, but nothing happened.

Also I'm fairly sure its not a problem with my PC itself, because it runs fine, it has the beep at the start signalling it's passed Post. I have a feeling it has something to do with my Video card, I'm just not sure what, because its been working fine prior to the -- maybe 30mb -- increase of Sims CC that I added. I don't think that would've caused my Card to cave, but I mean anything could have happened at this point, especially after restarting my computer multiple times.
__________________________________________________________________________

I now realise that after trying all these things, that this may have something to do with a malware infection. I always scan files I download with an antivirus but a malware program never occurred to me. I think this has something to do with when I downloaded CC for the Sims 3, seeing as in another forum I got a reply from someone who's daughter downloaded mods for Minecraft, only to have this happen to her laptop. However, they managed to output the laptop display to a monitor and run a malware scan to remove it. I've tried connecting a different monitor and it still doesn't work.

Is there a way to get a scan going on a computer without a display? (I know that's probably impossible) or say, put the drive into another machine and eliminate the malware from there? Because after downloading and running the game, I had 2 chances to shut off and reboot my computer, so would that work on a different computer or has the malware progressed so much that my hard drive would be completely infected? I don't know much in regards to this.

Would anyone know what to do in this case or have I completely ruined my computer?
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1 response

BrianGreen Posts 1005 Registration date Saturday January 17, 2015 Status Moderator Last seen September 30, 2021 149
Jan 30, 2015 at 01:46 PM
Can you start your machine in Safe Mode? On Windows 7 machines repeatedly press the [F8] key immediately after powering on, and then choose "Safe Mode" (arrow keys and enter) from the menu that will appear.

If Safe mode works you should be able to run a scan from there.
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BringMeTheAmity Posts 4 Registration date Friday January 30, 2015 Status Member Last seen February 1, 2015
Jan 30, 2015 at 08:50 PM
No, I can't even see the BIOS screen. I don't know what to do.
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BrianGreen Posts 1005 Registration date Saturday January 17, 2015 Status Moderator Last seen September 30, 2021 149
Jan 30, 2015 at 09:38 PM
Unfortunately it seems the graphics card has failed. It could have been going to fail anyway and it is just coincidental that it failed during you installing something.

However, to discount a software issue try removing all of the hard drives in your machine (if you do have more than one then make a note of which wires go to which drive). If it is a software issue, then powering on now will produce some writing on the screen similar to "No Bootable Device".

There is usually a splash screen telling you about the graphics card and how to boot to BIOS before an operating system starts anyway. Rarely do these go away so fast as to be not seen, but the process I described forces something to be displayed.

Good luck.
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BringMeTheAmity Posts 4 Registration date Friday January 30, 2015 Status Member Last seen February 1, 2015
Jan 30, 2015 at 11:09 PM
Hi,
I tried taking out my hard drive, but the screen goes into power save mode from the get-go. So it must be the hardware. Thanks for the help, I'll update this when I find out exactly what went wrong.
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BringMeTheAmity Posts 4 Registration date Friday January 30, 2015 Status Member Last seen February 1, 2015
Feb 1, 2015 at 03:06 AM
Yeah, turns out my graphics card was failed. I tried it in a different computer with a different power supply, and a new monitor still doesn't pick it up. Thanks man for the help :) I'm getting a better card soon anyway, so no biggie.
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BrianGreen Posts 1005 Registration date Saturday January 17, 2015 Status Moderator Last seen September 30, 2021 149
Feb 2, 2015 at 04:03 AM
Glad you found the cause - just sorry its not a fixable straight away issue.
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