I am baffled once again; can malware stay in a computer even with the hard drive replaced?
 

I have a computer that completely froze up. I had to unplug it to shut it off. This computer never shut off even after many months of just sitting in a corner. Recently I took it to Best Buy to have the hard drive replaced. I have the computer back but it is still stuck " on " as it is plug in and therefore still completely useless. I thought it best to seek advice here at LQ. Can malware completely freeze up a computer even after the hard drive has been replaced? Thanks!

Not saying this is what happened to you, but yes, that's possible.
Other places can contain data & software, or rather firmware. The BIOS can be hacked. CPUs can contain a whole separate OS, completely invisible to you (sometimes Minix-based iirc), though I'm not sure that's hackable.

Why do you think the computer never shut off even after being unplugged for months? How is that possible? What makes you think it's stuck on now?

Wow, that must be where it is then. Can the BIOS be removed and replaced?

When the computer gets power from the electrical outlet the blue button on top lights up indicating that the computer is on.

It's not uncommon for computers to have a light indicating they are receiving power, but are not actually operating, especially notebook computers.

Is the light an icon or a dot? (If the latter, does it have an embossed icon next to it?) What does the icon look like?

My Dell's power button lights up for a couple of seconds when electrical power is first applied. It also goes through a PSU diagnostic test and the button light color displays yellow if bad.

Does the computer boot at all?

I suspect a hardware error versus BIOS malware. Somethin in power on switch circuit could be bad.

It is just not possible for the computer to be on when there is no power connected. As for now, the blue light may only mean that power is connected, not that it's on. Try using the power button and see if it comes on.

The blue button is the " power button ". The blue light is not supposed to come on until I depress it to turn on the computer. The computer stays in the " on " position whether it has power or not. I am terribly sorry that you are unable to understand what I am describing here.

I'm sorry that you are unable to understand what I am saying. Please, humor me, and press the power button for a couple of seconds.

Will I need to replace the whole motherboard to get a new BIOS?

No thank you, sir. That computer is in the closet until I can get the BIOS replaced.

Could just be a bad switch/button...in fact I’d think that to be more likely than a BIOS problem.
Plugging it in and pressing and holding the power button for several seconds would be how to test that.

I’m presuming you went to Best Buy and asked them to install a new herd drive instead of asking them to troubleshoot the power-always-on problem. Suggest you take it back to Best Buy. We can’t really help much more if you’re not going to answer our questions (Does the computer boot?) or try our suggestions.

https://superuser.com/questions/2946...restart-itself

I agree, the above link describes how it works and it is probably a hardware problem

For what it's worth, most computer include a small button battery, usually a CR2032, referred to as a CMOS battery, to support certain memory while power is off or disconnected. That's how computers remember the date/time while powered down.

Whether that relates to this issue or not, I do not know, but just sayin'.

unplug the power cable, press and hold the power button while counting to twenty.
release the power button, plug the power cord back in.
If it still does it you probably have a hardware problem.

Power buttons do not cause a computer to " completely freeze up " when you are using them on the Internet. By freezing up I mean the mouse, the keyboard, everything. In the past I would unplug the computer and eventually it would work and I would erase the hard drive and start over and it would happen again. I even ran D-Ban in it and it froze up again this time for good.

Some malware is at play here not a power button.

Again, take it back to the shop. We can’t help you...it needs hands-on troubleshooting. Geek Squad can diagnose and fix it.

Good luck.

Most BIOSes have setting that control what happens when AC power is restored after a power loss. It's quite possible that your BIOS is set so that your computer will attempt to boot when the power connector is attached.

Bad memory may be the cause of this, you may be dealing with to different problems, or both related to the same hardware problem, maybe a weak power supply that is going bad.

First: I agree with the above opinion that this sounds far more like a faulty switch than anything any malware would ever do.

Second: Malware causes harm, thus the name malware. What harm does this issue do exactly?

Third: I agree with the above suggestion for testing the switch action. This may be more a fault in the power display function of the switch, and it may be otherwise fully functional.

What, instead of pressing the power button for 20s?

Perhaps a better and cheaper solution would be a nice tin-foil hat.

I am glad that you are so amused.

I am remembering that a computer can be configured to always power up (turn on) when power is applied. Very handy in remote installations for recovery following a power failure...and yes, that setting is done in the BIOS.

Perhaps that’s how yours is set up. Go into the BIOS and check for that...you should be able to turn it off if that’s what you want.
Even if that’s set, turning it off manually with the power button should still shut it down, but if you then unplug it and plug it back in, it will power on and boot up.

BIOS settings would not cause the freeze, however. Some of the symptoms he describes sound like they COULD be firmware settings, but others sound like a hardware issue. Memory is certainly a suspect (likely the cheapest and easiest to fix), but drive (unlikely if he has already tried replacement), connector, controller, and motherboard are also possible.

NOTHING here sounds like malware.

I would love to boot to a diagnostic USB image and run memory and IO tests and see what turned up.

I bought the computer used from a repair shop that is now out of business. I guess I got somewhat taken by him. At any rate I bought it because he had installed a one terabyte hard drive and it only cost a little over $200.00. At any rate I am determined to get it up and running again before I die. With the trials and tribulations I have gone through with this computer, and the bad experiences I have had with windows computers in earlier days, leads me to believe the computer is being deliberately frozen up by someone using the Internet. I could very well be wrong about that but we will see.

I would love to send it to you to see what you came up with; but I would never burden you with my problems. There is an older guy at the geek squad and I am going to ask him to look at it.

Like I said: this is totally possible (well, if your computer is powered up and connected to the internet, obviously, although thinkgs like wake on LAN or even wake on WLAN also exist).
It's also totally possible that a Boeing 747 will fall on my head when I leave the house tomorrow morning.
Doesn't make it likely though.

Show us something that would consolidate your suspicions in that direction.

Until then: Occam's razor. There's about a million things that are more likely to be causing this. The first 100,000 being variations of PEBKAC.

The folks at the " geek squad " do not have any answers other than buy a new computer. One guy told me HP motherboards are " proprietory like microsoft " but I think a ASUS motherboard is in that computer. At any rate things do not look good.

What is the make model number of the computer?

HP Pavilion A6000 PC

There is not quite enough "geek" in that squad, I fear.
If you cannot (or should not) do the troubleshooting and replacements on your own, new hardware might actually be significantly less expensive. If that is what they were advising then I cannot refute them on that point. Certainly there is no more sure way to leave your old hardware woes behind than to replace all of the hardware!

How much memory does this computer have? Boot a linux live iso, open a terminal, post the output of

No, when you first turn on/reboot the computer press the f10 key to get into the bios menu. under the power heading there is a setting to either keep the computer off or turn on after a power failure. If f10 doesn't work try the esc key. May have to press the key more than once when power is first applied to get into bios settings.

The only thing the geek squad is competent at doing is extracting money from the clueless.

My sister in law spent $200 to get some malware/viruses off a while back.

Glad you are still around.
Desktop computer < 2007 > aint too old.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c00873231
Just posting the link so you know what you have.

Freezes for me were always hard drive related. Bad blocks and stuff.
Never had bad ram stick.
Power button. Always hardware. Not software. I have set bios to automatic boot by mistake once though. Pretty freaky watching your computer start up without you.

Junked shuttle box for fubar cpu socket, swollen caps, iffy power supply.
Use old cases for other back yard projects.

Good luck with it.

In case you are thinking of replacing it.
https://www.newegg.com/p/2NS-0008-3V...&nspgid=137560

I pick up mine from city hall.

That web site you posted often times has used enterprise class machines for less than you can buy a motherboard and processor. Not for gaming necessarily, but a good machine to use for years.

I saw a 4th gen i5, 8G RAM, 500MB HD, all intel, with keyboard and mouse for $104.00 and free shipping. Right to your door in a week or so. I noticed that they had them several years ago.

It seems you came here with a preconception and will only accept answers that consolidate your preconception.
If you were serious, you'd start answering the serious requests made in this thread, instead of looking for ever new places to confirm your - preconceptions.

Cool story bruh.
There's all kinds of malware. The freezing up of your machine is a result of side effects from program execution. It's impossible to generalize.
When your drive was replaced was imaging the original disk part of the service? If so then that's how the malware migrated.

HP boards as proprietary. HP don't make aftermarket boards like ASUS do. Unless you get an ASUS machine which in of itself will have a proprietary board inside. It could well be hardware failure. But then again it depends on the precision of the malware. I don't think people are meticulous enough to design malware that's so perfect to do physical damage to a system. The software is taken care of by the resources provided to it by the OS.