My laptop has been running great for nearly 2 years. Several weeks ago,
it began to have flickering horizontal lines flashing across the screen,
a few at first, but as time went on they filled the entire screen, sort
of line the rolling screens of TVs, but much faster. Then, as though
this was just too much activity for it, it would suddenly go black, not
like the computer went off, but I couldn't activate anything, except do
a ctrl-alt-deleate restart. It would do that, and sometimes I could
continue to work.

Sometimes it wouldn't do this for several days. Then it started to do
it more often and I went out and bought a side drive and backed up all
my data files. After I had it backed up, I did all the latest system
updates, thinking that might help. That didn't seem to help and the
problem continued to get worse, so I decided to take it to the computer
repair store before I had a major crash.

They ran a diagnostic ($40) on it and ruled out a bad video card and
monitor screen. Said they were then going to check to see if it was
caused by a virus. The next day they called me and said it was a virus.
They said they could remove the virus for $129, but they recommended
wiping the drive clean and do a reinstall because they said they thought
the drivers were corrupted and even if they removed the virus, other
files might be corrupted also.

I decided to hold off and ponder my options. I could wipe my system out
and do a reinstall myself, for free! Or, I could take my chances first
and try to remove the virus and perhaps be able to manage reinstalling
only what seemed to be corrupted, saving myself countless hours of
trying to reconstruct my entire system, programs, etc.. I decided to
just go get it and do it myself.

When I showed up to pick up my computer, I asked them what virus they
had identified that had corrupted my computer. They said they couldn't
tell me because it was so bad it crashed their virus dectection program
so they never found out what it was. This sounds fishy to me. How could
they tell me they could remove my virus if they didn't know what it was?


So, before I do anything else, I would like to ask if anyone is aware
of any viruses that would do this, or what other things could be causing
this problem, and finally, what recommendations anyone would have to
restore my computer to stable condition again.

Laptop: 17\" LCD Acer Aspire 7720-6155 w/ Intel Core2 Duo Processor
OS: Vista Home Premium OEMAct


--
cvolle