RAM Eating Virus

[Dinkyass]

Help please! I suspect that my computer has been infected by a virus/spyware/malware/whatever that eats up some RAM. I didn't really notice the virus at first until I tried to play a round of Call of Duty 4 and suddenly got an error message stating that I did not have enough virtual memory to play. Before anyone asks, yes, I've played Call of Duty 4 on my PC before, so I know that there is some other cause for this other than my RAM being insufficient. I currently have NOD32 installed on my PC, and I've tried scanning for viruses with it to no avail. I've also tried a couple of other anti-viruses like AVG and Spybot, but all didn't really solve the problem. I have 1GB of RAM, and the virus eats anywhere around 280-300 MB of RAM from the moment Windows boots. Anyone have an idea on how I fix this?

[Zanthur]

Save all your data on an external hard drive, or burn it to a CD/DVD and reformat. Sometimes its either too hard or too time consuming (or sometimes just impossible) to get rid of a virus. Nuking the HD sometimes the only way to fix that. Its actually good to reformat every 6-12 months anyways. Keeps your computer fresh and running in good health. I'm almost due for my 6 month reformat. Luckily I save all of my files to my 250GB external drive (its actually an enclosure, so I can swap out the HD to IDE or SATA) so when I do have to reformat, I dont have much I have to save. I also have two extra 70GB hard drives in my computer, on top of my primary drive being partitioned (50GB/150GB). I always run Windows on the smaller partition that way I have room for my other crap on the larger section (hence why I usually label it 'Misc Crap'). If you have any other questions about reformatting or computer stuff in general, PM me or email/IM me. I leave my messenger on all day, so I'll get the message no matter what (unless my computer decides to die for no apparent reason).

[thubby]

superantispiware has done wonders for me. or you could do it the hard way, check processes.

[The Valiant Turtle]

When you say that "the virus eats anywhere around 280-300 MB of RAM from the moment Windows boots" what are you basing that on? Is that just the amount of RAM in use total (which is a pretty normal amount actually), or is that above a previous measurement?

What version of Windows are you running?

Is Call of Duty complaining the moment you start it, or does it happen mid-game?

Are you doing the virus scans from within your Windows installation or are you booting from a CD/USB device to scan without your system being active?

You might want to find a more technically oriented forum and run HijackThis and post the results. (Google for a download if you need to). It is generally considered to be the gold standard for tracking down troublesome processes.

[Zanthur]

PCHell.com, Tom's Hardware.com and BleepingComputer.com are some of the best sites for computer problems. I'd post something on each of those and see what you get.