well, wiping it off is always the last resort but good for the computer sometimes.

I always back things up. Bought an external hardrive with 250GB when it was on sale. Keeps the computer running fast and smooth without all the downloads.

Photos, movies, music files are the worst enemies for the slowdowns as well as crashes.

and with all the new files out these days, people demanding higher definition and faster speed only make things worse. On top of that, there is Windows Vista...

Try this for his computer before you try anything.

take out the power cord.

press the power button and hold it for 10 seconds (count 10 "MISSISSIPPI's)

if you can open up the computer, see if the memory cards (RAM) has more than one slot. If there is ie TWO memory cards, take them out very carefully and switch them around. (only do this if you are comfortable with opening up your PC)

make sure you touch something metal before you do this so you won't short it with statitic elec.

press the power button again for another 10 seconds, plug the cord back in.

This is a soft reset. Sometimes, this might work.

if that didn't work and there are absolutely NO screen at all, it might be the battery. But then you will have to go into BIO's afterwards and make sure you set everything correctly. How old is the puter??

I think that even if you were to get a new puter, you'll keep on having this problem cause your hubby doesn't want to learn how to protect it cause other people keep on doing it for him...just my two cents. LOL

yeah, send me your log file with hijackthis. Make sure you use the trendmicro's version 2.0 and not the old one from merjin.(he's a really nice guy)

do a scan and save log file. The log file will be in the notepad format (ascii)

email that to me and I'll take a look at it.

I volunteered at one of the anti-spy forums for awhile, got to learn some tricks. LOL