Ok, so a few days ago, my parents' computer was stricken by some sort of malfunction.  This is the problem -- their computer started to reboot spontaneously.  They tried to run virus scanners, to no avail; it seemed that they would run to about 98% completion or so, then the computer would restart again.  The screen began to show several tiny blue dots scattered sporadically across the screen, each about 1 pixel big.  So they tried to reinstall windows, and the install crashed just before it asked her for time zone and cd key information.  Weird thing about that is that when she tried to restart, the Win XP splash screen would show those sporadic blue dots once again, then it would reboot by itself.

I figured it was some sort of virus, so I decided to boot the computer from a bootable windows cd and just start anew with the hard drive.  I deleted the old partition using FDISK and made a new one, then formatted it (the long way) and tried to reinstall windows.  Much to my surprise, most of the same errors persisted, and the blue dots on the screen would still show up, although the computer was no longer restarting spontaneously.

Has anyone ever heard of something like this?  Could this possibly be a virus that could somehow circumvent a partition and hard drive erasure?  This happened right about the time ZOTOB was hitting computers, but these don't seem like ZOTOB symptoms at all.  Any ideas???

Oh btw, the computer is an eMachines system with Win XP home and that is the only hard drive in the computer.

I would think it was a hardware problem, but thats a hard thing to troubleshoot without plenty of spare parts.  

1. Processor
2. Motherboard
3. Memory

Other than the shitty graphics, how does it perform?  Smooth boot?

partitioning and formating the hard drive almost certainly erased any virus that may have been there.  if you continue to have problems it is probable that you have a hardware problem.  most likely you have either a video card problem or an intergrated motherboard/video problem.

Quoted: One of the viruses of this month has that exact same symptom. What firewall are your parents using?

My parents are old school, and hence did not have a firewall.

You wouldn't happen to know the name of that virus, or better yet how to fix it, would you?  I have been Googling like a madman...

Quoted: Other than the shitty graphics, how does it perform?  Smooth boot?

not really.  i mean, it reboots and it gets up to the splash screen, but then after a while the screen goes black and all i see are blue dots.  

Quoted: partitioning and formating the hard drive almost certainly erased any virus that may have been there.  if you continue to have problems it is probable that you have a hardware problem.  most likely you have either a video card problem or an intergrated motherboard/video problem.

Yup, plus I haven't heard of a virus that causes issues during a Windows install such as before getting to the time zone.  At this point, I'd put in a Knoppix disk (download, burn to CD, boot from the CD) and see if there's hardware-type symptoms then.

I'm guessing:
* Power supply giving dirty power
* Video card crapping out
* Probably not the monitor, but if there's another one around, I'd give it a try
* Motherboard crapping out

The PSU, video card, mobo don't normally fail unless they've had a power surge.  Another possibility is Heat.  Did any fans crap out lately or common air passageways become blocked?  

To my knowledge, the computer has been kept in ideal environmental conditions.  I will try out that Knoppix disk, though, and see if I can't find anything.

Most likely it is Zotob or a variant.

Go here to get the patch from Microsoft Zotob Patches.


Go here to download McAfee Stinger to detect and remove....Stinger.

I'd heard of the blaster worm fucking up windows during installation if the computer was connected to a cable modem during install, because windows xp can support some internet connections during install as it can go online to get drivers and stuff

the blue dots could also indicate a video card issue