Gw viruses

Allright. First of all, my computer has gotten its motherboard fried twice, and sent into hp for repaires. My dad is convinced it is from a vrius from guild wars. My antivirus was up-to-date, and i have heard you cant get a virus from mmo's. To put my dad to rest, i want knowlegable people to say that you are sure you cant. when i have enough responses i want to show this thread to my dad and put him to rest. Please just say one thing- you cant get a virus from guild wars. please no idiots, profanity, or other random stuff.

GW is server based..to get a virus from GW means anets servers are infected..wont happen..they would detect anything in that nature and deal with it swiftly

remember anti-virus programs are good but not bullet proof...i run 2

sweep with 1 then sweep again with 2 then run spybot search and destroy

You can not get a virus, or anything else, by playing Guild Wars.

You can get infected by any number of things if you ever download any sort or hack/cheat/item duper from cheat/hack sites, or often from sites that claim to sell gold. Most of the programs they have you install are nothing more than keyloggers used to steal your GW accounts, and possibly any online banking information you use.

If your mobo was fried, I suspect you have a power issue in the house. Make sure you're using a decent surge protector. Preferable one not from the dollar store.

Running two AV apps is a very bad idea. Generally they conflict with each other causing numerous false flags or worse, missing something completely. If anything is suspect use an online scanner as well.

Guild Wars isn't the cause of a virus that "fried" your motherboard, but if Guild Wars overheating your comp or your PSU got stressed, it could fry your motherboard.

Guild Wars cannot give you a virus.

well im not really sure if my mobo was fried but i think my computer had problems from the start.

come on people more posts!

a virus cant fry a mobo period.

GW is a closed system and is kept virus free so look elsewhere

Sounds like your father doesn't like you hogging up the computer playing GW ;]

A virus cannot fry your Mobo or any other part of your computer (yet)

If your system is experiencing issues then you should do the following:

1. Run a reputable virus checker and verify you're not infected.
2. Run a reputable spy-ware/ad-ware remover and follow it's recommendations.
3. Clean the inside of your system. Get some dust-off and blow out all the fans, heatsinks, ports etc. (Do this outside of course.) Remove any fan filters and wash them thoroughly.
4. Remove all cheats/hacks for games like GW. You realize they are full of malware right?
5. Remove all "free" screensavers, download accelerators and other utilities. Most are harmless, some are malware and others just clog your registry.
6. If your motherboard supports it then download and install a temperature monitor software. (Usually modern motherboards ship with their own version of this.) When you play a high CPU demand game like GW check and see if your CPU's core and case temperatures climb dramatically. If so then you need better internal cooling for your case and probably a heatsink upgrade.
7. Check your memory with a utility like Memtest86. Bad memory can cause system instability and hard crashes. What appears to be a mobo problem can often be a bad memory module that prevents booting.

If you don't find any of these problems then you may want to do a clean install of Windows.

for the above two, me and my dad have seperate computers. i do know of a virus that can overload your computer, but oi dont think that counts as fying.
i do not have or ever did have any gw moding, duping, or calculating devices installed, and i have done yahoo antivirus and spyware scans. I will try cleaning out my sytem. thanks.

Please keep posting

There have been virii (Chernobyl) that will write directly to the BIOS and basically flash it blank. At that point your Mobo is hosed (not really fried). If your mobo doesn't have a backup image of the BIOS or the BIOS chip isn't socketed then you might as well put your mobo in the trash.

Fortunately most modern mobo have read only backup images of the BIOS on the board and also are socketed.

I recommend these utilities:

1. AVG Anti Virus
2. Ad-Aware SE
3. Spybot Search and Destroy
4. Kerio Personal Firewall (free version)

If you don't know much about firewalls then don't bother with Kerio. Just make sure you have the windows XP firewall enabled.

EDIT: Lastly I want to emphasize that computer health is a lot like your personal health. If you have bad hygiene then you will have bad health. The same goes for a computer. It needs regular cleaning (physical and operating system).

The other thing I forgot to mention was that you should stop using Internet Explorer. It's just too big a security hole. I'd recommend Firefox until Microsoft delivers its first non-beta version of IE7. (Personally, I'll never use IE as long as Firefox is around.)

lol first i dont no ote about virouses however all you tech guys helping this person i need help to everytime i play guildwars my comp crashes is it guildwars related or just my pc also guildwars alwasy has erorrs that life im sure that guildwars isnt giving u virouses unless you have to turn of your protection while you use it !! theres actualy a proper thread for this isnt there like a guildwars TECH guy i remmber reading it he was rather obbsesive talking about doing more computer clases in a week than other people do in a life time it made me chuckle ask that guy, he seemed to be the bees knees as it was,

also does anyone no the price of a rotwing recurver i no this is the wrong post place but u no when in rome!! so if you no how much a rotwing recurver is please messsage me on factions the name is shadow ranger nick

also mesmer i hope you get your comp fixed and put your dads mind at rest goodluck with it!!

I believe you can get a virus by a SERIOUS hacker, because if someone hacks some item, and gives it to you and its in your inventory it might infect your computer. However a virus only hurts your software and not your hardware, a virus cannot make a motherboard get fried, that can only be done by electricity. Also a virus cannot make your hardrive explode or do any nature with hardware.

So the virus is not the problem with your motherboard being fried, however there are ways to get viruses in Guild Wars, theres a way to do ANYTHING you can think of on computers, also ways to protect them too. I have a strong belief that some firewall companies, also make viruses, and only have protect agaisnt those viruses with there firewall, so you use theres and not nortan or bull guard.

Only way to make sure you have no viruses and keep it like that is to wipe drive your machine, and then install everything, then dont go online. However going online is what a computer is mainly used for lol.

WRONG

everything is SERVER SIDE not CLIENT SIDE they cant get anything into the game to give you that isnt there already

sheeeshh

a virus cannot make a motherboard get fried, that can only be done by electricity. Also a virus cannot make your hardrive explode or do any nature with hardware.


yeah i was thinking that nothing you receive onto your computer via the internet or some removable storage device inputed on your computer can damage conponents in your pc this is psyicaly imposible unless you ment something else by its fired 2 mother boards virouses infect files and fuger up your software saved files etc however ive neva heard of a self destructing virous that harms the pc itself

again goodluck with your problems

good thing you said "believe" because that's impossible.

To the OP's Dad No GW does not give virus or get infected by playing GW As for your mobo getting fired. I think most of the people here had comment about it. and Snap if you live in Pennsylvania (well central PA that is) i'll take a look at your computer for free and consult you and your dad if needed.

The GuildWars Server checks the GW client (installed on your computer) constantly for any signs of tampering.. otherwise you would not be able to connect.

Not only that GW is one of the most robust anti-hack sever/client I've seen in games.

Games by nature are more depmanding on computer resources, memory, disk space, power (video card kicking in to high gear to render 3d), etc. If there is a hardware or software problem, it was already there.. just when any application starts using the pc to it's fullest (such as games) it's more likely to show up or show up more frequently.

Windows being "unstable" can be be caused via bad hardware drivers, ad-ware, software glitches (any), or if you start having hardware failure such has hard drive failing, bad memory adderss (Ram), or power supply starting to go out.

Software does NOT affect hardware (to cause failure).

What about TS or Ventrilo... if he's using those along with GW isn't it possible that his computer could get infected through them?

Bleh... I recant.

ok, but cant your motherboard be overloaded so much that it just stops working?

about ventrillo, i used it several times, but i dont have the server information anymore and i havent been on it for a while. i dont know if it can still load me with viuses and such, but i probably will uninstall it. p.s. i got the free version off the internet.

have you considered that your motherboard was faulty/cheap crap..

i

well i got a manufactured computer form best buy, and i only installed a new graphics card inside the case, but i think my mobo was faulty from the beginning.

by the way, this thread is not about whether a virus can do anything to your mobo, but wherther you can get a virus from gw

nah..like all the other posts stated its not possible

the mobo frying is due to human error/faulty or w/e

u could just email GW support...or ask gaile to look into it, bet they both coe back negative

From what I've heard, it is possible to get infected from any peer to peer VoiP software, especially if the host server is privately maintained as opposed to a centrallized set-up like Skype. Hackers hosting such boxes can easily upload spyware if you don't restrict port traffic through a hardware firewall. Older software firewalls were vunerable to buffer overrun attacks, but I don't know how more current versions addressed this vunerability.

If you want to play it safe, Skype is a good bet (assuming you download the client from www.skype.com and no where else).

So then, if you were using TS/vent you could get a virus, which I highly doubt you were using because if you played GW for a long time, I'm sure your dad wont think its the problem.

But still, motherboard being fried has nothing to do with viruses, just electricity, water, rust, and other harmful realtime things.

I never tried this before, but if you spill water on your hardrive while its on, the water could probably soak in and somehow effect your hardware.

just reformat ur comp, so u don't have to worry aobut virus that can't b detect by ur AV.

also maybe your motherboard is not compatiable with your power supply

Overheating due to the graphics in GW is the only thing I can see happen, but it would fry the CPU not the motherboard.

You guys missed 2 very important letters in his first post:

HP

So how much quality can we really expect from a Hewlett Packard power supply? I groan in pain... I wouldn't be surprised if the power supply is faulty and putting your system under full load by playing Guild Wars is causing voltage irregularities which are zapping the motherboard. Face it, most brand name store-bought computers are built with bottom-of-the-barrel parts whenever possible, and power supplies are one of the key areas where they skimp. Putting a solid PSU in a computer can raise its price by 50-100$, which eats heavily into the fairly slim profit margins retail shops have.

So more than likely HP replaced the motherboard, but faulty power will continue to cause problems if it's a bad power supply. If it's possible for you to replace the PSU yourself (depending on if it's proprietary or not), I would suggest that, otherwise your real problem may never get fixed.

And no, Guild Wars did not upload a virus that fried your computer. Puh-leeeeez.

It's a virus pops, stop your son from playing if you won't want your mother fried again.

You cannot get a virus from playing Guild Wars.
As stated many times, it's all serverside, so it has to be Anet giving everyone virusses...and I don't think they'd like to lose their 2 mil players

There's your answer.

There is no way to get a virus from guild wars. Your problem most likely has absolutely nothing to do with a virus. Simply put: you bought a POS from a crappy company that puts out; shall we say, less than quality equipment.

Yes, the printers suck too. I fix them on a daily basis at work.

i think i am almost 100% sure i know what your problem is.

you said you installed a new video card in a manufactured comps. well, i found out recently that manufactured comps have extremely crappy power supplies, most likely its a 300watt. chances are, when you run guild wars, the video card you put it kicks in, and starts running. now, there are 2 ways a video card gets power, one; through your motherboard, or two; directly from the power supply. chances are, you are not running number two. the only type of cards that run directly from the power supply are extremely expensive, and have very high bench marks. So, unless you bought like an ATi Radeon X1800 or higher, you arn't running directly from the power supply. I am thinking that your video card is getting its power through the mobo(if all you did is plugged the video card into the mobo and shut the case, you are running through mobo. if you had to hook some cables up to the video card after plugging it in, you are running from the power supply). Now, having a crappy motherboard, which about 99% of all manufactured mobos are, is going to give you problems. when you video card is kicking in, it may need a good bit of power, which is probably overloading the mobo because of the low watts from the power supply. (none of this probably makes since, lol.)

ok, you say you sent in the motherboard to get it repaired? if you sent it in to get repaired, then it is not fried. if it were fried, it would be in the dumpster. chances are you have a crappy mobo. if i were you, i would just replace the mobo and power supply, if you plan to continue to use the machine. you already voided any warranty you had on it by putting the video card in there, so you have no worries changing anything else out. for the power supply, i would look at some nice 500 watt power supplies, and don't skimp on a power supply, pay some money for it, i learned this form these forums.

as for viruses, even if you do have a virus on your system, there is no way that it can effect any piece of hardware. any and everything a virus can effect is system side only.

i laugh at any and every person who thinks that online games give you viruses. THERE IS NO POSSIBLE WAY A SERVER SIDE GAME CAN GIVE YOU A VIRUS!!!!!!!!!! Guild Wars is ran by arenanet, which they run from their own servers. in order for you to get a virus from guild wars, you would have to receive it from a file that was sent by the server directly to your machine, and it would have to be something that you initiated. There is no way a virus can infect on of the arena net servers, unless they themselves put one on there, which we all know would never happen. As for people hacking a duping items with third party programs, that is impossible. In order for them to legitamitly duplicate an item with a third party program, they would need specific server info, because all items within guild wars are managed in, you guessed it, the anet servers. Now, there may have been bugs or certain parameters that can cause a glitch that would make a person be able to duplicate an item, but other than that there is no other way. The only time that the arena net servers receive information is the information that you enter in when you register your game and when you log in. other than that, there is no other way the arena net servers can receive information from the user. so the possibility of getting a virus from guild wars is, impossible. like i said before, even if you did have a virus, it would not be effecting the hardware of your computer, only the system. a simple reformat of your harddrive would elminate any virus you may have.

May knowledge of hardware is fairly high, but I have never directly dealt with it until recently. Of course, there are still a lot of things I may not know. I work with computers constantly, Monday-Thursday 12 hours + eachday. I also work in a computer data center on Saturdays and Sundays, 12 hour shifts each day. I constantly handle similer situations were people think that viruses are the cause of their problems, and not once has it been.

ok i didnt even bother to read that entire last post. Anyways, i sent in my whole computer to hp. I dont know what they did to my computer all i care that it works. on the paper they reterned it with they said they replaced a
A8AE-LE(AMBERINEM-GL6E)/HP
wtf does that mean? I know hp has crappy stuff (now not when i bought it) but it works fine now. Either i had a bad mnobo from the start, or it was my power supply overloading. My video card does run off the mobo, nothing else. I am runnign about a 10$ (or something like that) serge protector/ power strip.
Remember though. we are discussing whether or not you can get a virus from gw. not my computer problems

^read pls.

That is a socket 939 mobo made by asus for manufacturers that they replaced. it is a cheaply made one as well, i have had experience with one, very disappointing coming from asus.

as for surge protectors, don't go above and beyond spending on one. make sure it protects with 2500 joules or higher(it will say on package). they still don't garuntee protection either. my sister used a 3000 joule monster surge protector, during a storm she lost her router, modem, and digital phone. just be safe and stilll go with 2500 joules or higher.

about the surge protector. my router keeps losing connectivity and i have to unplug it and plug it back in to get it connected again. it di completely wired, and the software is correctly installed. but it isnt on a surger protector. could a mini surge be able to make it lose connectivity, but not fry it?
also, couldent a group of dedicated, experienced hackers who know about the anet servers hack into one and send out a virus out if they tried?

First
If you keep losing connectivety, yes a surge protector can be the solution.

Second
There is Viruses that do effect the hardwere, they can infeect the boot sector or FLASH the Bios.

Third
Make sure you have a 450 Watt powersupply if you are installing new graphics card on a namebrand computer

Infecting the boot sector is not infecting the HARDWARE, it is infecting the boot code (eg MBR at sector 0, and Boot Sect at 63 on your HDD).

The CIH or Chernobyl virus was able to write to your programmable flash bios if :
1. It was NOT set to write protect
2. You were running windows 9x based system (win NT based were not affected).

Whoever said that a SERIOUS HACKER can hack some item in GW is impossible, I think your wrong, because you can do anything you can think of in the PC world, if you want to hack ANET and make all there tribal blades have trojan horse on it, you can, but you have to be really good at hacking, if you dont want to be fined for 5 BILLION US DOLLARS that is. For ruining everyones machine who came across a tribal blade. I wonder if ANET has counterhackers. But ANET could easily fix the problem if it occured by running nortan antivirus. However I highly doubt any hacker would hack ANET just to do that, because you dont get anything out of that, you could only loose something.

yep what everyone says could be true, your power supply might have very bad watts. If you dont know how to fix computers, or no one you know, knows how to fix them, I would hire a computer technician to do it so they can put a new power supply it, because adding power supplies in the wrong way can be VERY EXTREMELY DANGEROUS.