virus

andrewz95 wrote:

What do i do ?

Uninstall Avast.

In General 3rd Party AV Software is Not Required as Mac OS X tends to look after itself.

Read Here > https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4545776?tstart=0

See Here > Antivirus Discussion

The Safe Mac > http://www.thesafemac.com/mmg/

Also have a look at this Informative Discussion

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5104047?answerId=22247724022#22247724022

andrewz95 wrote:

.. sometimes i am unable to switch it on ( i need to press the button a few times);

See Here > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

And here > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

andrewz95 wrote:

it shouts down,

How much Free Hard Drive Space do you have...?

How much RAM do you have installed...?

What specific malware is Avast telling you that it has found? In the scan report, click the Export button, save the file to your desktop, and then open it. Copy the contents and paste them into a message here.

Chances are good that these are all Windows malware, perhaps attached to e-mail messages. Even if some of it is Mac malware, the problem you're experiencing is not likely to be due to malware.

When you say the machine shuts down, and sometimes you're unable to turn it on, what exactly does that mean? Are you saying that it is shutting down unexpectedly, for no apparent reason? Is there any kind of message telling you that you have to shut down, or does it just go dead? Or are you just saying that sometimes, after you have shut down, the machine won't start up again?

As for not starting up, do you mean that it simply isn't responding to the power button? Or is it trying, but somehow failing, to start up, so you have to repeat the process until it works?

Depending on your answers, this sounds like it could be a hardware issue, but it could be something entirely different. A couple initial suggestions I have would be to try resetting the SMC and running Apple Hardware Test.

"Avast" is perhaps the worst of the whole wretched lot of commercial "security" products for the Mac. It's worse than the imaginary "viruses" you were worried about when you installed it. Not only does it fail to protect you, it throws false warnings, destabilizes and slows down your computer, and sometimes or always corrupts the network settings and the permissions of files in your home folder. Removing it may not repair all the damage, and neither will Disk Utility or even reinstalling OS X.

Back up all data, then remove "Avast" according to the developer's instructions. Reboot.

If you tried to remove Avast by dragging an application to the Trash, you'll have to reinstall it and follow the instructions linked above.

If you still have problems after following those instructions, post again.

"Avast" is perhaps the worst of the whole wretched lot of commercial "security" products for the Mac.

Okay, I've seen you say this time and time again in this copied-and-pasted response, and I've gotta just ask point blank: on what do you base this claim?

I have personally tested 20 different anti-virus programs for the Mac, and I've got to say, I could put my finger on a half dozen easily that are demonstrably far worse than Avast. I could come up with more that could be considered worse than Avast, depending on what comparatives you wanted to focus on. I don't necessarily disagree with your advice to remove it, but this claim of yours seems to me to be exaggerated significantly. What specific data to you have to support your conclusion?

Further, unless I'm seriously mis-reading andrewz95's description of the symptoms, removing Avast is not going to solve the issues with not being able to turn the machine on.

You didn't answer any of the questions I asked. If we don't have your full cooperation, there's simply no way we will be able to help in any meaningful way! If you are unable or unwilling to provide these answers, for some reason, I'd advise making an appointment at the Genius Bar at your nearest Apple Store, and let them take a look at your machine.

I have installed each suggested antivirus one per time after rebooting my machine.

Avast, sophos, ClamVax all found more than 30 virues and trojan.

And what were the details about those things? As I said, we need to know specifics if we're going to advise you about how to respond. What were the names of the malware found, where were the infected files found, etc.

Also, when you say you installed those "one at a time," does that mean you uninstalled each one before installing the next? If so, did you uninstall them properly, using the provided uninstaller, or did you just drag the apps to the trash?

I have also reinstalled mountain lion.

How? Did you restore from a backup, reinstall the system right on top of the existing system, or did you erase your hard drive and reinstall a fresh copy?

However safari still crashes sometimes and my machine reboots even after i reseted smc; it happens 3/4 times per day.

You didn't mention Safari before, and still haven't said exactly what happens when it reboots/shuts down or in what way it fails to start back up again. We've got to have details!

I do not if clean my mac 2 has done any damages during the clean up.

Very possibly, since CleanMyMac is completely useless software. (See The myth of the dirty Mac.) However, without answers to some of the questions, we can't say anything at all for sure. This would not, for example, explain a failure to start up when pressing the power key.

Thomas, i ll try to answer each question.

Each antivirus was installed, updated, run, each found virus in quarantene was deleted. I dont have the names now. Then it was disinstalled and rebooted.

Mountain Lion was installed over the old one, by rebooting macbook and by following the instructions.

Ok so one time i was on safari reading it crashed. Anothertime i was on safari the machine rebooted. Another time after shout down from apple, i pushed the power button, nothing. The light in front of the machine was white, not blinking, i could hear the fan, the screen was all black... so i pressed power again and it stopped. i pressed power again, same thing happened for 3 times then finally it restarted normally. Another time i was closing mail , the page became transparent grey with the wheel rotating at the center of the page ( it looked larger than usual ) . After a while i was able to shut it down from apple menu.

Right now i am running the hardware test , the complete one.

Each time it crashed Apple received that crash; i dont know if i can access them and pist them here, those reports could be helpfull.

Thanks again

Dear Thomas Apple Hardware Testing found this

4MEM/63/40000000: 0x83215818

is it one of my memory ram ? which one ? how do i change the correct one ?

thanks

Okay, the code you're getting from Apple Hardware Test does indeed indicate that your RAM is a problem. You could have one or more bad sticks of RAM, or it could be poorly seated. Have you replaced the RAM recently, or are you still using the RAM that the machine originally came with?

Regarding all your other issues, it's possible they will clear up when the RAM issue is fixed. If they don't, though, symptoms point to a corrupt system. Since the light is coming on when you press the power key, that isn't as serious an issue as I was thinking.

Problems with your system are threefold. First, you allowed anti-virus software to delete a bunch of stuff blindly. I have seen both Avast and ClamXav suffer from false positives before, so this isn't a good idea. It's possible, though unlikely, that you may have deleted some important system files. Even if the items in question were truly malware, deleting files from certain locations - such as e-mail attachments or Time Machine backups - using anti-virus software can cause other problems down the road (although not these kinds of problems).

Second, you used CleanMyMac. Any such "cleaning" software is unnecessary, and overzealous "cleaning" can destroy a system. This also suggests the possibility that you may have run any other number of unnecessary and potentially troublesome utilities, such as defragmentation tools, download accelerators, etc.

Third, the fact that you have had to press the power key to force the machine to shut down a number of times recently could be an issue. Obviously, such things are sometimes necessary, but a forced shutdown is kind of like a kick to the head... there's always the potential for it to damage the system.

Given all this, if the problems continue after you have fixed the RAM issue, I would recommend a clean reinstall of the system. See:

http://www.thesafemac.com/how-to-reinstall-mac-os-x-from-scratch/

Thomas A Reed wrote:

I have seen [ ] ClamXav suffer from false positives before

Just curious if these were reported to ClamAV® or were they just Heuristic detections?

I don't remember what it was... It was something brief a little while ago, that was fixed fairly quickly. I think the source was something the ClamAV team did.

(I know we discussed it via email at the time, but I'm away from my archived email at the moment.)

Thomas A Reed wrote:

I know we discussed it via email at the time

That's OK, there are certainly plenty of examples of this all the time. I just didn't recall that specific discussion.