Plea for help: any techno-savvy folks reading?

[doyle]

Writing this on my dad's PC as my laptop's internet access has given up the ghost.

The good news: I worked out the problems I've been having all week was some sort of spyware screwing up my net connection.

The bad news: in trying to fix it, I've managed to completely wreck the connection. Before I could at least sometimes use MSN and email, now even when I get connected it's just this error message:

The connection to the server has failed. Account: 'mail.exitseraphim.net', Server: 'mail.exitseraphim.net', Protocol: POP3, Port: 110, Secure(SSL): No, Socket Error: 10061, Error Number: 0x800CCC0E

I've done system restore, didn't work. The spyware's gone. Can anybody help?

Comments

[remember-nomore.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine was over and was helping me do some smarty computer stuff.
He told me about an article he saw in a puter news letter.
I scanned the first program and said the puter was clean. I downloaded and ran Ad-Aware and there were over 400 diffrent spywares on the computer.
Some were major keystroke spys.

It's better to be safe then sorry.

[flyergirl.livejournal.com]

I actually had just the opposite happen. I've always used Ad-Aware, but read somewhere that a lot of techies use Spybot. So I dl'ed and tried it. Ad-Aware had said I was clean, but Spybot came up with 60-some hits.

[remember-nomore.livejournal.com]

I haven't heard that.
I have found that I get more results with Ad-aware.
Spybot will show 'results' when there really isn't any.

[flyergirl.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of what it marked were cookies, but it caught a few things. I use both programs now. Better to be safe than sorry. I dont' really have much Spyware problems though. Between using Mozilla Firebird, Norton Internet Security, and watching what I dl, I've not had any real spyware in ages.

[remember-nomore.livejournal.com]

Exactly.
Better safe then sorry.