Anyone out there having residual problems with the Blaster/Welchia/etc. worms. There's no trace of any virus on my system (running Stinger, Norton AV, BlastFix, WelchiaFix), but my Internet connection is still slow. Not as slow as at first with the virus, but about half-speed. I'm running on a 56k modem, so this is quite annoying. Any suggestions?

Just a thought... Go into Task Manager (Conrol,Alt,Delete)and see what is being loaded into your memory. Also, check the RUN hive in the register and see if there is still a run reference to the worm there that XP is attempting to load even though the program itself is gone.

Nothing in the Task Manager. I still have 5 svchost.exe running, which I think is normal. I'm not sure how to check the RUN hive in the register. What do I do? Another possible relveant side note: When I disconnect from the Internet, Explorer automatically calls up my dial up connection window (even when no pages are loading). Before, this typically only happened when I was still loading a web page or something. So it might be evidence that info is being sent/received.

I'm guessing you probably didn't have an active anti-virus working in the background prior to contracting the virus...now after having it, you have Norton's running in the background all the time and notice the obvious lag it causes. If your computer doesn't have a lot of memory installed, and if you're attempting to run Norton's newer virus programs, i.e. 2002, 2003. You'll see a definite slow down in your computer's ability. I suggest upgrading your memory. Postnote: If you've removed the worm, you no longer need any fixes running in the background. You mentioned still having blastfix and welchfix running. I don't know how that's possible, but suggest stopping those processes from running in the background.

GINY: Not exactly. I just got a new computer, and since Microsoft is still selling XP without the Blaster fix, I was infected within 30 seconds of first signing on. I'm talking connection speeds here ... downloading stuff on Flashget, for example, I'll begin at 50 or 60 kbps, then after 10 minutes online it's down to 10 or nothing at all. My comparison point is to my old computer, and I had Norton AV 2003 installed on that. I'm wondering if this might not be due to problems with my networks. I had been running off of a university dial up service, and I know they were hit hard by these worms. I've also tried MSN, and that's just as slow.

I could only talk from my personal (professional) experience, and what caused that type of slowdown on modem users' machines that I work on is XP's Service Pack 1. I've uninstalled that on all my customers' machines. It's helped my customers speed tremendously. I grab any security patches at microsoft's security download area. I bypass any Service Pack downloads...I've found them to be resource hogs and more trouble than they're worth. But that's just my personal preference. Maybe someone else could shed some additional light. Good luck.

download fixblast from norton, make sure you latest data files for yout antivirus, then run the fix blast file, i have a feeling you still have that blaster virus running some where on your computer