There are a number of ways to determine if you have a virus or other threat on your computer. If you have a brand of anti-virus software installed it should throw up a prompt or two the moment a threat tries to take up residence in your machine.

Even with Anit-Virus and Security software there are ways a threat can make it to your computer and not be recognized by your security software. There's no way around it, unlike Linux builds such as Ubuntu, no Windows or Macintosh computer will ever be impervious to virus' and other threats.

When your computer does become infected a number of things can happen. Once a threat takes hold, if you know what to watch for, you can minimize the damage. But it is very important to recognize the threat early. Some of the signs to watch out for are:

• An unusual slow down of programs. (more)
• Web browser windows begin opening at random. (more)
• Unexpected "balloon" messages coming from new icons in the system tray. (more)
• Unusually slow loading web pages. (more)
• An unusual amount of Internet activity. (more)
• An unauthorized change in your regular homepage. (more)
• New toolbars appearing in your web browser. (more)

Any of these things or any combination of these types of activities could indicate that your computer is infected with some type of threat. It's imperative that you take action against it as soon as possible.

If you think your computer has a virus or other annoying infection, first thing to do is shutdown your computer and then call Boulder PC. Don't restart it until we arrive.

We'll take the action needed to determine if a threat exists and then we'll remove it and all infected files. We charge $45.00 and hour to remove threats. Its been our experience that most threats can be identified and neutralized in less than 3 hours, however, some persistent virus' can take longer to completely eradicate.