Topic: What is this symbol on a ping? (Page 1 of 1)

I have a laptop that is having some problems. When I do a ping for a site, I get this weird symbol.



Got some spyware on his computer and I think it installed some services that I can't find. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Later,

C:\

It's where the Netbios name should stand if it was found.
Netbios name = comp name.

If you put accents in that comp name, or other non "standard english" chars, they will displayed this way.
This is the way chars that are not identified in the "standard english" charset are displayed.

The fact it displays only two of them sucks, though (unless you've named that comp üä, for instance).

I think that comp is not populating it's Netbios name normally at startup.
Might be a corrupt tcp/ip, hard to figure.

well, I know that that is where the name of the computer should go but it does it on every ping I do. Even if I ping Google, it comes back with "Pinging www.1.google.com [o?]" and that's it. Says there is a reply but that is not right.

I can not get any browser to connect to the internet. No email nothing. Says that it is pinging but I have a feeling that it's not since I can't get out to anything. I have seen that symbol before somewhere and I can't remember where.

I have a utility that will fix config files and such but I would rather not have to resort to that. Or I could just roll it back to last know good config.

Thanks for the info.

Later,

C:\

Last known good config is for the hardware.
And system restore won't do.

Try the "netsh ip reset" command documented in this article:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;299357

Or a Windows repair.

Prior to doing any of these, make sure your system is "stable enough", eg. free from viriis or spyware.
Also, in the connection properties, if it's only an internet connection, disable everything except QOS and TCP/IP.

If all of these fail, from the command line, prepare your XP setup CD and
type "sfc /scannow" (with the space exactly as it stands here).

The ping command won't issue a pong receipt if there is nothing on the other side,
so if it answers all the time and doesn't seem to reach the outside, it may be talking to a "proxy" server
on your own workstation, talking to some software that "grabs" the sent requests and tries to filter them.

Might also be a firewall software (or proxy) you've recently uninstalled.

And as far as I know, öY may be cyrylic for pancakes, but what matters here is to
find the core issue, and there are other elements to analyse and use.

my 2 cents.

well it ended up being some nasty spyware. I rebooted with minimal services and then ran Ad-Aware and Spybot. Caught about 50 things. Removed them and everthing started working again.

Thanks for the help!

Later,

C:\

Mundo coolness! You're welcome.
To limit them, get the google toolbar or Firefox. I still have mixed up feelings about Firefox. It rocks. But it leaks.

Anyway, just the other day, I went to some *bad* website, and in less time thank it takes to say *gosh*, I saw the Java VM, and some other programs, start up.
I was using IE 6 on XP SP 2 and the google toolbar.

Thank god, I have all sorts of monitoring tools, so the virus vas detected, and I could remove it... 20 mins later or so, after a boot-time scan.
I supposedly am a software design pro.

But I got a bad virus from.. a web page.
And I also had another spyware, a couple of weeks ago, a nasty beast called "mysearch", had to remove it myself manually.

...

All this to say, the more it goes, the more effective viral threats become, as well as defenses (but it only gets the time to get infected).
Don't go around unprotected.
Wear cond.. ~cough. No, wait. I meant, wear an ad-blocker, spyware remover, antivirus and firewall.

quote:

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_Mauro said:

I also had another spyware, a couple of weeks ago, a nasty beast called "mysearch", had to remove it myself manually.

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yep, that is one that he had on his computer. Crazy sales reps! They will just click on anything and everything. I got most of the spyware and trojans out of there but that was one that was causing some serious problems. I am still not sure exactly which one of the spyware it was that was causing the problems but man!

It was kind of like it installed a middle man or something.

I can't limit the users too much because the software they run has to run with at lease "Power User" status. This also allows them to install stuff Hopefully the new version that is going to be implemented by July will not have to run this way.

Later,

C:\