Virus or dead?

Assuming it's a Mac, you probably have a runaway log file. There are no viruses for the Mac. Try just letting it recharge overnight while powered off first. Also it would help if we knew what Mac your are running and what version of the OSx.

greymatter said:

My laptop was working perfectly this morning. I was in class reading some articles and I let it run until the battery ran out and the computer shut itself off. I went to charge it after class and it was very sluggish. Not too strange, but no applications would open. I restarted a few times and even let it sit off to charge for a bit but it's still not working. Then I noticed as I started it up again that if I let it sit for a few minutes all of my space(?) would run out. I had about 5GB free and it would slowly leak out... 4GB... 3GB... 4MB... you are out of space!

Is my laptop a goner? What should I do?

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I agree with the other two posters. I highly doubt you have a virus, as far as I know there are no viruses for the mac. Maybe you should send it to an Apple Retail Store and let them look at it. Or maybe you need to reinstall the OS?

greymatter said:

I'm on the first run of the macbook aluminum unibody (2008?) and I'm on the latest OSx. I didn't think it could be a virus as I've never had one but it was acting as other people describe viruses so I thought i'd throw that out there. I spilled some drinks on it last week but sort of threw that possibility out the door because it had been working afterwards for the entire week.

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Maybe that's the problem (spilled drinks). it could have messed with the motherboard or something.... In that case, I don't know what to tell you.... Hopefully your still under warranty and they don't notice that you spilled something on your macbook.

greymatter said:

I'm on the first run of the macbook aluminum unibody (2008?) and I'm on the latest OSx. I didn't think it could be a virus as I've never had one but it was acting as other people describe viruses so I thought i'd throw that out there. I spilled some drinks on it last week but sort of threw that possibility out the door because it had been working afterwards for the entire week.

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Hmm--it may not be a coincidence that your Macbook is no longer working a week after you spilled a drink on it--that would be my first suspect.

AppleFanatic10 said:

Maybe that's the problem (spilled drinks). it could have messed with the motherboard or something.... In that case, I don't know what to tell you.... Hopefully your still under warranty and they don't notice that you spilled something on your macbook.

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They will see the sensors inside or notice the mess.

If you are running OS X, there is almost no chance that this is a virus.

Chances are that corrosion has taken it's toll on your Mac. It may appear to be fine after the spillage but water plus metal + rust, thats probs whats happend.

If you have any sort of insurance (house contentst, or electronic insurance from a bank) then claim off that, Apple will know whats happend and they won't replace or repair it without charging you.

greymatter said:

Then I noticed as I started it up again that if I let it sit for a few minutes all of my space(?) would run out. I had about 5GB free and it would slowly leak out... 4GB... 3GB... 4MB... you are out of space!

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Space, as in hard drive space? How much free space do you have on your hard drive? By the way, space doesn't "leak out". It gets used, but it doesn't leak.

greymatter said:

I didn't think it could be a virus as I've never had one but it was acting as other people describe viruses so I thought i'd throw that out there.

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The problem with "throwing it out there" is that it tends to mislead the novice Mac users that visit this forum. Many come from a Windows background, where it's more reasonable that a virus is the first thing to suspect as the cause of a problem. On a Mac, it's the last possibility, since there ARE no viruses in the wild that run on current Mac OS X (Leopard or Snow Leopard), and there never have been.

Mac Virus/Malware Info

greymatter said:

People keep suggesting that I get a program to clean things up which would be lovely if I could even open a browser to download anything. I looked up runaway log files and did some searching but haven't found anything bigger than 4MB. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place.

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Some "cleaner" apps are not helpful at all, and some are even harmful to your Mac. I wouldn't recommend any to start. You should start by looking at how much free hard drive space you have. If you really have run out of space, there's not enough room for paging between RAM and your HD. If that's the case, you'll need to delete some files off your drive to make room for paging. It's a good idea to keep at least 10% drive space free... preferably more.

And app like Disk Inventory X will help you identify what's taking up space on your drive, but you may need to first delete a few things to make space for anything to run.

greymatter said:

I spilled some drinks on it last week but sort of threw that possibility out the door because it had been working afterwards for the entire week.

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The spill has a MUCH higher probability of being the source of your problems than a virus.