Topic: Need a tip. How to check if my laptop was used to mining? (Read 193 times)
Thank you all for answers and suggestions.
Laptop: Dell Studio 15, Intel® Core™ i7-720QM mobile processor (1.6GHz, turbo up to 2.8GHz, 6MB L3 Cache)
OS: Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit
Graphics Card: ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD5470 1 GB
Hard drive: Serial ATA 500 GB
In 2015, I gave my laptop to the computer service for inspection and cleaning. Nothing special. Standard procedure advisable from time to time.
After receiving it from the computer service, during use, the laptop quickly warmed up like never before. After two weeks, the motherboard of the laptop burnt. I am an average computer user and I had no idea what could have happened. Interestingly, the computer service was closed down. In the meantime, I only pulled out the hard drive from the laptop, which turned out to be undamaged and all files were saved.
Currently, I am assuming that during the service, a malicious software could be installed on the laptop to mine cryptocurrency, maybe bitcoins, maybe another crypto. I do not know, I just suspect. Fortunately, I still have this hard drive and I would like to check somehow if this suspicion might be right. And if so, are some cryptocurrencies kept on the hard drive?
I will be grateful if anyone can give me a clue how to check it out.
Thank you in advance for any help.
OS: Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit
Graphics Card: ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD5470 1 GB
Hard drive: Serial ATA 500 GB
In 2015, I gave my laptop to the computer service for inspection and cleaning. Nothing special. Standard procedure advisable from time to time.
After receiving it from the computer service, during use, the laptop quickly warmed up like never before. After two weeks, the motherboard of the laptop burnt. I am an average computer user and I had no idea what could have happened. Interestingly, the computer service was closed down. In the meantime, I only pulled out the hard drive from the laptop, which turned out to be undamaged and all files were saved.
Currently, I am assuming that during the service, a malicious software could be installed on the laptop to mine cryptocurrency, maybe bitcoins, maybe another crypto. I do not know, I just suspect. Fortunately, I still have this hard drive and I would like to check somehow if this suspicion might be right. And if so, are some cryptocurrencies kept on the hard drive?
I will be grateful if anyone can give me a clue how to check it out.
Thank you in advance for any help.
I would wager the fans were not hooked back up as a cause of the mb failure.
This would account for all that you've seen and is a possible alternative theory to mining software being installed.
Search the hard drive for software that was installed during the time that the service had your computer.
Also note that timestamps can be falsified. Here's a list of places to search for applications to start automatically: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/windows-program-automatic-startup-locations/ 
Search the hard drive for software that was installed during the time that the service had your computer.
No. There won't be any cryptocurrency on the computer. If they installed mining malware (intentionally or accidentally), it would have been mining to a remote address.
No. There won't be any cryptocurrency on the computer. If they installed mining malware (intentionally or accidentally), it would have been mining to a remote address.
Laptop: Dell Studio 15, Intel® Core™ i7-720QM mobile processor (1.6GHz, turbo up to 2.8GHz, 6MB L3 Cache)
OS: Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit
Graphics Card: ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD5470 1 GB
Hard drive: Serial ATA 500 GB
In 2015, I gave my laptop to the computer service for inspection and cleaning. Nothing special. Standard procedure advisable from time to time.
After receiving it from the computer service, during use, the laptop quickly warmed up like never before. After two weeks, the motherboard of the laptop burnt. I am an average computer user and I had no idea what could have happened. Interestingly, the computer service was closed down. In the meantime, I only pulled out the hard drive from the laptop, which turned out to be undamaged and all files were saved.
Currently, I am assuming that during the service, a malicious software could be installed on the laptop to mine cryptocurrency, maybe bitcoins, maybe another crypto. I do not know, I just suspect. Fortunately, I still have this hard drive and I would like to check somehow if this suspicion might be right. And if so, are some cryptocurrencies kept on the hard drive?
I will be grateful if anyone can give me a clue how to check it out.
Thank you in advance for any help.
OS: Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit
Graphics Card: ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD5470 1 GB
Hard drive: Serial ATA 500 GB
In 2015, I gave my laptop to the computer service for inspection and cleaning. Nothing special. Standard procedure advisable from time to time.
After receiving it from the computer service, during use, the laptop quickly warmed up like never before. After two weeks, the motherboard of the laptop burnt. I am an average computer user and I had no idea what could have happened. Interestingly, the computer service was closed down. In the meantime, I only pulled out the hard drive from the laptop, which turned out to be undamaged and all files were saved.
Currently, I am assuming that during the service, a malicious software could be installed on the laptop to mine cryptocurrency, maybe bitcoins, maybe another crypto. I do not know, I just suspect. Fortunately, I still have this hard drive and I would like to check somehow if this suspicion might be right. And if so, are some cryptocurrencies kept on the hard drive?
I will be grateful if anyone can give me a clue how to check it out.
Thank you in advance for any help.
Jump to: