In hard to get rid of virus applications, I have found that malware bytes has been pretty effective.  You can get it at : http://www.malwarebytes.org/. Obviously your milage may vary, and if you have something particularly nasty you are probably going to have to be in safe mode to get rid of it.  I'm guessing that your hosts file has probably been modified in c:\windows(or winnt)\system32\drivers\etc . 

I agree with shednik it's probably not worth your time to try and recover from the virus.  Just reinstall and get your anti-virus put on a CD so you can install it before connecting to the Internet.

Thanks for the input guys. Unfortunately I wasn't able to fix the problem before it totally fried my motherboard and cpu, so now I'm coming to you from my laptop. Evidently the malware that I had was attached to the system BIOS on the motherboard before I ever installed anything or got on the net. That's what I get for using a motherboard that was used when I got it (christmas gift). I didn't know it was even possible for a virus to infect a motherboard. I'm still not sure I believe it but that's what I was told.

Anyways, one of my buddies at school sent one of his IT friends over to my house to take a look at it for me. He started running a bunch of tests and looked through my system. And when he was done he told me about some trojan dropper containing a logic bomb. He said it had progressed too far to clean it and suggested that I run a program called "copywipe" and do 8 passes, followed by a fresh reformat and reinstall of windows. He also told me that the bomb was activated by using my function keys and by clicking on "restart" to restart the computer. And each time I used one of these functions the malware got worse and worse and spread further into the system. All the while disguising itself as legit system files with real system filenames that antivirus overlooks.

So he asks me what all I have done and where I've been on the net and I told him that I had just got this computer for christmas (late gift) and all I've done is installed windows and SP2 and my antivirus, and I used google image search a couple of times to try to find some cool wallpapers. Other than that I've done nothing except let windows update download SP3 for me, and that's when stuff started happening. He said he didn't see anything wrong with what I've done except that I should have installed my antivirus 1st and foremost just like you guys suggest. I got Trend Micro Internet Security Pro 2009 for like 60 bucks. I could be wrong but I think it requires SP2 before you can install it, otherwise I would've done it 1st because I'm a security freak. Haha I'm running 6 forms of security on this laptop with no conflicts.

Well, we came to the conclusion that I was given an infested motherboard after watching the computer crash and auto restart itself followed by a screen full of weird symbols and a complete shutdown with smoke coming out of my case. That's when he told me about motherboard malware attaching itself to the BIOS.

So now that you've read my book (sorry), any 2nd opinions? I don't know that I believe the motherboard malware thing because I've never heard of anything like that before. But that doesn't mean it's not possible just because I haven't heard of it, I know there's a lot I haven't heard of. Heck, I still don't know much about computer language and I've been using computers since DOS and Quickmenu were all you had before windows 3.1 came out. Haha, 2400 baud modems and gaming BBS's were the most awesome things ever! So I like to think I know a little bit. This is the 1st time I've ever had a bad problem like this, especially one that caused a system crash ending in a ball of smoke. And get this, when I tore the computer apart afterwards, there was a nice big black spot under the cpu both on top and underneath the motherboard where the cpu is. And the cpu itself got so hot that it stuck to the heatsink and nearly all the little pins that are suppose to be attached to it stayed on the board. All I could say was "wow". I'm glad it was just a gift, but then again, I have a feeling that's why it was a gift considering the source.

Ok I'm sorry for the book. Bring on the 2nd opinions, this is a learning experience for me.

Reinstall is never a good option.You can go to whatthetech.com and post your problem in the Hijackthis log and malware removal section along with a Hijackthis log of the infected computer. They are great bunch of people and will surely help you out with your malware issues.

Presuming that your anti-malware tool can find them anyway. I've dealt with a few machines where the tools couldn't find enough of the bad bits to actually get them off of the box.