Ok...I havent had any issues with my cpu until like 2 weeks ago. I booted up one day, and the desktop wouldnt load, all i could see was a blank background. So i restarted..same thing. As im at that screen, i ctrl alt delete, and manualy open every program i want run, which sucks, no task bar, nothing. Then i try doing explorer.exe. The weirdest thing happend. What looked to be like a irc window, poped up, and had all these weird user names on the side, which looked like bots or something, and had a few ips listed in the window. I tried taking a screen shot, but my cpu was so messed up i couldnt even do that. So i finaly found my win2k cd, reformatted, and everything was back to normal. I go to install irc, after reformating, and if your familiar with irc, when you /whois your self or anyone for that matter it lists your personal info, etc. Under my name it says: |xXx|3392@blahblahblah. I was baffled as to why it said that xXx part because i never typed that in. So i did a quick virus scan, and it found a whooping 2,000 files. And the only program i installed was irc and aim, not kazaa or anything like that. So i reformated for a 2nd time, and that same xXx thing comes up for irc, but right after i installed irc and aim, i got a copy of ZoneAlarm (great program), and have been using that lately. It has already blocked 513 intrusions since install (about a week), and 47 of them have been high-rated. But tonight, a window poped up and asked if i wanted to grant it premission to the internet. (thats what zonealarm does it will ask u if u want certain programs to access the net). I clicked yes thinking it was another application i was running, and all of a sudden i started lagging really bad. It poped up again and this time i clicked No. The program ended up being ping.exe So i have no idea what that is or what anything else is. lease give me some advice/help as to what i should do, i am by no means a computer expert, so your help would be greatly apreciated as to how i can get my cpu safe/clean again. Thanks

I've had some similar things pop up on a few computers I have worked on.

In each case, I was able to remove the virus using Norton Utilities in safe mode, and then repair Windows 2000 by install the latest service pack (SP3). If you have the latest service pack installed on your system already, I theorize that booting from your Windows 2000 CD and "repairing" the installation should work the same.