XP SP3 and i still get the Generic Host Process crash problem

[Razvan]

Hi,

Yeah...well my computer crashes randomly,the Generic
Host Process for Win32 services is the culprit and usually happenes when i
disconnect from the network...wirless, Lan or a USB 3g service provider.
The RPC is down obviously...i know that prety much every windows service
relyes on it, so the computer cann't do anything that showing up that it will
restart in 50 seconds.Restarting RPC manually and using the command "shutdown
-a" brings back some of the functionality,but Copy Paste is not working and
also if i try to view service dependencies i get Win32 access
denied...interesting.Reboting solves the problem untill it arises again.

Last night i left my computer on thru the night(no one touched it) .This
morning i found that my notebook fans were spinning like crazy and that one
of the svchost.exe services was using one of the CPU cores at 100%.Also this
svchost.exe was using 1.5Gb of RAM...obviously a memory leak.After closing
this service there was another(forgot it's name) that was at 100% usage.All i
know is that it was under the NETWORK credentials.

I disabled automatic updates to see what happens over time,but if any of you
have any idea of what is going on, your input is much appreciated.

P.S: The common idea that my computer is infected with malware is out of the
question.The XP installation is fresh and i haven't spent enough time on the
web to get infected.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Yeah...well my computer crashes randomly,the Generic
Host Process for Win32 services is the culprit and usually happenes
when i disconnect from the network...wirless, Lan or a USB 3g
service provider.
The RPC is down obviously...i know that prety much every windows
service relyes on it, so the computer cann't do anything that
showing up that it will restart in 50 seconds.Restarting RPC
manually and using the command "shutdown -a" brings back some of
the functionality,but Copy Paste is not working and also if i try
to view service dependencies i get Win32 access
denied...interesting.Reboting solves the problem untill it arises
again.

Last night i left my computer on thru the night(no one touched it)
.This morning i found that my notebook fans were spinning like
crazy and that one of the svchost.exe services was using one of the
CPU cores at 100%.Also this svchost.exe was using 1.5Gb of
RAM...obviously a memory leak.After closing this service there was
another(forgot it's name) that was at 100% usage.All i know is that
it was under the NETWORK credentials.

I disabled automatic updates to see what happens over time,but if
any of you have any idea of what is going on, your input is much
appreciated.

P.S: The common idea that my computer is infected with malware is
out of the question.The XP installation is fresh and i haven't
spent enough time on the web to get infected.

Has it TOUCHED the Internet?
Have you installed any downloaded application yourself - even if you
downloaded them previously and saved to external (to the system drive you
supposedly formatted) and installed from said external media...?
What specific version of Windows XP is it?
What other patches have you installed other than SP3?
What about hardware drivers from each specific hardware manufacturer
(motherboard chipset, network card, wireless network card, video card, sound
card, etc.)?
What about patches for any software you have installed other than Windows
XP?
Do you utilize an administrative account for everyday use?
What research have you done - what led you to performing a clean
installation?

 

[Razvan]

Hello,

I tryed to give you as much detail as possible.I have the dump files from
the error,if there anywhere i can send them to be analized.

Has it TOUCHED the Internet?

Yes it has...Windows Firewall is the guardian

Have you installed any downloaded application yourself - even if you
downloaded them previously and saved to external (to the system drive you
supposedly formatted) and installed from said external media...?

Yes i have..but those were checked for viruses with NOD32 during backup and
nothing was found

What specific version of Windows XP is it?

Windows XP Professional 2002 SP3

What other patches have you installed other than SP3?

Everithing that comes from automatic updates after a fresh install
SP3 was installed manually from windows update website over the other updates.

What about hardware drivers from each specific hardware manufacturer
(motherboard chipset, network card, wireless network card, video card, sound
card, etc.)?

Everithing is up to date(the fresh copy was installed around 20/04/2008.That
is when i laste checked for drivers on each and every component)

The notebook is an Alienware m9750 with 2GB RAM Core 2 Duo at 2.0Ghz, SLI
GeForce 7950GTX.

I have WinPCap driver that works at Layer 2 on my network card for packet
analysis.

USB modem is from ZAPP and the driver is for Core 2 Duo.It was released in a
hurry aftre multi-core processors started to be popular.This device has been
discontinued since 2006 i guess, so the driver is pretty old.

What about patches for any software you have installed other than Windows
XP?

Office 2003 SP3

Do you utilize an administrative account for everyday use?

Yes...with full rights.Home PC, does not belong to any domain controller.

What research have you done - what led you to performing a clean
installation?

Research:

Googled a lot for any similar symptoms.All i could find was the RPC issue
with the Blaster worm dating from 2003.I remember blaster i was inffected
with.I know its behaiviour,this is something else.

Clean installation:

At least once a year i do a clean install.Windows XP tends to run slower
after long time of use.I do the regular cleaning and defragmenting and
registry fixing,but it doesn't improve performance.It likes to grow in size
over time and it takes longer to boot.I tryed both legal copyes and illegal
copyes, last time i used a Dell installation Disk and used the activation key
from one of the hundreds of laptops the company i work for has.It validated
as genuine,but seemed to have lots of errors (interned explorer 6 and 7 would
freeze very often like every 5 minutes, Opera did the same), including the
one that i have now.So i swithced to the educational windows and license
which suits me fine beeing a student.Everithing works flawlesly, besides this
issue.

 

[Gamemako]

I have also had this problem for some time. The RPC svchost gradually leaks
memory until it crashes the machine. It is not a virus. The typical
suggestion is to hunt through drivers -- some people have fixed it by rolling
back graphics drivers of all things. I can actually prevent the problem by
disabling my ethernet adapter (leaving my wireless connected). However, I
have as yet not found a workable solution. What is clear is that the problem
is likely related to the others which have plagued the DCOM over the years
from Win2K to Server 2K3. I hesitate to dive in and throw a Win2K/3 fix on my
XP install, but seeing that my current setup demands that I use a wired
connection, my hand may yet be forced.

As a note, it typically takes several hours of uptime to crash the machine
(10 or so), but hibernating tends to exacerbate the issue. I have yet to
discover the reason.