Suspicious crashes

[tamaranth]

The PC keeps encountering a problem with "Generic Host Process for Win32 Services". It's happened four times in the last three hours and every time I've had to restart to get my broadband connection back.

The message comes up after about 10 mins logged on (I just sat on the other side of the room and watched it happen without my having touched the keyboard for 5 mins).

I'm only running Firefox and Notetab (under, I'mverysorry, Windows XP). I checked the Micros*ft site re this problem, and there's a patch, but it's not at all recent -- so what I'm suspicious about is the way it's suddenly started happening. Can't think of how it could be caused by having unplugged and moved the PC, then moved it back, and that's all that's changed since Before Problem.

Any ideas? Virus? Physical damage? Weird hardware thing? Mercury in retrograde? Absence of cat urine in carpet?

Comments

[zoo-music-girl.livejournal.com]

This happened to thermaland recently. The advice he got was to check for updates (which you've done) and check for malware.

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

Generic Host Process for Win32 Services shows up in Task manager as SVCHOST. It's a wrapper for programs that can't run on their own, which can be anything from the various bits of the control panel to the background services that make up all of Windows apart from the kernel. Expect to see several of them; some services are separated for security.

badly written drivers, physical memory faults, malware and viruses can all cause this error. If it was the MS Blaster virus you'd get a message saying the PC was going to shut down, so it's not that. As you've moved the PC, open the case and check that everything is seated firmly - the move could have jolted a connection. it's also possible that the timing is coincidence and it's a driver that just went wrong.

To find out what the problem program is, check the error (click where it says Click Here) for the szModName - you should see something like szModName : ntdll.dll. If the module is Hpgtpusd.dll it's an HP printer driver that needs updating. The error is your best bet for the info and the solution, which will probably be updating or re-installing the problem file.

if you don't see a module name, you can also open a command prompt and type TASKLIST /SVC to see whats running under the SVCHOST's sessions before the problem happens and see if they're all things you want running. Or you can turn all the services that aren't part of Windows itself off to see if they're responsible. Use Start > Run > MSCONFIG to start the System Configuration Utility. On the Services tab choose Hide all Microsoft services; now choose Disable all. Restart your PC. if you don't get the error, you know it's one of the third party services causing it (if you do it's a hardware problem, a Windows problem or possibly a virus). if it is a third party service go back to the System Config Utility and turn the services back on one by one, rebooting each time till you find the one that gives the error. once you know what it is you can uninstall, update or reinstall it.

get the November 2005 patch just in case.http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;894391

one thought. it takes out your network connection. one SVCHOST is devoted to networking. get Windows to chck the system files by opening a command prompt and typing SFC /SCANNOW. if a networking system file is corrupted this will replace it with a fresh copy.