XP crashing at random: RPC Service terminated unexpectantly

a friend has Windows XP Home Edition that will periodically shut the system down after displaying the following msg: "Shutdown initiated by NT Authority System ... RPC Service terminated unexpectantly."

my friend doesn't know what prompts these shutdowns or what the msg actually means (other than counting down the seconds to power-off) and being pretty illiterate regarding XP, i haven't a clue either ... and the msg appears at random ... it can happen while surfing the net or recording data to a cd or just working in a WORD or EXCEL program ...

any thoughts?? ... anyone?

 

Sounds like the PC is infected with the MSBlast worm. Do a full system scan with a virus scanner with the latest DAT file installed, and go to windows update and load all the security fixes.

There are also removal tools/fixes available from Microsoft and most antivirus vendors for download.

Thanks for posting the error message. I did a search on part of it and it points to an infection.

 

Pwylltwiceborn
As Paul said it will be the Blaster virus which cought many people out when they went online with no firewall up to protect them. As soon as your friend has fixed the problem they must put up the fire wall, the one that comes with XP is not on by default so if you go to control pannel, network conections and right click on the internet connection that they use, go to properties then onto advanced and put a check in the protect my computer box. Make sure their virus program is uptodate also. Any downloading with have to be done via a different computer as your friends will not be able to stay online very long.
Stitch

 

Moving this to the security section.

 

If unable to stay online long enough to do a scan, click start>run and type services.msc and hit enter. Locate Remote Procedure Call in the list, right click and choose properties. On recovery tab, reset all to restart the service and OK out. Open task manager, look for msblast.exe and end task on it. Then see this for removal and patch instructions.

 

Thanks dave didnt know how to shut that down before good to know for the future. Thanks again
stitch

 

Quite welcome stitch!

 

thanks

just wanted to say thanks for all the advice guys ... had problems with my friend's system getting serially reinfected before looking again at the recommended sites and realizing that we had skipped one of the initial steps ... installing the patch that would plug the system's vulnerability ... say duhhh! with me children

anyway, it's now been a couple days since and so far so good

i can't remember a time when i've posted a query to this board and NOT recv'd dead-on accurate good advice

thanks again ... and my friend is now insanely happy (when before insanity was enuf)

PT

 

Glad you got it worked out. Thanks for posting back with your results.