Pop-ups and random links in text with Internet Explorer

I have a dell Inspiron 5150 laptop. It has WinXP Pro with SP2. Mobile Intel Pentium 4, 3.06GHz, 512MB of RAM.

Here is the issue:
I am getting periodic pop-ups when I have Internet Explorer open. Also, in IE, within the text there are links. The links have specified words (i.e. "computer" "single" "call" "help" software" "phone" "emergency"). When I scroll over the link (not clicking on them) there is not website that shows in the bottom left side of the window. It just shows the same word as the "link" in the text. Some "link" show the web site www<dot>103092804<dot>com. I don't know what is going on.

I have gone through the steps of the Basic Spyware, Trojan And Virus Removal page and downloaded all appropriate programs and applications from that page. The first time through the steps, I was not able to run Spybot in Safe Mode. The second attempt at trying to go through the steps, McAfee AVERT Stinger doesn't run completely through. In both cases with Spybot in Safe Mode and recently with Stinger, as the programs were scanning the computer shut off. I had to re-start my laptop.

Again, I don't know what is going on and any help would be greatly appreciated. Let me know if you need any more information from me.

Thanks.
Boardboy

 

Attached is the requested log file (saved as a .txt file). Thanks for you help.

 

RANDOM LINKS ARE GONE!!!!! Thank you so much!!!

I imagine the pop-ups will be gone as well. But, if a pop-up occurs, is there something that I should be looking for? or is there something I can do?

Question about the anti-virus, if you don't mind me asking. I had the two anti-virus softwares (Trend Micro and Symantec), Trend Micro was recognized by WinXP Security Center as an anti-virus software whereas Symantec was not recognized. I tried both with realtime scans and it seemed that Trend Micro picked up what Symantec did not. I noticed that Windows recommends Trend Micro but is one better than the other?

Could you tell me where a good place would be to look to find out the best ways to protect against future issues?

Thank you again. I really appreciate your help. Boardboy.

 

Sorry about not posting another HJT log. However, I just created an HJT log (without any browsers open and no other "visual" programs running) and the latest log file is attached. The log seems to be clear of the items that you requested me to delete/remove.

I went through the steps early this morning and since that time I have not seen a pop-up or a link on IE. I haven't seen any other issues come up since that time.

Thanks for the link to prevent malware. I'll definitely read through that and apply necessary apps/programs. Thanks again.

 

I'm not sure where this rpcnet.exe process is from. I have been trying to get as much free information from the internet as possible.

As far as free information goes, people are making guesses as to what it is and what it does. Most of the guesses have something to do with RPCs (remote procedure calls) but nothing definite.

There is one website that claims to know what it is but it costs at least $10 to find out. If it is possible, I'd like to find that info out for free.

I have gone into C:\Windows\system32 and renamed the executable. I'm hoping that if there is a valid program that uses it, the program will generate a prompt that will give some kind of information. What do think?

I did another HijackThis log after I renamed the rpcnet.exe and the rpcnet.exe is still showing in the list of processes but at the end of that line shows "(file missing)", which makes sense. But would the process show up in the list if it was not running?

Interesting thing happened. I did an advanced search with Windows Explorer and my search criteria was:

All or part of the file name:
*.*

A word or phrase in the file:
rpcnet.exe

Look in:
C:\

The search ran for about an hour and then out of nowhere my computer shut off. It did not shut down. It just turned off. It was similar to how my laptop shut off when I was doing the initial antivirus scans with the "Basic Spyware, Trojan And Virus Removal". It's really odd that my laptop would shut off with a basic search. Any ideas?

Thanks.
Boardboy

(Obviously I tried some things here and I'm not sure if they're going to make any difference. I know that there's a process of how to do things so if I'm getting off-track with my attempts please let me know.)

 

The info on RPCnet.exe is useful, thanks.

 

The laptop is running smoothly now. No more pop-ups and the random links have gone away.

The advanced search was done on the laptop. I haven't switched machines. The odd thing was that the laptop shut off during the search. Everything is running great but it was just that search that was odd. It's rare that I do searches like that so I don't know if it is a big issue or not.

Currently the rpcnet.exe file is re-named and there are no issues with doing that. I do not have any pop-ups or random links, which is great, but if you think that there is more that I should do then please let me know. Otherwise, I happy with the way my laptop is running right now.