Generic Host error, is my soundcard up the duff?

[Instinctz]

hey guys

ok this ones got me stumped and i'm not a complete n00b at keeping a pc in order. from the googling i've done i so far havn't seen any positive answers so thought i would give this forum a bash with a direct plee for help.

I don't know exactly when the following error began or what initially upset it but it has gone from popping up 8/10 logins to 10/10 logins.

It appears that it pops up as soon as the comp gets itself into order and pretty much bang on when my little net connected icon pops up on the system tray.

Generic Host Process for Win32 Services has encountered a problem and needs to close etc
szAppName : svchost.exe szAppVer : 5.1.2600.2180 szModName : ntdll.dll
szModVer : 5.1.2600.2180 offset : 0001103c

Now, the only thing it seems to do when i click ok is kill my soundcard drivers and the appearance switches to windows classic, sometimes back to XP but mostly stays the classic style. Anything i cant scramble to open ie winamp in the 20 seconds before the error, has no sound or in the case of winamp, spits out a 'you have no soundcard drivers mate sod off' error. The comp is clear of all spyware and viruses so no point in posting a hijackthis log (plus i dont actually have the software) and from what i have seen from other posters its not a malware etc infection it seems to be a conflict in hardware or software.

I have tried disabling the soundcard and restarting...same error. Putting the modem onto standby....same error. I have reinstalled the soundcard...same error.

This is driving me insane, the soundcard is an Maudio 2496 and im running xp service pack 2. I am also a music producer lol so you can see why this is of a huge inconvenience :/

sorry about the novel here but if anybody can help me ASAP i would probably propose to them. Some idiot on another board suggested disabling all startup services and all that appeared to do was kill a lot of needed apps.

thanks in advance

[caperjack]

not sure this will help but if you windows automatic updates set try disabling it and see what happens.

[Instinctz]

thanks mate, windows updates are already turned off though.... i really really need to get this running asap i have some huge projects now lagging behind

[caperjack]

if it were mine i would make sure there was nothing in the startup folder in start all programs ,and i would use http://www.ccleaner.com/ to clean any registry errors ,and run spyware and virus scan

[Instinctz]

its only the essentials booting up, i've got and run cc cleaner, registry fix, norton and spybot along with several online virus scanners....still no difference, its really beginning to concern me that im seeing other people with similar but not exact errors saying they have replaced the harddrive and tried difference windows xp discs and its still there

[caperjack]

i read one similar that suggested going to run,cmd and doing a system file checker to make sure that ntdll.dll was not corrupted. in the comand prompt type in , sfc /scannow, note there is a space between the c and the /

also try this get hijackthis and scan and post a log here ,don't fix anything untill i have a look at the log ,we will be looking for a startup item that may be causing it .