Desktop

You may have third party junk in the background.
You may have multiple instances of Load Power Profile running.
1st) Download AdAwaer and scan your system, you will probably be shocked by how much junk is silently running that you don't want or need.
2nd)click STAT>RUN and type msconfig. In your Startup tab, you will see what is REALLY being loaded. Uncheck all but one instance of Load Power profile, doesn't really matter which one. And anything else that isn't needed.

Finally, ADD RAM ! You didn't mention how much you had but less than 256MB these days,will run short (depending on the usage).
Good luck, let me know if you find any new 'wierd' things.

Here is an overview of rundll32

http://tinyurl.com/8uzv

Rundll32 is not your problem.

You have a memory leak.

Do you perchance have IE 6 installed?
I have seen several W98 systems where IE 6 has caused a memory leak to show up.

The best 'temporary' fix is to download and install a memory manager.
There are links to several at www.nonags.com

I have not had any luck repairing memory leaks other than a clean install of Windows.

Chas

You may want to try running SFC (System File Checker). Go to Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/ select System information, select Tools and SFC. Replace bad files...

ebcdic

RUNDLL and RUNDLL32 are two utilities supplied with Windows 95/98 and NT.
They can call DLL functions from the command line, when you 'Run' a program, the rundll32 can initialize the Dynamic Link Library resources needed.
The only time I've seen this being so persistent, other than a virus, is if the system is running low on RAM. How much RAM do you have? If you feel you have enough RAM, download a memory manager such as RamIdle or the like from ZDNET or CNET and watch it when you are opening and closing programs. You may find that you are actually using all the ram and running short when opening a new application.
You may also have a backdoor open that someone is using, this will also use resources, try a trojan detection tool.

Try running an online virus scanner such as the one found at housecall.antivirus.com or one at www.sarc.com. Rundll32 appearing as an application that uses large amounts of system resources is often attributed to the Klez virus or one of its variants. If the virus is detected by the online virus scanner, then use the removal tool that can be found at www.sarc.com.

If the scan comes back clean, hit start, hit run, type msconfig, hit ok. Go to the startup tab of the system configuration utility and clear out all unnecessary applications that are loading at startup. For a pretty thorough list of files that can be found in the startup group, check out http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_pages/startup_full.htm
After clearing out the startup environment reboot the computer and see if the issue is resolved by doing so. If the issue is resolved and you want to narrow the issue down further, you can just go back into the system configuration utility and recheck one program at a time (rebooting after each one) to find the program causing your memory leak.

I hope this helps.