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WIN XP HE Dial up constant popups

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by frankbaha

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I have a laptop with XP home configured for the office network. When unpugged from net, the dialup connection on it starts dialing.I turned off the redial options and have it not connect automatically on all dialup connections, but still activates .How do I keep the dialup from constantly popping up and dialing when not connected to the net. It only stops when I do connect back to the network. I tried removing the dialup and put it back in but still happens. It always seems to be the last dialup connection that was made last. Thanks..

10 replies

by bohicam1

Just a thought here....is it trying to access mapped drives, a corporate anti virus program? This sounds to me like it needs a persistent connection to another computer and is trying to access it. Have you done a complete virus scan with updated virus definitions? Any of the new viruses/trojans out there have built in backdoors to access a remote computer.
Good luck!

Mike

by mike o

Go into your Internet Options and tell it to Never Dial a Connection. Right now you're probably set up to "Dial a Connection when a network connection is not present" (or something like that). Turn that off and you should stop seeing the problem.However, you will also want to see what is TRYING to access the network consistently. Open up a command prompt and type netstat -a and see what you get. That should show you everything attempting to access the Internet or a network. For more info onNetstat, type netstat help.

by rcom

This is a caused by virus. The dialup is being ran from win.ini or the registry. Run msconfig and look in the startup section for anything unusual. The file that starts it is either in the windows or windows\system folder. I'm ssorry but I can't remeber the name if I find out I'll come back and post for you.

by bengr

This may or may not be legitimate network activity that is triggering your dialup when the LAN connection is interrupted.

I agree that you should disable the modem's ability to connect unattended immediately. You want to be notified and promptedevery time the modem attempts to dial anything at anytime.

If this is legitimate network traffic, your email software, networked printer queue, anti-virus update (or any on-line update of any software for that matter) is attempting to connect to a machine it can't find through your normal network connection. (remember, you unplugged it)
The machine is falling back on an alternate way to connect to the machine it's trying to reach.
(a self healing network is good in theory)

The down side to having the modem is that some unscrupulous people have chosen to exploit the dialing mechanism as a way to defraud anyone they can by installing a trojan configured to dial EXPENSIVE international and 900 numbers with little or no notification/approval of the owner of the machine.

If you notice the modem going on/off hook erratically, or notice a process called rnaapp.dll when the modem isn't supposed to be in use, you may want to take a closer look at your modem activity.

---continued in next post---

by bengr

By all means, NEVER have a modem connected to a phone line WHILE you are connected to LAN unless it is absolutely necessary. Hackers will often use this configuration to block or at least impede any attempts to trace illegal activity. Having a network connected dialout makes a target out of your machine.

Trust me, the phone bills generated by some of these trojans are often in the hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Don't find out the hard way. International billing is hard to fight in many cases. Your phone connection may be held hostage by your LEC if you don't pay the bill and then fight the charges.

I'm out of breath. Hope you find my information to be useful. Information contained in this message is intended to raise awareness and help those who read it. If you find anything to be in error (not just in disagreement with opinion) please feel free to bring it to my (and the reader's) attention with any constructive response.

good luck,

ben (phoenix, az)

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