SVCHost.exe 99-100% cpu usage. Hijackthis + tasklist, need help.

Okay, well, I've been having this problem for some time, and no help has come of it.

Originally, I noticed it (three months?) a while back, when my games started to get laggy. I just built my computer about seven months ago. It's a slightly overclocked amd opteron 146, with 1 gig dual channel ram, and a geforce 6800gs. The games that were laggy were games such as counter strike, starcraft, diablo ii, games that normally don't "lag" on my old 700mhz processor. The internet connection is not the problem, it is my computer.

What I found out was that svchost.exe was using anywhere from 90-100% processor usage, and would cycle from going to 0-2% to 100% at random intervals. Well, naturally, I closed the process to see what would happen. Game ran fine, perfectly, no more glitching. Well, about half an hour went by, and my wireless internet connection went out. I couldn't restart the connection without actually restarting my computer, so I restarted the computer and deleted svchost.exe from the get go (the one using 99%). I loaded counter-strike...but no sound. I am aware that svchost.exe has access to many programs that are needed, and am assuming sound/internet/etc are part of them.

This problem has been continuing since I discovered it, and is a very large pain in the neck. Several times I have tried to fix it, researched, etc, but none of the advice I was given helped. I'm hoping maybe someone here will have an answer. Also, I use SP2 and it seems recently it has gotten worse.

Another side note: It seems that when I open a program it takes a long time for it to initialize, but no time at all to close.

Below are the hijackthis and tasklist /svc documents, one in code, and the other available for download (whichever is easier)

Thank you, and I am open to any suggestions.


It said my post was too long so I only did them as attachments.

Thanks,

Will

(Oo;?(The HJT log has no particular or superficial problems, so if there are Trojans, it should be pretty malicious ones.)

Well, try to stop services one by one referencing "unnecessary services" to narrow down the cause.

net stop servicename.

As I've just got back from a 2 week holiday, I couldn't quite work out why svchost.exe had started becoming critically unstable after only a couple of minutes from login.

After searching through some random forum, (can't remember which one) I came across a piece of info about windows update.

Basically, I've switched my Automatic Updates OFF.
This has since stopped any unstable activity on svchost.exe in the Task Manager.

I suggest you do the same as your computer may be trying to access updates in the same manner as mine.

Hope this helps,
Rutts

hi to all,

unfortunately i did start to have the same svchost.exe, cpu usage problem just a few days after i decided to format my laptop about 1 week ago. i have no idea if its somehow related with the format (everything was normal before)
at first i thought it was caused by by trojans like blaster or welch etc but none of the scans i made gave me a result, so i called my it support, he said this problem is caused by a bug in the windows update servers... and the only solution there is to turn off the windows update completely, none of the other options help... what i m worrying about now is the uncertainity of how wer gonna update our machine in the future... because svchost.exe doesnt even let me to go to windowsupdate webpage and do the updates manually.
suggestions are welcome. (that little red icon on my system tray which says your computer might be on risk, pisses me off)


good luck

Hi gyperdandy and welcome to DevShed.

Did you turn off the automatic updates ?

thanks
yeah, the first solution i found from web was to turn off the automatic updates, that solved the problem... but later on i had the chance to ask about the problem to a friend who works in microsoft, and the problem is all caused by microsoftupdate. microsoft update is a new version of windowsupdate and when you connect to it it tries to find updates for all microsoft related softwares installed on your computer. it must be a bug on that. and the way to get rid of it is to click 'change settings' from the windowsupdate website and disabling the microsoft update (you can still use windowsupdate) after disabling it i turned on the automatic updates from the security center and everything turned back to normal now.

Thanks for the info, but one question. How do you go about turning off Microsoft Update? I can't imagine that my dad somehow enabled it, but he's having this problem, so could it possibly have been enabled in the first place without going through the process that I saw on Windowsupdate.com?

Thanks.

Hi Madrox and welcome to Dev Shed.

To turn off Automatic Updates, go to Start > Run and type 'sysdm.cpl' (without the quotes) and press Enter. Then click on the 'Automatic Updates' tab and then select 'Turn off Automatic Updates' and then click 'OK'.

as i said one solution (a temporary one) is to turn off the automatical updates from windows security center.


if your dad formated his computer and reinstalled windows it may have been enabled microsoftupdate itself,(i had the problem after a format myself) so in that case you should be patient (cuz your computer will be very slow) connect to internet and go to www.windowsupdate.com / change settings / and choose 'i want to go with the windowsupdate only'
of course all these solutions would work if the reason of your problem is the same with ours... otherwise you should try to scan your system for worms like welch and blaster etc... they use svchost.exe for baad baad things..

Hi,

I've got this same problem since reinstalling XP home after a frustrating try of vista. I disabled windows update as you recommended and this seems to have temporally cured the problem

However I would like to have windows update enabled as I find useful and to stop that annoying pop-up reminder every time I boot up. I went to www.windowsupdate.com --> change settings but there is no 'i want to go with the windowsupdate only', only language and beta options - any ideas?

Cheers

To diagnose svchost.exe problems, normally i do this
1) Run task manager and view the pid of the offending svchost.exe.
2) tasklist /svc in command prompt
3) Turn off the services which were running in that svchost.exe session.

Automatic updates truly is annoying nowdays because if you have a large number of patches to download , it will consume all your cpu trying to schedule and download the patches. Try this, go to www.windowsupdate.com and view the patches you are supposed to download. Try trimming the list to a minimum if it is too large. You should as a precaution, always download every patch that is critical.

hello again,

what i was trying to say is,
http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate/v6/muoptdefault.aspx?returnurl=http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate
you need to go to this address and find out if microsoft update is enabled in your computer. if it is, turn it off, you can also check the info box at the right hand side at windowsupdate.com, if theres a note advicing you to upgrade from windowsupdate to microsoft update (don't), this means its already off and your problem is different from mine.

SvcHost.exe using 100% CPU (processor) on a Windows XP SP2 machine:

Running “Tasklist /Svc” from a command line will show the instances of SvcHost.exe and what is running under each instance of SvcHost.exe (there should be about 5 instances of SvcHost.exe running on an XP SP2 machine).

You can go into the Registry and see all the things running under SvcHost.exe by looking in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows NT\ CurrentVersion\ SvcHost .

The way I found and fixed this problem was by downloading Process Explorer (from SysInternals, which is now owned by Microsoft). It showed me that WuAuClt.exe was running under the instance of SvcHost.exe that was gobbling up my entire processor. WuAuClt.exe is the Windows Update Automatic Update Client.

After doing some web searching, I found that in many cases the problem is because of Microsoft Update (Microsoft Update handles all MS products, whereas Windows Update handles only the Windows OS). To turn off Microsoft Update, go to (URL address blocked: See forum rules) choose “Change settings” on the left hand side of the page, then at the bottom of the page choose “Disable Microsoft Update”.

Please also look at MS KB article KB916089 for some related information that may be helpful. I downloaded this hot fix and it made no difference on my system.

So, are you having the same problem or is this a solution ?

Thanks to all of you in this thread. When I disabled Microsoft Update my CPU usage went back to normal - GREAT! I have been tweaking that old computer with the idea of using it as a data and printer server. It will be the fourth machine on my little 3-machine office network using a 2Wire modem/server.

After I disabled Microsoft Update I went back to the Microsoft web site to do all of the update downloads missed while this machine was stored.

Using the Option 'Review your update history" I found that history.

I noticed that the 'Windows Genuine Advantage Notification' was the only update 'Cancelled' - the only prior update with a gray circle with the white dash mark. Another one called 'Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool - February 2007' is marked with a red circle and an 'x' - Failed.

I wonder whether svchost.exe (Microsoft Update) was getting stuck and maxing out the CPU because the Genuine Microsoft update did not install...

Do you people that I should work to get those two updated completed? Will getting those working allow me to use Microsoft Update, without worrying about maxing out the CPU?