.....i got a cpu bug.....

yea. it kinda sucks. its been here for awhile. and it bugs me at about 11pm everyday if im using the computer.

its a process known as the svchost.exe. the dreaded of all processes, as im told all of xp goes through it.

what happens is that svchost.exe uses all of my computer resources to run windows update, when i have the updates on manual and such. it doesnt help that i have 2 of these running at the same time either. i'll end the process that is taking up all my cpu, and i'll no longer get sound, but otherwise it'll run. if i close the smaller one, i get a message from windows, the nt error or something and it must be restarted or so.

any ideas besides a backup of all the files i want to keep, and a clean system install?

Read this:
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/12009443/m/786004271831

It's a known fault with no known fix.

can i delete some of these? i have 8 svchost.exe's running. yes i said 8.

Not all of them are bad, infact most of them you need. Just get a good antivirus (such as NOD32) or do a free virus scan online (Trend Micro has a good free online scanner) and it should pick up any that are viruses or spyware and remove them.

Umm...I don't think you understand what SVCHOST does, read about it: http://www.neuber.com/taskmanager/process/svchost.exe.html

It has NOTHING to do with Virus's or Spyware, unless it's a virus or spyware masquerading as SVCHOST, and there's no evidence here to support that since what he describes is a widely reported, well known flaw.


No, you can't delete or stop the process, but you can stop the Windows Update service that's causing it to spike.

I see what you mean now. But often times it is a virus or spyware, just read your own link.

ive figured out by process of elimination on which ones i can close and which ones i cant. i had only 4 of them running, and no spike. guess i gotta manually close the dang things, but it gets the job done.

Even easier than that, just type
net stop wuauserv

in a command prompt.

Longer term fix: set the service to manual and use Microsoft Update website to patch your computer.

Solution:

Open a command prompt, and type ‘net stop wuauserv’
This will stop the Windows Updates service temporarily.

Navigate to the folder: C:\Windows, and Delete the SoftwareDistribution folder.

Apply this patch:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=7A81B0CD-A0B9-497E-8A89-404327772E5A&displaylang=en

Reboot and that should fix it.

Solution:

Open a command prompt, and type ‘net stop wuauserv’
This will stop the Windows Updates service temporarily.

Navigate to the folder: C:\Windows, and Delete the SoftwareDistribution folder.

Apply this patch:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=7A81B0CD-A0B9-497E-8A89-404327772E5A&displaylang=en

Reboot and that should fix it.

Damn, had I read this a week earlier, it would have saved me from entirely reformatting my HD and reinstalling Windows.

I had the same issue. I would start up Windows and everything would lock up, even the task manager would fail to show up and when I got it to show up before the svchost.exe showed up, Right afterwards it would hog all my CPU usage and I would be able to accomplish nothing and every time I terminated the process I would lose all my sound drivers. Fixed it though with a nice clean reinstall of Windows....:banghead: :banghead: