Ten instances of SVCHost running.

I have 11 instances of svchost running on my computer, which I scan regularly with AVG and Superantispyware (I have the paid version of SAS). I also run CCleaner once or twice a week.

After reading this thread I ran a search of my hard drive, which found no instances of the file.

I also googled svchost and found this procedure for fixing the problem but thought it would be wisest to check here before doing anything.

 

I'm using Windows XP (family) with service Pack 3.

My CPU is always at 100% whenever I check.

 

That sounds pretty unlikely. Open Task Manager on the Performance tab - the CPU graph is top left. Unless your PC is doing something other than browsing it should be about 2 or 3%

 

Here's a screen shot of my task Manager. It's in French but the terms are easy to figure out I think.

 

Wow! Can you provide a pic of the processes tab ordered by CPU usage please?

 

Is this what you wanted?

 

Not really. Open the View menu Select Columns and add CPU Usage. Then a new pic ordered by CPU usage.

 

I hope this is it.

 

View menu. Processor usage is the first one checked.

 

Post #10 is the one we need but click on the Processeur column heading to invert the order to highest first.

EDIT - OK I've just spotted the 99% for svchost. I'll come back.

 

Tick PID in Select Columns and try again please

 

Think I got it all.

 

OK, thanks, now we know exactly which process number is the culprit - 1344 - and next we have to find out what that number means. To do that you will need to download Microsoft's Process Explorer from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653 Download this to your desktop, open it, and run procexp.exe. Look for PID 1344 and tell us what it says or give us a pic.

 

Had to compress the jpeg quite a bit. Let me know if it's not readable.

 

The outcome I feared! That is one of the low-level XP processes and there isn't AFAIK much we can do about it except try to check the integrity of your system files. Is this a pre-installed system or do you have, or can you borrow an installation CD for your version? If you have a disk then open a command prompt and type sfc /scannow. It has to be a system disk, not a recovery disk.

Other than that you might want to try the fix you first posted and hope it works.

Sorry I wasn't able to find a fix for you. maybe another helper can. :cry

 

By system disc do you mean a Windows XP installation disc?

 

I'll have to leave this until Tuesday.

I'm certain I have that disc somewhere. After a cursory search - no luck.

In the meanwhile, how big an effect is this having on my computer's speed and performance?

 

If it can be fixed it will feel like a new comp. Let's hope you can find it

g'night

 

I just tried this and the CPU usage dropped immediately to 0-1% but strangely there now shows an inactive process using 98% of the CPU.

I ransacked my place and came up with no system disc. Prior to attempting the fix that I linked to in the 1st post I'll wait and see if there are further comments.

Question: how could this situation have come about in the first place and is there a way of preventing it from re-occuring?

 

That is good good news - the 99% system idle process is the norm when the computer isn't doing much. Seems svchost simply wasn't reporting it correctly and causing us much headscratching

Unless it's showing any abnormal behaviour you can now forget it.

 

This may be unexpected but I worked with Photoshop for the past hour with no observable improvements in speed of execution of commands.


Will I have to kill the process each time I boot my computer?

 

You haven't previously said your comp is slow, unless I missed it. However if the svchost process with high usage reappears you should kill it. If it's just the system idle process you should ignore it as that's the way it should be.

Is it unacceptably slow, much worse than it used to be? And if so is it slow browsing or working with files or both? And how much RAM is installed and does it have shared graphics or a separate graphics card?

 

No I didn't mention my comp being slow.

It was pretty slow to begin with for photoshop but got a lot slower just the other day which is what prompted me to look at the task manager and create this thread.

I have 2 G of RAM, and have a Radeon 9000 series graphics card.

Here's a shot of my system:

 

Thanks for all that, clearly it isn't just a problem of overloaded RAM. Has this svchost 98% issue returned?

 

I did a re-boot and it returned as before. I killed it and CPU usage dropped to normal levels.

Perhaps I should try the fix after backing up data and creating a restoration point.

 

I certainly don't have any better suggestion. Good luck with it :wave