Vista Business fluxuating CPU Utilization to 100%

[Guest]

Lately, I have experienced CPU utilization fluxuations to 100% every 5 or 6
seconds with no applications started. The system is a 2.0GHz with 2GB of
memory. It seems to be SVCHOST.EXE files that are the culprits. I have let
the system sit after a reboot for more than an hour thinking that it may be
temporary - it continues to spike to 100% CPU every 5 or 6 seconds.

Opening Outlook 2007 makes for a real challenge, and the application becomes
non-responsive and finally restarts itself.

Any suggestions? I have loaded all of the Vista updates, and removed almost
everything from the autostart folder in the registry trying to get my CPU
back.

 

[Dana Cline - MVP]

Did you disable the Windows Search service? If not, it's probably indexing
your computer. Download Microsoft's Autoruns utility - it'll help you root
out all those startup things...

Dana Cline - MCE MVP

 

[Guest]

Thanks Dana,

I did a quick help search to see how to turn off the service, and here is
what The Empire has to say:

"Can I turn the Windows search index on or off?

No, the index can't be turned off or paused.

The Windows search index improves the efficiency of your searches by keeping
track of file names and important file properties for most of the files
stored on your computer. The index is what makes it possible for searches to
take just a few seconds instead of several minutes. The index is always on
because it is essential for fast searches.

When the index is running, it generally won't affect your computer's
performance. When you make changes to files, however, the index quickly
updates those changes, momentarily putting a small additional load on your
computer's resources."

Do you know a secret of how to do this? I will download the utility now to
see if that helps. Thanks.

 

[Dave Wood [MS]]

Hmm, that help topic is a little misleading. You can stop the Search Service
by going to the Services Control Panel and selecting Windows Search and
setting it to Disabled under properties.

HOWEVER, the Windows Search service has nothing to do with SVCHOST.EXE, so I
don't think that is related to your issue. Not sure what is going on there
I'm afraid.

Dave

 

[Guest]

Thanks Dave,

I found the Indexing Service under the Windows Features and it was already
unchecked.

This thing is driving me crazy (which is a short trip for me <grin>). I
looked on my Dell Precision 690 Workstation which has two dual-core 3.19GHz
processors and 4GB of memory. I see the same symptom, but the spike in CPU
utilization for all four cores is about 25%. The interaction with the system
doesn't seem as fast as when I was running XP, but it is not intollearble.

I have been searching the Web a looking for more insight, or others that are
having the same problem. There was a post about PCillian hanging XP, but I
don't have that installed. The CPU utilization spike is almost regular as
clockwork - every 5 or 6 seconds and it lasts about 2 to 3 seconds each time.

The resource monitor shows the following entry as the culprit:
svchost.exe (LocalSystemNetworkRestricted) It is running 40 threads, and
the Average CPU Utilization for the task is over 22%.

 

[Dana Cline - MVP]

Sounds like a sweet workstation you have there. I'm not sure what the
problem is - I don't see it on either of my Vista systems. Right now I'm
going to assume it's a driver somewhere, or maybe a part of some app. As to
how to root it out, that may not be easy. You'll need to take a look at the
Autoruns utility - it may well give you more details about what's actually
running that svchost.exe. If not, there are other Sysinternals tools that
might help (all on microsoft.com).

I think part of the problem is that, 4 months after release, there's still a
lot we don't know about Vista. I'm sure eventually someone will publish a
book on Inside Vista Tweaks and it'll be huge and none of us will have time
to read it...<g>

Dana Cline - MCE MVP

 

[Guest]

I ran the "tasklist /svc" command to see what services / processes were
running under the svchost.exe cpu abuser. I disabled a couple of things that
I knew were not needed on the system, but am fearful about stopping others.

Here is the list, can you suggest what I might try next please?:

AudioEndpointBuilder, CscService, EMDMgmt, hidserv, Irmon, Netman, PcaSvc,
SysMain, TrkWks, UxSms, WdiSystemHost, Wlansvc, WPDBusEnum, wudfsvc

Thanks again!

 

[Guest]

OK, I took a chance and killed the offending process. It was quickly
replaced with a different PID, and only the following processes remained
under the new PID:

AudioEndpointBuilder, EMDMgmt, Irmon, Netman, PcaSvc, SysMain

Any suggestions? Thanks again.