CPU 100% usage

[Guest]

Windows Task Manager shows that I am continually at 100% CPU usage so the
computer freezes temporarily even when I do not have many applications open.
I have McAfee Security Suite and have checked for Spyware and Malware. I
have Windows XP which has recently been automatically updated with Service
Pack 2. There seem to be a lot of processes open (54) and one of the open -
svchost.exe is using a lot of memory - changing between 47,000K to 95,000K.
I have 512Mb Ram and 94Gb free Hard Disk space.
I normally run Excel and Word and a small accounting and payroll package but
no games, music or video.
Does anyone have any ideas as I am tearing my hair out with all the delays.

Thanks for your help

 

[Newbie Coder]

Janet,

54 running processes on startup - wow!! What on earth is running when you
boot your comp? For me, there are 20 processes too many on startup, which
are unneeded.

The svchost.exe can be computer browser, automatic updates... but can also
be a rogue process. Are there any others hogging processor time?

Without knowing what those running processes are & what is running on
startup it will be difficult to help you

One thing you could do is go through your process list one-by-one in Google
& see what they say. This is the safe way, but otherwise you have two great
tools at your disposal:

1) Autoruns which tell you what is running on startup using the LOGON tab

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/autoruns.mspx

2) Process Explorer - which has a text (string) feature & you could look for
suspicious URLS. If you find any you can suspend, kill & then find their
location to delete them. Then use the autorun tool to delete the entry from
the LOGON tab

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/processexplorer.mspx

If you can list your startup/process entries then we can do our best to help
you. Things like real media updater, adobe speed scheduler... can be safely
removed from startup

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your help. I have run Autorun and the Logon tab shows the
following running at Startup. RDP Clip Monitor; Userinit Logon Application:
Windows Explorer: Microsoft Office link; CTF Loader (all Microsoft
Corporation): LogonHook; McAfee Data Backup; McAfee SpamKiller MskAgent
Application (all McAfee): NVIDIA Display Properties Extension: NVIDIA Media
Center Library; NVIDIA nView Wizard (all NVIDIA Corporation); Adobe Acrobat
Speed Launcher: BT Broadband Desktop Help link: Quicken Startup link
(Intuit accounting package)

Before I started this reply, I had no applications running and Windows Task
Manager was showing 43 processes - I have a list of these plus the memory
shown - is it possible to send these on a spreadsheet for you to look at?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Rock]

Windows Task Manager shows that I am continually at 100% CPU usage so the
computer freezes temporarily even when I do not have many applications
open.
I have McAfee Security Suite and have checked for Spyware and Malware. I
have Windows XP which has recently been automatically updated with Service
Pack 2. There seem to be a lot of processes open (54) and one of the
open -
svchost.exe is using a lot of memory - changing between 47,000K to
95,000K.
I have 512Mb Ram and 94Gb free Hard Disk space.
I normally run Excel and Word and a small accounting and payroll package
but
no games, music or video.
Does anyone have any ideas as I am tearing my hair out with all the
delays.

Thanks for your help

What happens in safe mode? Is there a similar problem? If not do clean
boot troubleshooting to see what is causing the issue in normal mode. Note:
McAfee could be part of the problem. There are better programs that are
much less resource heavy.

How to Troubleshoot By Using the Msconfig Utility in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=310560

How to perform advanced clean-boot troubleshooting in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=316434

How to perform a clean boot in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=310353

 

[Guest]

Hello Rock
Thanks for the advice - I will try these tomorrow.
Janet

 

[Rock]

Hello Rock
Thanks for the advice - I will try these tomorrow.
Janet

Ok, good luck.

 

[Jim Byrd]

Hi Janet - How knowledgable about doing things are you? Do you know how to
start and stop services? How to run a .cmd file? If not, you'll need
access to someone who does to avoid problems.

The following assumes you're on Windows XP but will probably work OK for
Win2k as well. If you're confident about what you're doing, then try the
following first - only if it doesn't work, then there's another level of
stuff that can be done following:

1. Stop and Disable Automatic Updates, Background Intelligent Transfer
Service and the Cryptographic Service.

2. Rename the folder %SystemRoot%\SoftwareDistribution to
%SystemRoot%\OldSoftwareDistribution

3. Open Notepad and create a file containing the following:

REGSVR32 WUAPI.DLL
REGSVR32 WUAUENG.DLL
REGSVR32 WUAUENG1.DLL
REGSVR32 ATL.DLL
REGSVR32 WUCLTUI.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS2.DLL
REGSVR32 WUWEB.DLL


Save this file as 'Wudll.cmd' (without the quotes) to any convenient
location then exit Notepad and double click on the file you just saved. You
should get a 'Sucess' mesage for each of the .dll's listed above.

4. Now Re-enable to Automatic status and then Start each of the services
you stopped before - Automatic Updates, Background Intelligent Transfer
Service and the Cryptographic Service.

5. Now Reboot. Now Reboot Again. (Yes, twice.)

See if that solves it - give it a couple of days. If so, then you can
delete 'OldSoftwareDistribution'. I would request that you post back with
your results. _Only if the problem does re-occur_, then do the following
_exactly_:

1. Go to http://wiki.djlizard.net/Dial-a-fix and download Dial-a-fix
v0.60.0.24 (2006-10-27) Here's a direct download link:
http://djlizard.net.nyud.net:8080/software/Dial-a-fix-v0.60.0.24.zip and a
secondary: http://djlizard.net/software/Dial-a-fix-v0.60.0.24.zip from
that page's download section, here:
http://wiki.djlizard.net/Dial-a-fix#Mirrors.2Fdownload_locations.2C_and_articles .

2. Unzip it to a new folder at root with any name, e.g.
c:\Dial-a-fix-v0.60.0.24

3. Double click on Dial-a-fix.exe in that folder.

4. Click on the following:
Options/tooltips (just to get an idea of what it does in each section.
)
Both boxes under Prep
The 'all' (top) box for Sections 2, 3 and 4 (which will automatically
be set when you check 3)
In Section 5, 'Programming cores/runtimes' and
'Explorer/IE/OE/shell/WMP' only.
Click 'Go' . (Some of the re-registrations may take what seems like a
long time for some .dll's - Don't be impatient.)

5. Reboot (if Dial-a-fix doesn't do it automatically at the end). Now
Reboot Again. (Yes, twice.)


See if that does the trick, and, again please post back with your
experience.



MS is well aware of the problem and has provided privately two different
responses concerning a fix:

"I regret to say that I was told that this known issue requires too much
change to be implemented in a hotfix. A change will instead be implemented
in the next Automatic Updates client, which we are planning to release in Q2
this year."

"According to the feedback from Product Development team, this fix will be
published as a security update on the Windows Update site and the relevant
KB article will also be released by us. Therefore, we just need to keep the
system on the network up to date. In addition, the Product Development team
also indicates that the WSUS 3.0 client may contain this patch if this fix
can released timely. At that moment, we can also attempt to upgrade to the
WSUS client 3.0 to test the issue."

I'm told that the RTW (Release to Web) version of WSUS 3.0 will be published
on 30th Apr.

--
Regards, Jim Byrd,
My Blog, Defending Your Machine,
http://defendingyourmachine2.blogspot.com/



In Janet <[email protected]> typed:
|| Windows Task Manager shows that I am continually at 100% CPU usage
|| so the computer freezes temporarily even when I do not have many
|| applications open. I have McAfee Security Suite and have checked for
|| Spyware and Malware. I have Windows XP which has recently been
|| automatically updated with Service Pack 2. There seem to be a lot
|| of processes open (54) and one of the open - svchost.exe is using a
|| lot of memory - changing between 47,000K to 95,000K. I have 512Mb
|| Ram and 94Gb free Hard Disk space.
|| I normally run Excel and Word and a small accounting and payroll
|| package but no games, music or video.
|| Does anyone have any ideas as I am tearing my hair out with all the
|| delays.
||
|| Thanks for your help

 

[PA Bear]

See http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/blogs/mowgreen/index.php?showentry=1071

Workaround: Change the default from Microsoft Update to Windows Update: Go
to Microsoft Update > Click on Change Settings in left pane > Scroll to
bottom of page > To Stop Using Microsoft Update > Disable Microsoft Update
software and let me use Windows Update only (check). cf.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/901037

With Windows Update as your default, you will need to check in at Office
Update to keep your Office applications fully patched:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/maincatalog.aspx