CPU usage and enabling firewall problem

[Jimmy H]

My CPU usage maximizes at 100% when I am connected to the
net. I connect through an Ethernet card and a cable modem.
In the taskmanager, I see that 99% of CPU power is being
used by "services.exe" and "svchost.exe"! This leaves
practically no resources for me to use for any other
programs, including internet browsing. The result is that
all programs that I try to launch run at a bare minimum.
I have a Pentium 4 at 1.7ghz and 500mb of Rambus 800 RAM.

I thought that some hacker might be messing around with
my ports, so I tried to enable the Microsoft firewall on
my network adapter. I received an errotr message,
indicating access denied. I believe that this also has
something to do with the problem.

If I disconnect my modem before powering up the system,
the problem does not occur. Once the network adapter
recognizes the modem, the CPU problem begins again.

Since I would like to continue to use the internet, I
would appreciate any help or guidance that anyone might
have.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

If Svchost.exe is using such a large portion of your CPU cycles,
it has most likely been "hijacked" by a worm or Trojan. Have you
tried using a decent antivirus application with the most
currently-available virus definition files? A strong candidate would
be W32.Welchia.Worm.

A Description of Svchost.exe in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314056

W32.Welchia.Worm a.k.a. W32/Nachi.Worm
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.welchia.worm.html


Bruce Chambers

--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH

 

[Gary Hewitt]

If you haven't already done so, go to www.lavasoftusa.com
and get the free copy of Ad-Aware v6. Its purpose in
life is to detect spyware such as keyloggers, adware and
other forms of malware. I have also had pretty good luck
with Spy Sweeper from webroot.com. Interestingly, both
products often find traces that the other one misses.
Also, there are many "spies" that regenerate themselves,
the worst of which is "Gator". I understand Gator may
now be owned or re-named now as "Claria".

Both products work just like Norton AntiVirus, in that
they are constantly updating their product with updates
of "traces" that they identify, quarantine and then
eliminate. As stated above, do not assume that ALL
traces are removed by these products, since some of the
spyware regenerates itself from files and/or registry
traces that these programs apparently don't know about.

Good luck and let us know if this or something else fixes
your CPU usage problem.

Gary Hewitt