svchost hogging up cpu

[Guest]

I'll try and condense my story down, sorry if its lengthy. I recently deleted
Norton because I was displeased with how long it took to load. Plus I've
heard stories about how it doesn't always detect viruses if they are not
really affecting how windows runs. I heard form a friend about a virus
software called avast by ALWIL. I did a little research on it and decided to
give it a try. Before trying it on my desktop I chose to try it on my laptop.
So after deleting Norton on my laptop as well, I loaded avast. After loading,
it restarts and automatically runs a scan. It picked up 4 trojans where
Norton did not. So far I was impressed. After registering it and configuring
it to my liking. I noticed certain icons in my system tray not appearing.
Like my sound icon, windows defender icon, and my power mgmnt icon from the
laptop manufacturer (Acer). The programs are still running but the icons do
not appear in the tray. I can get the sound icon back but once I reboot its
gone again. The laptop does seem to run smoothly and boot time is a lot
faster. Now when I loaded avast on my desktop unit, it found trojans after
the restart as well. Now i figured I had some viruses on there cause it was
laggin real bad prior. It still is. I noticed in the task mgr that
svchost.exe is hogging up the cpu like it is going out of style, in excess of
100K. I also noticed that svchost is duplicated in task mgr about 6 times.
The desktop also has the issue of disappearing icons in the system tray. So
I'm running windows defender and avast anti virus software on both my desktop
unit and my laptop. Both are experiencing missing icons in the system tray.
Something in my desktop unit is hogging up my cpu. Any ideas?? My desktop is
running a celeron d 3.33ghz processor with a gig of ram on a Asus p5pe-VM
mobo, two 60 gig hdd's in a sata. My laptop is an Acer Aspire 3100 with an
AMD Sempron 1.6ghz and 512Mb of ddr2 and one 60 gig hdd. I cna give more
info if needed. just let me know. have faith in this forum as it has helped
me many times before. Im sure we will talk more later. Adios.

 

[Grand_Poobah]

SVCHOST.EXE is a "wrapper" that runs many different internal programs on
your computer. It is not at all unusual to see several instances of it
in Task Manager. There is a program called "Process Explorer" from
sysinternals.com that will let you view what each instance of SVCHOST is
doing. Try that first.

As for the disappearing icons, once you get completely logged in, go to
Start -> Logoff and select Logoff. Once off, log back on and see if
your missing icons appear. If they do, then I would suggest that you
set your account to require a password to log in (if you aren't doing
that already). For some unknown reason, the delay in logging in using a
password allows time for your system to load and activate each of your
logon tasks. I have three computers and one of them requires this - the
other two start up just fine with no missing icons. Perhaps someone
could explain why this happens.

GP

--->

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the info, I got the missing icons issue taken care of thanks to
the info you provided. I now know why you are called the "Grand Poobah"! I
downloaded the Process Explorer onto a flash and installed on my desktop
unit. This is a pretty nifty utilty. I like it better than task manager.
However, I'm not sure quite how to use it to its full potential. I did notice
that when the cpu is being used 100% it is mainly when it is online. The
svchost that is causing this, when I hover over it with the mouse, seems to
be controlling a lot of services. And I do mean alot. Just about everything
is listed. And when I pause that service things stop responding and the cpu
usage goes down. Any more input would be helpful. Talk to you soon.