svchost problems

[Ivan Debono]

Hi all,

I'm got a strange problem that cropped up since a week or so.

After XP loads up, a svchost.exe process take 99% cpu time and memory usage
goes up to over 100MB (for both normal and virtual) and it freezes the PC. I
have to kill the process to get control of my PC.

I have Windows XP Home SP2 with all the latest updates till today. I also
have the XP theme turned on, Norton Internet Security 2006 and no other
particular services that are blocking the machine.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Ivan

 

[Newbie Coder]

Ivan,

I would suggest you use Process Explorer to examine that particular process
to see if its genuine or a rogue

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

When you run the application look under services & highlight each individual
svchost.exe by double-clicking it, select the STRINGS tab & then search to
look for rogue strings that aren't Microsoft URL's etc

Remember that genuine svchosts run things like computer browser, automatic
updates, RPC, removerable storage, COM +... & will be signed by Microsoft

Please post back any findings

 

[Rock]

Hi all,

I'm got a strange problem that cropped up since a week or so.

After XP loads up, a svchost.exe process take 99% cpu time and memory
usage goes up to over 100MB (for both normal and virtual) and it freezes
the PC. I have to kill the process to get control of my PC.

I have Windows XP Home SP2 with all the latest updates till today. I also
have the XP theme turned on, Norton Internet Security 2006 and no other
particular services that are blocking the machine.

If you found through process explorer it's associated with the automatic
updates service, this is a common problem lately. See this link:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/blogs/mowgreen/index.php?showentry=1071