Resolved svchost.exe at 99%

Hi All,

I got a little problem with my boss’s laptop.
The thing is slower than molasses. I tried all kinds of cleaning, but no improvement.
This is a Dell Vostro 1000, and Dell has a diagnostic utility for checking the hardware. It comes back with no problem found. So it must be a software problem, right?
In any case, I decided to trigger the "nuclear option" and reinstall everything. I wiped the hard drive and reinstalled windows xp home with SP2. Encountered no problems. Then I installed all drivers, again no problems. Downloaded SP3 and installed it with no problems.
When I try to open any application like ie8, it takes forever to load ie8 and then even more time to load the page, in this case Yahoo. Switching between pages also takes a lot of time.
So I hit Alt+Control+DEL and looked in Processes and found that "svchost.exe" was listed 4 times.
Twice with network service and twice with system. One of the system listing is at 99% at all times, and will not go down. When I click on "end process" it goes back to normal, and I did not experience any side effects. The webpages pop in much faster.
Do I need to have this listed 4 times?
If not, how do I get rid of it?

Thanks
Sven

 

Sven, I'm making a wild bet that what you encountering is related to Windows / Microsoft update service. I encountered the same thing after I reinstalled XP Home. I never found a fix for my problem, but it sort of fixed itself after downloading newer updates.

Download Process Explorer, and it will shed more light as to what is going on. It is a stand alone app with no installer.

In the mean time, I'm sure someone else with a bit more tech savvy will pitch in here.

 

I disabled Microsoft Update and switched to Windows Update to stop that problem. I prefer checking for updates myself and doing a custom install.

 

I tried that, Whiskeyman, but it didn't help me any.

 

Hi, thanks to both of you.
I downloaded the program and it tells me that it has something to do with windows upgrade. I killed wuauclt.exe pid 3524, but that made no difference. still at 100%.
the only thing that helps is if I close svchost.exe pid 2568. hen it drops to 0% and as far as I can tell, all is working. after the next boot it is back. My boss will not be able to kill the process, because he has no knowledge of the inner workings of a computer.
I will try Whiskeyman's suggestion and see what that does.

Thanks
Sven

 

Sven, right-click on svchost.exe pid 2568 in Process Explorer (there is a search option at the bottom of the context menu) and see what Google says about it.

 

Hi Whiskeyman,
I disabled automatic updates and it works. no more long waits to load anything.
When I boot up, it tells me that my computer is a risk, but I can tell my boss to just click on the X and ignore it.
Thanks
Sven

 

You should be fine as long as you check out Windows Update every month.