svchost.exe in WinXP utilizing CPU

[CloudsShinji]

Hi,

A question about a certain process in WinXP Pro: After my computer has been on for a little while (say, a few hours), svchost.exe will begin to utilize increasingly more and more of the CPU. In the Task Manager, it's the one corresponding to "LOCAL SERVICE". I rebooted my computer last night pretty much right before I went to bed, and as of right now it's using around 80% of the CPU. Sometimes it even goes higher.

It's not that big of a deal, but at the same time, it's pretty annoying. The CPU heats up, and it seems to bog my system down -- most noticeably during gaming. For instance, I can reboot, and then play RtCW or bf1942 for a couple of hours running silky smooth, but after that (when svchost starts to take more of the cpu), it will get choppy (framerates remain high, but it's like it pauses for a split second every three seconds or so.) A quick reboot will set things back to normal again.... but is there any way I can prevent this from continually happening? 🙁

Any help would be appreciated. 🙂

 

[CloudsShinji]

bump

 

[CloudsShinji]

Bump again... 😱



If nobody has any advice, I'd still be quite interested to hear how much of the CPU, on average, the LOCAL SERVICE svchost.exe is utilizing on other people's computers. My roommate (running XP Home) seems to have the same issue with his computer, so I'm wondering if this is a common thing, or...?

I did a "tasklist /svc", and there were only three processes running under the LOCAL SERVICE svchost.exe... as for what they were, I can't remember, but when I get home I will be able to check.

I suppose I will try ending the process, but I'm not sure what side-effects that might have, even if nothing noticeable happens.

Well, again, any advice or suggestions anyone might have would really be appreciated, and as mentioned above I'd also be interested to hear about svchost on anyone else's system.


Thanks for your time. 🙂

 

[singh]

Have you installed any programs that set up Services?

 

[kd7fhd]

This is the M$ explanation of scvhost.exe for win2k: Knowledge Base

and this site tells you that it seems to be the same as the w2k version: jsi faq

 

[CloudsShinji]

Thanks for your replies. 🙂

Have you installed any programs that set up Services?

Unfortunately, I'm not really sure. 😱 As I mentioned earlier, when I ran "tasklist /svc", there were only three services listed under the svchost.exe that matched the PID of the one that was hogging the CPU. I wish I could remember what the names of those three were, but unforunately I'll have to run that again when I get home and see what exactly they are.

Also, thanks kd7fhd. I had read that Knowledge Base article, and that's kind of what led me to believe that just ending the process really wouldn't be that great of an idea. 😀

 

[CloudsShinji]

Okay...

I may have solved the problem. I checked tasklist /svc to see what was running under the svchost.exe with the PID matching LOCAL SERVICE. Four things were there:

LmHosts, RemoteRegistry, SSDPSRV, WebClient


Then, I checked services.msc. I couldn't find LmHosts, so I left that. WebClient seemed vital to Internet usage, so I left that as well. Remote Registry I disabled (it allows remote users to modify your registry), but that had no effect.

However, the description for SSDPSRV was as follows: Enables discovery of UPnP devices on your home network.

I hadn't disabled UPnP after I reinstalled XP! Setting this service to "Disabled" immediately dropped the CPU usage down to 2%!

Hopefully all is well. Thanks again for your time. 😀