svchost takes up all my resources!! need some help

[jasonxc]

Whenever I start up my laptop for the first time after properly shutting it down, svchost always takes up ~99-100% of my system resources (which makes the laptop SLOOOOOW!) Since I can't shut down the laptop when it's in this condition, I always have to hold the power button until it turns off. Then when I start it up again it's back to normal. This problem drives me absolutely nuts! I just reformatted to see if it would fix the problem, but it's still doing the same thing! :| Right now I have 4 instances of SVCHOST.EXE running when I look at the task manager's processes tab. Has anyone else had this problem and solved it? Please let me know what you did to fix it =) Thanks

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

One of my Compaq's does this.

I just load up task manager and kill the process.

Not a very elegant solution, but it does work.

 

[cubby1223]

Some viruses and worms disguised themselves as svchost.exe in task manager.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

In all honesty, reformat. If you have the drivers for your hardware, there's no reason why you can't. It might be a pain, etc, but it will be worth it. My $.02...
Tas.

 

[daveshel]

Originally posted by: cubby1223
Some viruses and worms disguised themselves as svchost.exe in task manager.

Right. If you see several of these in taskman, it could be a malware.

 

[PurdueRy]

keep in mind that you could have about 5 running SVChost.exe's and everything could be all normal

 

[jasonxc]

Thanks for the resonses guys! I browsed around on google some more and tried some guy's tip. He said to search for all svchost files and to delete all of the ones outside the system32 folder. I tried that, and now my laptop runs fine on the first bootup! It doesn't really make sense to me why it helped cause there's still 4 instances of svchost running..The two files I sent to the recycling bin (i didn't completely delete them in case they were necessary) were SVCHOST.EXE-3530F672.pf (a PF File) and SVCHOST (an EX_File)...don't know what those are..

 

[PurdueRy]

they were probably malware, Hope it works for ya

 

[exilera]

As I understand it, SVCHOST.EXE is a process that groups a bunch of services together (running under one process). I think you can type in tasklist /svc under a command prompt to see exactly what services are running under all of the svchost processes. If there's something you don't need (which could be most of them if you're running XP home or not on a network), you could try disabling services on boot a few at a time.

Sounds like your problem was related to malware though.

 

[mechBgon]

Get some current-generation antivirus software on that thing.

 

[KoolDrew]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Get some current-generation antivirus software on that thing.

This Malware Guide may be helpful.

 

[itrfuzzylogic]

Get the microsoft antispyware program from microsoft.com, it actually works. <--- wow "works" and microsoft in the same line! LOL.

 

[JackMDS]

Svchost is a service that is used by other processes that are Network related, and it is needed for Network and Internet to function correctly.

This screen shot shows a normal system that to work correctly invokes 5 instances of svchost.

It might be that you have a Trojan and other "Junk" that invoke more instances of svchost and chokes your system.

You need to run cleaning programs.

May be this can Help.

Link to: Internet infestation -Or, how you are getting Internet "Junk" in and compromise your Computer/Network?

Link to: Basic Steps in cleaning Internet "Junk".

Link to: Freeware Security suit for Internet Connection Protection.

:sun:

 

[greenghus]

Check out this utility to see what might be using up your resources. Everytime I booted up my machine svchost was running at full speed. Turns out it was my DNS Client that was responsible. I used this program, Process Explorer, tracked it down, disabled the service, good to go.

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml