Is SVCHOST.EXE using 100% cpu? Click here then.

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murray1 · #1 Post by **murray1** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 2:08 pm

I like many others have been plagued with svchost.exe using 100% cpu. I searched and searched and finally found out that it had to do with a bug in Windows automatic updates. The only solution that I could find was to disable them untill I found this. I am not computer literate enough to know what any of this does but I do know that it worked for me. Now when I start up svchost.exe only uses around 30 to 40% of my cpu.

Perform these steps:

1. Click Start->Run, type "services.msc" (without quotation marks) in the
open box and click OK.
2. Double click the service "Automatic Updates".
3. Click on the Log On tab, please ensure the option "Local System account"
is selected and the option "Allow service to interact with desktop" is
unchecked.

4. Check if this service has been enabled on the listed Hardware Profile. If
not, please click the Enable button to enable it.
5. Click on the tab "General "; make sure the "Startup Type" is "Automatic".
Then please click the button "Start" under "Service Status" to start the
service.
6. Repeat the above steps with the other service: Background Intelligent
Transfer Service (BITS)

Step 4: Re-register Windows Update components and Clear the corrupted
Windows Update temp folder

1. Click on Start and then click Run,
2. In the open field type "REGSVR32 WUAPI.DLL" (without quotation marks) and
press Enter.
3. When you receive the "DllRegisterServer in WUAPI.DLL succeeded" message,
click OK.
4. Please repeat these steps for each of the following commands:

REGSVR32 WUAUENG.DLL
REGSVR32 WUAUENG1.DLL
REGSVR32 ATL.DLL
REGSVR32 WUCLTUI.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS2.DLL
REGSVR32 WUWEB.DLL

After the above steps are finished. Sicne temporary folder of Windows Update
may be corrupted. We can refer to the following steps to rename this folder
that

1. Click Start, Run, type: cmd and press Enter. Please run the following
command in the opened window.

net stop WuAuServ
(note, you might need to reboot before the net stop command will work)

2. Click Start, Run, type: %windir% and press Enter.
3. In the opened folder, rename the folder SoftwareDistribution to SDold.
4. Click Start, Run, type: cmd and press Enter. Please run the following
command in the opened window.

net start WuAuServ

This is what I did and it worked for me. Hope it works for you too. If anyone out there is computer literate enough to understand this could they please reply on what you believes this does.

#2 Post by **jdhurst** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 2:14 pm

murray1 wrote:I like many others have been plagued with svchost.exe using 100% cpu. I searched and searched and finally found out that it had to do with a bug in Windows automatic updates. <snip>

It may be true for you but it is not true in general. When you post things like this, you should know them to be fact. This is not. svchost is used by a number of processes, and Windows automatic update doesn't cause 100 percent CPU on any machine I know of.
... JD Hurst

Leikeze Ajnin · #3 Post by **Leikeze Ajnin** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 2:40 pm

svchost.exe is responsible for a number of networking or related services in Windows; some of which are necessary and some which home users might not need. However, aside from the plethora of services taking up little chunks of memory, I have never seen it munch up CPU time. However, there are several flavors of viruses out there that like to mimic, infect, replace, or install bogus svchost.exe programs, and I would suspect one such virus would be responsible for wasting CPU time than an actual Windows service.

This page might be useful: http://ask-leo.com/svchost_and_svchoste ... _more.html

murray1 · #4 Post by **murray1** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 2:44 pm

jdhurst wrote:It may be true for you but it is not true in general. When you post things like this, you should know them to be fact. This is not. svchost is used by a number of processes, and Windows automatic update doesn't cause 100 percent CPU on any machine I know of.
... JD Hurst

Thank you for your concern. If you have not seen it on any machine you will not know what I am even talking about though. It is very annoying and I did much research in trying to find a fix. In that research I found that it was caused by a bug in windows updates. I know this to be true because automatic updates does use svchost and the only time that svchost would use 100% cpu is when automatic updates was working. I.e. when the automatic update icon was visible in the taskbar.

I found this solution on a microsoft forum and there multiple replies saying that it also worked for them. The link to this post is http://forums.microsoft.com/WindowsOneC ... 9&SiteID=2

murray1 · #5 Post by **murray1** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 2:50 pm

I did not post this for people who have not encountered this problem to tell me that I am wrong and that this never happens. It happened to me, and it happens to many other people, search it up on the web, you will find thousands of other people that are affected by this also.

If you are going to comment on the validity of what i have posted please provide constructive criticism on what these operations would actually do. Don't just say your wrong and stupid.

#6 Post by **jdhurst** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 3:04 pm

murray1 wrote:<snip>
Thank you for your concern. If you have not seen it on any machine you will not know what I am even talking about though. It is very annoying and I did much research in trying to find a fix. In that research I found that it was caused by a bug in windows updates. I know this to be true because automatic updates does use svchost and the only time that svchost would use 100% cpu is when automatic updates was working. I.e. when the automatic update icon was visible in the taskbar.
<snip>

I wish to assure you, and the forum members, that this is not generally true. I have seen Auto Update sitting in the taskbar (I have it running) and it does not use much CPU (except at odd, very short, intervals). Once the download has occurred, the installs can burden the CPU but the actual install is just that, and no longer "automatic", just installing a list of downloads.

I am not saying you or others don't have some problem with your computer, merely that Automatic Update can and does run happily in the background without causing undue CPU. ... JD Hurst

murray1 · #7 Post by **murray1** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 3:17 pm

When I looked once again at the forum link that I have provided I noticed that there had been a new post since I had viewed it. The new post is one saying that microsoft has provided a fix itself. The link provided in the forum takes you to http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... US;Q927891

From this site I quote
"This update replaces update 916089.
916089 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916089/) When you run Windows Update to scan for updates that use Windows Installer, including Office updates, CPU utilization may reach 100 percent for prolonged periods "

Microsoft provides this saying that it should solve the problem. I do not know if it actually does solve the problem but I do know that what I did worked for me.

So if you do not want to take my word on this topic please take microsofts. I hope this is proof enough for your, JD Hurst to realize that there are problems with some peoples automatic updates.

#8 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 8:30 pm

microsoft wrote:"When you run Windows Update to scan for updates that use Windows Installer, including Office updates, CPU utilization may reach 100 percent for prolonged periods "

When you RUN...
That is not the same as automatic background checking for updates!

If you have enough discipline to check manually, you could switch OFF automatic updates.
Mine is always switched off, and I only check 2 or3 days after 'Update Tuesday', just in case there are problems published about those updates.

murray1 · #9 Post by **murray1** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 9:02 pm

realblackstuff wrote:When you RUN...
That is not the same as automatic background checking for updates!

If you had problems with svchost.exe, you would notice that it happens when you turn on your laptop. After you turn on your laptop windows updates checks to see if there have been any new updates since the last time.
I.e. it RUNS
It is during this time that svchost.exe can use 100% cpu, if your laptop has the bug.

realblackstuff wrote:If you have enough discipline to check manually, you could switch OFF automatic updates.
Mine is always switched off, and I only check 2 or3 days after 'Update Tuesday', just in case there are problems published about those updates.

This is the most common method that I have found to "solve" the problem with svchost. Why stop automatic updates from taking care of this for you though. The only reason that I can think of is that your computer slows down a lot when it is running. If this is the reason that you do it manually then if you were to open your task manager during the time in which your computer is really slow there is a good chance that svchost.exe is using most of your cpu. That is why I posted this information in the first place.

It is a way to fix the problem so that
1)you do not have to run windows updates manually, or
2)wait a few minutes before you can try to do anything else without programs freezing

murray1 · #10 Post by **murray1** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 9:13 pm

I am sorry if I came across as someone who knows nothing about computers that was trying to get people to mess up there computers, what I meant by saying that I do not know what it actually does is that I am not sure as to how or why it works.

All I know is that there is a bug in some peoples automatic updates and that I found a solution that worked for my computer as well as others.

I would greatly appreciate it if someone with knowledge of these kinds of things would actually sit down and try and figure out what these steps are actually doing.

Ken Fox · #11 Post by **Ken Fox** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 11:21 pm

I don't think it is SVCHOST.EXE, but there is another potentially very annoying update process that is in the startup group I'd read about but not paid much attention to.

A few days ago I booted up my T43 and got this annoying tray popup offering to sell me an update of some bloatware program I'd forgotten to uninstall for XX dollars. I was too busy to deal with it and just killed it for that time.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about? It is some auto updater thing that apparently is being used a lot for trying to market various software upgrades to hapless computer owners. I haven't had time to deal with it and haven't used that system since, but I need to go into msconfig and stop the process from activating on start up.

#12 Post by **tomh009** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 11:31 pm

murray1 wrote:If you had problems with svchost.exe, you would notice that it happens when you turn on your laptop. After you turn on your laptop windows updates checks to see if there have been any new updates since the last time.
I.e. it RUNS
It is during this time that svchost.exe can use 100% cpu, if your laptop has the bug.

This is absolutely a problem for many people. If you have automatic updates turned off, you will never see this, but many people want to (or are forced to) keep them on.

A significant number of the laptops in our office suffer from this. And our domain policies force the automatic updates to be on.

murray1 wrote:It is a way to fix the problem so that
1)you do not have to run windows updates manually, or
2)wait a few minutes before you can try to do anything else without programs freezing

I usually end up reducing priority on the rogue svchost process, but I would much rather solve the root cause of the problem. I'll have to investigate your approach ... thanks!

#13 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Sun Mar 11, 2007 5:44 am

I don't want to be a smartass, but in my opinion any PC or laptop runs better without all the bloat running that M$ forces upon us.

On any install of XP that I do, I always stop/disable the Indexing service, uninstall Outlook Express, Messenger and all the M$ games.
The software firewall (Comodo) that I install switches off the (useless) XP-firewall.
My XP does not 'phone home' every time I boot it (thanks to XP-Antispy).
I don't have any M$-Office running in my Startup folder.
Using XP-TweakUi I modify a few basic settings, to clean up the 'looks' of XP.
I always switch off the auto-updates for Acrobat Reader, Java and the likes. The above applies to all installs I do.

To be honest, I've never experienced (how could I?) that auto-update problem on any of my PCs nor on any other PC or laptop I ever worked on (sometimes 5-6 a week).
My main PC has only an Athlon/64-3000, my wife's PC runs with a PII-550, my daughter's PC runs an Athlon/XP-1900 and her 'oldie' Compaq Armada 7400 laptop runs with a P300. These (and the laptops from my sig) all run XP-Pro without ever having crashed. BSOD does not exist in our household. My own PC's 'latest' XP-installation dates from May 2005!
All of them are kept in shape using PerfectDisk and they all run like finely-tuned sewing machines.

To get back to the OP's problem, a very good alternative is switching XP's auto-updates off and instead installing AutoPatcher
http://www.autopatcher.com/whatsautopatcher/
This takes care of all your update needs without the M$-hassle.

dsigma6 · #14 Post by **dsigma6** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:38 pm

realblackstuff wrote:The software firewall (Comodo) that I install switches off the (useless) XP-firewall.

...My personal favorite as well!

Paranoid_TP_User · #15 Post by **Paranoid_TP_User** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 5:07 pm

This was an issue with about 2% of all xp machines with the January updates (mine included). The service that hosts automatic updates was acting up. There was a hotfix you had to ring MS for, but for the 3 weeks or so it affected me I turned off the auto updates service, then the Febuary updates fixed all that. So.. solution? Do nothing, go to update.microsoft.com and install the updates, then turn on your automatic updates again if you had to turn them off and forget about it.

Actually it might interest people to know that apparently it affected machines that had ever had more than one version of microsoft office installed.

Deckard · #16 Post by **Deckard** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 8:08 am

I have the same problem with svchost.

Before I try the remedy, I'd like to know if renaming the SoftwareDistribution folder would have any side effects.

murray1 · #17 Post by **murray1** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 1:10 pm

Ok, its been a bit over a month now since I applied this fix and everything had been working fine up until yesterday. My computer took a fair bit of time to start up and then the same thing today. Today I opened task manager when this was happening and boom, scvhost once again 100%.

So I started going through the steps again, first I was going to check out the microsoft fix but there was a post in that same forum that i found it that said it wasn't working so decided to do this again to see if I could tell what changed.

It was part of the first step. When you go into services and look up automatic updates to make sure all of the right boxes are checked and same with the BITS. Everything under the automatic updates was correct but when I went to the BITS page it was not on automatic and it was stopped for some reason. Right on that page that you open there is a little explanation of what BITS does.

quote "Transfers files in the background using idle network bandwidth. If the service is stopped, features such as Windows Update, and MSN Explorer will be unable to automatically download programs and other information. If this service is disabled, any services that explicitly depend on it may fail to transfer files if they do not have a fail safe mechanism to transfer files directly through IE in case BITS has been disabled."

So there was my problem, and if I remember right this is what was wrong in the first case. I do not know why it shut off but from what I understand this would cause windows updates svchost to work all at once instead of working in the background quietly, therefore causing the spike in cpu usage. Anyone have any ideas as to why this would turn off by itself?

Deckard wrote:Before I try the remedy, I'd like to know if renaming the SoftwareDistribution folder would have any side effects.

I do not know for sure, I don't see how renaming a folder will actually do anything. Anyone else have any ideas?

murray1 · #18 Post by **murray1** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 1:14 pm

Whoever has tried these steps, please pm me with whether it worked and if after a while, like a month or so if the same thing happens to you. If it does happen to other people I will try searching further to figure out why this would happen.

#19 Post by **jdhurst** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 1:16 pm

I see BITS turning itself off sometimes and I don't know why. I also think that Automatic Updates can turn it back on but I don't know why. There were automatic updates this week and BITS is currently on. However, whether it is on or off, CPU usage is unaffected.

One thing (without going through the posts again) is that one of the references to the problem pointed to Office. There is no question for me that Office Update chews up CPU like mad, but only for about 3 or 4 minutes and then it is back to normal.

Now Windows Update won't check Office, but if you loaded Microsoft Update, it *will* check Office. I never loaded Microsoft Udpate. Is there anything there?
... JD Hurst

Paranoid_TP_User · #20 Post by **Paranoid_TP_User** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 8:23 pm

jdhurst wrote:Now Windows Update won't check Office, but if you loaded Microsoft Update, it *will* check Office. I never loaded Microsoft Udpate. Is there anything there?
... JD Hurst

If you go to update.microsoft.com and click on "change settings" on the left there is a tick box at the bottom "Disable Microsoft Update software and let me use Windows Update only".

I've heard that this can help, see this thread which has a lot of details and a few links in the posts: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/for ... 271831/p/4

Temetka · #21 Post by **Temetka** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 11:19 pm

Good ol' Ars to the rescue. I love that site and have been a member for years.

Deckard · #22 Post by **Deckard** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 7:02 am

OK, I have looked into the problem a bit closer and browsed through some technical forums, Microsoft KB and the links that have been provided here.

Apparently there's a MS fix for the aforementioned problem. As pointed above, this fix will require an updated Windows Installer, which can be obtained from the link below:

Link to the updated Windows Installer

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/893803/

*Although, it says on the site that the updated msi.dll has the version 3.1.4.2435, the installed version on my computer reads 3.1.4.2805. I don't think that it should cause a problem, since I'd assume that a higher version number would indicate a newer version.

Now the actual fix that should solve the svchost.exe using 100% CPU, when the computer connects to WSUS for checking updates.

This fix is provided only when you call the Microsoft Support.

Here's the link to KB 916089
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916089

I have managed to get the patch. If anyone wants to have it, please reply to this topic.

Cheers

PS: I have installed both new Windows Installer and the KB916089 fix, I am monitoring the system and will report the results.

#23 Post by **jdhurst** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 10:54 am

Most everything I have read at Microsoft on this issue points to Microsoft Update (which I do not use) and Windows Server Update Service (which I do not use). I think that is why I and others are unaffected whilst some users are affected. ... JD Hurst

murray1 · #24 Post by **murray1** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 6:07 pm

Thank you Deckard for looking further into the Microsoft fix. I have seen a couple peoples posts on other sites saying that these did not work for them though not the case for everyone.

I would like to know whether or not you applied hotfix 927891 also. On the one site that I posted above, the same one you also posted, it provides this hotfix. On this site it explains this hotfix as a fix for a new access violation problem occurred when you try to install an update after installing hotfix 916089.

When you say you have managed to get the patch and if anyone wants it to please reply are you talking about another fix to this problem or about these windows hotfixs?

Deckard · #25 Post by **Deckard** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 6:22 pm

murray1 wrote:Thank you Deckard for looking further into the Microsoft fix. I have seen a couple peoples posts on other sites saying that these did not work for them though not the case for everyone.

I would like to know whether or not you applied hotfix 927891 also. On the one site that I posted above, the same one you also posted, it provides this hotfix. On this site it explains this hotfix as a fix for a new access violation problem occurred when you try to install an update after installing hotfix 916089.

When you say you have managed to get the patch and if anyone wants it to please reply are you talking about another fix to this problem or about these windows hotfixs?

Hi,

I didn't apply the hotfix 927891, since I didn't have the access violation problem.

I only updated the Windows Installer and installed the 916089 fix.

The patch I have obtained is the one mentioned in the KB916089 (where it says one should contact Microsoft to get this patch)

murray1 · #26 Post by **murray1** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 6:56 pm

From what I read it sounds like the hotfix which you used can cause the access violation problem. I am guessing that you haven't done any updates since your fix though. Please post what happens, whether everything works or not, after you try updating. If you do get this error the fix is available here
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927891/

Deckard · #27 Post by **Deckard** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 7:10 pm

murray1 wrote:From what I read it sounds like the hotfix which you used can cause the access violation problem. I am guessing that you haven't done any updates since your fix though. Please post what happens, whether everything works or not, after you try updating. If you do get this error the fix is available here
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927891/

Thanks for the heads up. We'll have to wait till the next update to see if an access violation problem will occur.

I've downloaded the patch from the link you provided.

Deckard · #28 Post by **Deckard** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 4:13 am

Update:

The patches, which I have installed, are working like a charm. CPU usage doesn't hang at 100% for a prolonged time any more. It's just touching the 100% for a few seconds and going back to normal.

Delmarco · #29 Post by **Delmarco** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 3:00 pm

Deckard wrote:Update:

The patches, which I have installed, are working like a charm. CPU usage doesn't hang at 100% for a prolonged time any more. It's just touching the 100% for a few seconds and going back to normal.

I have the same problem. But it's
definately the antivirus programs (BitDefender10 which I deleted & now I have Trend Micro 2007) that is causing both my svchost and system process to spike my CPU to 100%.

I usually go into Task Manager and disable what i think is causing it, but now it seems to be System and 4 or 5 svchost process running at the same time and I cannot diasble these.

After reading this thread I realized there is no clear solution for this.

murray1 · #30 Post by **murray1** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 5:24 pm

I am just wondering something now. I have been looking at some of this stuff a little bit more and I also had a little issue with my cd-rom that ended up with me running a process called SFC /scannow.

When I did this I found that it found many errors and that I need to use my windows xp cd to fix them. After this I came across another site that was discussing what to do if your windows updates fail. It has three steps, 1) and 2) are pretty much the same as what I had found before and posted at the top and step 3) is to run SFC /scannow to see if you have any corrupt system files.
A link to this site is
http://help.maximumasp.com/SmarterTicke ... icleid=898

What I am wondering now is if most people that are experiencing this issue (svchost.exe hitting 100%) also have corrupt system files according to SFC /scannow.

It would be greatly appreciated that anyone that has or is experiencing this to please run SFC and post a reply of your results. To run SFC:
1) click start then run
2) typ SFC /scannow, make sure there is a space between the C and /
Then the program will do the rest.

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