How to stop svchost.exe using up 100% of system resources (Windows XP Only)

Here is one of Windows major annoyances that never fails to baffle and frustrate you. The cause(s) are to numerous to list.

• Download this file: Windows Update v3 WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe and save it to your C:\ drive.
  
  
• Download this file: fix_svchost.bat and save it to your C:\ drive.
  
  
• Download this file: WindowsXP-KB927891.exe and save it to your C:\ drive.
  
  
• Reboot the computer and log in to Windows XP in safe mode. To do this, press F8 just before the Windows XP logo shows up during boot and choose “Safe Mode.”
  
  
• Once Windows has loaded in Safe Mode and you have the option of which user account to use, log on as “Administrator”.
  
  
• Open Windows Explorer to the root of C:\ drive then double-click the fix_svchost.bat file you saved before.
  
  
• A black screen will pop up and white text will scroll past. Wait for this process to finish as it could take several minutes. It will close itself when its finished.
  
  
• Once the black screen disappears, double-click the WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe file you saved before. Follow the prompts as it installs.
  
  
• When Windows Update Agent finishes installing, double-click the WindowsXP-KB927891.exe file you saved before. Follow the prompts as it installs.
  
  
• Reboot the computer.

Note: Although there are (supposedly) several malware variants that masquerade as "svchost.exe", I've personally never seen this to be the case....it's just a programming bug, and this fixes it.

Thanks for the tips, buddy !

There are some that have the names of their executables similar to it, too.
Like, i fixed / cleaned a friend's system recently, where the trojan was in scvhost.exe

lol.

Thanx,
Shadab.

I saw a trojan recently named with svch0st.exe o becomes 0
in my experience,in task managar if there is a process named svchost.exe running under username Administrator,than its suspected to be a trojan.

Thx for the notice man

I don't think the problem is that svchost is using up 100% of resources so much as it uses a lot of RAM. I mean, my FireFox is using 200,000 kb but 0% of my CPU...

Vista has made it easy to see just what is using svchost.exe

1: Open up the Task Manager.

2: Click on Processes tab.

3: Check the box at the bottom of the Task Manager that says "Show processes from all users".

Click Continue button if prompted with User Account Control dialog.
There will be a long list of svchost.exe shown in Task Manager.

Locate the svchost.exe that you want to find out what service is running behind it, look for the svchost.exe in the list with high CPU usage or high memory usage, right click on it, and choose Go to Service(s) at the bottom of the context menu.

The Services tab will now open, and you will now see some entries that are highlighted. These are the services that are associated with the particular svchost.exe that you chose.

Once you identify which services are causing the svchost.exe to be hogging system resources, you have to decide if that service is a suspect service and if it is causing the issue. Once you have determined a suspected service, right click on it, and select Stop Service.

NOTE: Before you stop any service, make sure that no other services are relying on it to run. You can do this by clicking on Service button at the bottom of the task Manager to launch the Vista Services application where you can see the properties of the suspect service and view its dependencies.

Also be warned that disabling any wrong service may destabilize the Vista system. So unless you know for sure that it is a problem service leave it enabled. Usually if it is a System Service it is better to let it run.

thanks for your info man