Re: svchost.exe high cpu issues

May not be your case but once uppon a time I had a 'svchost' problem on my
laptop that caused XP to have to shut down; this happened after a few
minutes online. It turned out to be caused by a virus, undetected by Norton
(on-demand scans didn't show any infection) but detected by a lesser
antivirus program, which, 4 yrs later, I still use.

"badun" <badun@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:D5D096FC-F980-42D9-AFBD-55B65946C5C9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
My freshly loaded nForce2 PC with XP Pro has had constant problems with
receiving "Generic Host Process for WIN32 Services has encountered a
problem
and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience." messages when
starting just about any application. I initially had this problem when I
did
a lazy install of XP on top of an existing one, so I completely
reformatted
the disk first before re-installing. When the problem re-occurred I spent
lots of time troubleshooting and found a common symptom: Every instance of
an
app failure was accompanied by 100% CPU utilization by svchost.exe.
Further
research suggested that this problem is frequently caused by enabling
Automatic Updates in Windows Security Center. I disabled this option and
the
problem with app terminations went away. But I still have the issue with
svchost.exe running at 100%. This happens upon every boot when *something*
within svchost.exe takes off. I did a full scan on the PC with AVG and
SpyBot (current definitions) and both said it was clean, other than some
Web
trackers with SpyBot.

Even more research reveals that MS has released a public hotfix that
appears
to address this issue. Now my problem is that I cannot execute the hotfix
or
use Windows Update w/out svchost.exe pegging out the CPU tachometer. The
executing programs get hung up and I have to kill svchost.exe just to free
them up (because they are tied to svchost, they also terminate with it).
So
basically I perceive that I have a Catch 22: I need a patch to fix a
problem,
but the problem prevents me from applying a patch.

Based upon advice from tech forum, I tried switching AV programs and even
removing them entirely. No change in the problem. I also disabled
Windows
Update and Security Center notifications based on other advice. Still no
change. Finally, I've included snapshots of executing services under the
"runaway" svchost.exe taken during various sessions, but all experiencing
the
high CPU problem:

AudioSrv, BITS, Browser, CryptSvc, Dhcp,
dmserver, ERSvc, EventSystem,
FastUserSwitchingCompatibility, helpsvc,
lanmanserver, lanmanworkstation, Netman,
Nla, RasMan, Schedule, seclogon, SENS,
SharedAccess, ShellHWDetection, srservice,
TapiSrv, Themes, TrkWks, W32Time, winmgmt,
wscsvc, wuauserv, WZCSVC

AudioSrv, BITS, Browser, CryptSvc, Dhcp,
dmserver, ERSvc, EventSystem,
FastUserSwitchingCompatibility, helpsvc,
lanmanserver, lanmanworkstation, Netman,
Nla, RasMan, Schedule, seclogon, SENS,
SharedAccess, ShellHWDetection, srservice,
TapiSrv, Themes, TrkWks, W32Time, winmgmt,
wscsvc, wuauserv, WZCSVC

AudioSrv, BITS, Browser, CryptSvc, Dhcp,
dmserver, ERSvc, EventSystem,
FastUserSwitchingCompatibility, helpsvc,
lanmanserver, lanmanworkstation, Netman,
Nla, RasMan, Schedule, seclogon, SENS,
SharedAccess, ShellHWDetection, srservice,
TapiSrv, Themes, TrkWks, W32Time, winmgmt,
wscsvc, wuauserv, WZCSVC

Any and all help will be appreciated because this one has me totally
stumped!


.

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