Re: problem connecting windows update - CPU 100% svchost.exe

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

This seems to have worked so far - thank you

Has the underlying problem been identified and resolved yet?



"PA Bear [MS MVP]" wrote:

Try this:

1. Start | Run | (type in) CMD | [OK]

2. In the Command box, carefully type the following, hitting ENTER after
typing each line:

• net stop wuauserv [ENTER]

• rmdir c:\windows\softwaredistribution /s [ENTER]

• net start wuauserv [ENTER]

3. Close the Command window and Reboot.
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Desktop Experience - since 2002
AumHa VSOP & Admin http://aumha.net
DTS-L http://dts-l.net/


Chuck wrote:
Abruptly on Thursday (5/8/2008) my wife's laptop, a 16 month-old dual-core
ThinkPad with XP SP2, began an extended run at 100% CPU like many of the
other incidents described in this article, most notably that of MoosieAZ.
I
traced the problem to an instance of the svchost.exe process and am
dismayed
to report that it finally retired into the background after 47 minutes of
CPU time. Further, it executed several hundred BILLION I/O Read Bytes.
Yep, MINUTES and BILLIONS. I can't possibly imagine what operation could
consume such resources and still run to apparent completion. Seems like a
process that asks "Are these few/dozen/hundreds DLLs up to date?" should
be
able to answer that question in a mere fraction of the time . . . and
resources.

This behavior repeated itself everytime she restarted the laptop. (This
occurs frequently, since her habit is to turn off the machine when she's
done with any usage session. I realize some pain could be avoided by
leaving the laptop running, but that's not the point.) After several 47
minute cycles on subsequent start-ups, the computer seemed to have been
happy with the work it performed and, per the System Event Log, indicated
that about a dozen Office 2003 updates were SCHEDULED for installation at
3:00 a.m. on 5/10/2008. Most of the updates seemed to be security
related.

We left the laptop on over night so it could plow through the 3:00 a.m.
installation, which logs indicate it accomplished successfully, though I
have no CPU or I/O stats to report.

I thought we were clear of the problem, but the same 100% CPU behavior
began
again this morning (Sunday, 5/11/2008). Armed with a little more
knowledge
of the potential culprit, I was able to confirm that a svchost.exe
instance
was indeed racking up the CPU and I/O, the former of which rivaled the
System Idle Process. From Process Explorer (procexp.exe) I confirmed that
'wuauserv' was a member of the svchost instance and was able to
successfully
kill 'wuauserv'. The system recovered in a matter of seconds and the
computer returned to its normal responsiveness.

I can confirm that KB 927891 was delivered on 5/23/2007, not too long
after
the initial post on this thread and presumably as a result of Windows
Update
performing properly. I'm not certain whether it was successfully
installed,
though. The KB927891.log file indicates fourteen files were copied, but
the
log also contains twenty consecutive lines of "KB927891 encountered an
error: The update.ver file is not correct." near the beginning and
scattered other "failure" messages throughout.

Regarding any updating of Windows Update Agent to 3.0, I can only report
the
dates and internal versions of the following "wuau..." files in
C:\Windows\System32:

wuauclt.exe 07/30/2007 07:19 PM 7.0.6000.381
(winmain(wmbla).070730-1740)
wuauclt1.exe 05/26/2005 08:16 AM 5.8.0.2469 built by:
lab01_n(wmbla)
wuaueng.dll 07/30/2007 07:19 PM 7.0.6000.381
(winmain(wmbla).070730-1740)
wuaueng1.dll 05/26/2005 08:16 AM 5.8.0.2469 built by:
lab01_n(wmbla)
wuauserv.dll 08/04/2004 08:00 AM 5.4.3790.2180
(xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)

I present this information in as much detail as I can muster because it
seems our symptoms align well with described problem, but it disturbs me
that most of the posts on this thread date back to May 2007. I would have
expected that Microsoft would have resolved the problem in less that
twelve
months. The laptop has been on Automatic Updates since shortly after we
received it, although I only installed Office 2003 on it a few weeks ago.

I am reluctant to proceed with the (re?)installation of KB 927891 and
update
to Windows Update Agent 3.0 described earlier because it seems like it is
old guidance. How do we get this problem resolved?


.

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