service host at 100%

**amyb** · May 10th, 2007, 09:22 AM

My husband's dell latitude is running very slowly. He see that service host is running at 100%. What can he do to alleviate this? Thanks

**NooNoo** · May 10th, 2007, 09:42 AM

Hi Amy

I guess you are talking about one of the myriad of svchost.exe running? First thing to do is to check whether this is a genuine svchost.exe running... check the spelling AND the capitlisation. Start, run, msconfig - is svchost shown in there? It shouldn't be!

No. 1 suspect is a masquerading malware.
Other causes are things like telephony gone screwy, but it takes a while to track these things down. Start with a full virus/spyware check and run hijack this and put it through www.hijackthis.de

**amyb** · May 10th, 2007, 10:06 AM

Yes, that's what I mean. If it's not capitalized does that mean it's a malware/virus? He did run a virus scan which revealed no virus.

**Ferrit** · May 10th, 2007, 10:22 AM

Make sure he runs an online virus and malware scan
www.bitdefender.com
www.ewido.com
Bottom left corner Scan Now

**NooNoo** · May 10th, 2007, 10:40 AM

svchost should be all lower case

**G Man** · May 11th, 2007, 01:30 AM

herro. I'm having the same trouble. However mine is a lil different, mine seems to only do it when outlook is open, and it does a send/receive.

Ending the process fixes it for a while, but the problem will resurface later.

THe PID for svchost.exe is 996.

I'm running those tests myself right now to see what it might be

**amyb** · May 11th, 2007, 06:16 AM

He did the M$ update and it hasn't occurred since then (but he went through the same last week). I urged him to do the online scan just to be on the safe side.

**scott** · May 11th, 2007, 07:24 AM

Have seen this on a few computers with auto updates on. Had to turn it off and do updates manually.

**davelar3212** · May 11th, 2007, 09:18 AM

This has been the best solution that worked for me.

Follow these steps:
APPLIES TO
1. Click Start, click Run, type REGSVR32 WUAPI.DLL, and then press ENTER.
2. When you receive the "DllRegisterServer in WUAPI.DLL succeeded" message, click OK.
3. Type the following commands in the Open box, one after the other, and then press ENTER after
each command:
REGSVR32 WUAUENG.DLL
REGSVR32 WUAUENG1.DLL
REGSVR32 ATL.DLL
REGSVR32 WUCLTUI.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS2.DLL
REGSVR32 WUWEB.DLL
1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then press ENTER.
2. At the command prompt, type net stop Wuauserv, and then press ENTER.
3. Click Start, click Run, type %windir%, and then press ENTER.
4. In the folder that opens, locate and rename the SoftwareDistribution folder to SDold.
5. At the command prompt, type net start Wuauserv, and then press ENTER to start the
Automatic Updates service.

**WebHead** · May 11th, 2007, 02:19 PM

Check out this thread:
http://forums.microsoft.com/WindowsO...36012&SiteID=2

Oh, btw... if you don't feel like reading that, just try disabling your automatic updates and see if that fixes.

And for further info, here is the definition of svchost:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314056

Also, from here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916089/

When you run Microsoft Windows Update to scan for updates or to apply updates to any applications that use Microsoft Windows Installer (MSI) 3.1 together with Windows Update, CPU utilization may reach 100 percent for prolonged periods. Additionally, you may receive the following error message in Event Viewer on a Microsoft Windows XP-based computer:

**G Man** · May 17th, 2007, 07:08 PM

Hey again guys. Back at work now (thats the computer the problem is on).

Am hesitant to try fixes re: windows update being the problem, coz I am able to end process the svchost causing the problems and all is good.

I have discovered however, that its the.... server? service? Or the workstation? Whichever allows me to browse shares on the network, coz I tried browsing to the server computer here with the \\'s and so on and it popped up with an error saying the service wasn't started.

So my problem is different then? Me confused.

**NooNoo** · May 18th, 2007, 04:25 AM

Exactly which service did it say wasn't started?

**G Man** · May 22nd, 2007, 12:15 AM

Well, I just checked and it's definetely the server service doing it. It only does it once each time I boot up, once outlook checks the server, I close the svchost instance, then the server service is no longer started and I have no more problems. Weird, hey?

**NooNoo** · May 22nd, 2007, 01:51 AM

You might want to try this hot fix While you don't get the actual error, it is tied to outlook and 100% cpu with svchost.

Otherwise you need to investigate with sysinternals tools what that svchost is actually controlling.

Edit link fixed.