svchost.exe taking up 90%+ of cpu

[lacelru]

On my wife's laptop whenever it starts up after a minute or two one of the several running svchost.exe starts taking up all the cpu and 180mbs or more of ram. This makes it so its near impossible to run anything else. This can be fixed temporarily by shutting it down via task manager but I'm looking for a permanent solution. There are other problems like the sound no longer working or the dvd drive. It no longer detects the local network and the wireless internet doesn't want to work half the time on it. I'm posting this from my desktop pc.

I've included the HJT log from her laptop. Hopefully someone can help me know where to start on fixing this problem. Since its not my PC I have no idea what most of the stuff she has running on it or any clue what should or shouldn't be there (if the problem was with my pc i wouldn't be so lost).

 

[kitty500cat]

Hi lacelru. Welcome to TechSpot! :wave:

There's a program called xpicons running that could be causing the problem.

Go into Add/Remove Programs in your Control Panel and uninstall xpicons.

Please post here if this solves or does not solve the problem.

Regards

 

[lacelru]

That program wasn't listed under the add/remove programs so I just had hijackthis fix/remove it. I rebooted and did a new scan and don't think I saw it anymore. After about a minute the svchost.exe started using up all the cpu again though.

I've included the new log.

 

[MMDominator88]

I have heard/read posts about automatic updates checking for updates and making svchost.exe use all of the CPU...What some of the recommendations said were to go to the windows update site, go to the options tab on the left and disable the "microsoft" updates, yet still keep the automatic updates on for "windows" applications. Restart the comp. and tell me if this helps at all .......

*EDIT lacelru, how long has it been since you've updated your java version........

 

[kitty500cat]

You might try this first.

Go start-->run, type in cmd. Press Enter.

When the black window appears, type in tasklist /svc >C:\stuff.txt

Then please post C:\stuff.txt as an attachment into this thread.

Regards

 

[ZWERVER]

ok,
1 disable automatic updates
2 restart computer in safe mode
3 deleate all files and folders from c:/windows/temp
4 restart computer in normal mode
5 run updates manualy

(svchost.exe runs CPU on 90% when try to update microsoft outlook office filter.)

succes

 

[lacelru]

It seems the problem was indeed with the windows update.

I disabled the updates on the windows update site and switched the settings on the laptop to notify when updates were ready instead of automatically updating (what it was set to before). It seems to have fixed the problem.

The sound and network/internet on it seem to be working fine now too. I believe they were being stopped by what my wife had been using as a fix (disabling the svchost in the taskmanager window).

Thanks for all the help.

 

[kitty500cat]

That's cool. Thanks for letting us know it worked out for you.

Regards

 

[zipperman]

Yes my thanks too

I never did know what it was for.:suspiciou
I disable it in Msconfig/Selective startup
too. But will definitly keep useing your method or turned off.
It's easy to drop by when you want to see whats new.

 

[MMDominator88]

Good luck on your future endeavors

 

[Geekgirl]

the problem you're describing is happening frequently where I work. We've figured out that it's an issue with one of the MS updates to Office 2003. It creates an infinite loop, looking for updates over and over again. Disabling svchost works for a bit, but it also disables lots of necessary DLLs (as you've seen.) MS has released a hotfix for the issue, which really just makes the updates a lower priority. They're going to "fix" the problem in the next couple of weeks. Good luck!

 

[DelJo63]

there's an update to the MSI (installer) program that reports this symptom.
see kb927891