Help me, Obi Windows Kenobi!

[cyclonekj]

Can any of you Windows gurus tell me how to get my system running normally again? There are several occurrences of "svchost.exe" running on my machine, which I believe are used by Windows. One of them hogs almost all the system resources until I kill it with Ctrl-Alt-Del, End Process. My CPU is then freed up, things run normally again, and that occurrence of svchost stays away until the next reboot. Also, I believe the resource stealing starts when I launch Firefox (or at least that's when I notice).

Anyone know what causes this? How to fix it?

Thanks in advance!

[isucyfan]

This is pretty helpful:

What is svchost.exe And Why Is It Running? :: the How-To Geek

Basically, it's not uncommon to have a bunch of svchost.exe processes running. One is hogging your resources, and this might help you identify which one.

I also wonder if you may have spyware...

[Jeremy]

Usually you'll see quite a few svchost processing running, as said above. The problem becomes when a program or service doesn't adequately release memory, something FireFox is known to have a problem with.

If you only notice the problem after running FireFox, chances are it's having it's known issues on your PC. Are you running 3.0?

If you've tried updating FireFox and installing all of the latest Windows Updates, you should check for viruses, spyware, adware, etc as some of those can use svchost processes for connections.

[cyclonekj]

This is pretty helpful:

What is svchost.exe And Why Is It Running? :: the How-To Geek

Basically, it's not uncommon to have a bunch of svchost.exe processes running. One is hogging your resources, and this might help you identify which one.

I also wonder if you may have spyware...

I had actually seen that very article before, but didn't have any luck with Process Explorer in XP. I downloaded it and when I tried to run it, I was thrown into Task Manager. Maybe I'll try again.

I've run Adaware and Spybot. They say I'm clean.

[1100011CS]

Firefox usually isn't the culprit. It's usually an add-on. Try removing or disabling all your add-ons. If that works, reinstall/re-enable them one-by-one until you find the offender.

[cyclonekj]

Usually you'll see quite a few svchost processing running, as said above. The problem becomes when a program or service doesn't adequately release memory, something FireFox is known to have a problem with.

If you only notice the problem after running FireFox, chances are it's having it's known issues on your PC. Are you running 3.0?

If you've tried updating FireFox and installing all of the latest Windows Updates, you should check for viruses, spyware, adware, etc as some of those can use svchost processes for connections.

I'm running 3.0, but I've had this issue since before I upgraded. I'm running Avast and have run and will run a couple of the online virus scanners and a couple adware scanners.

Process Explorer is now working, so I'll also reboot and check that out.

[cyclonekj]

I've disabled all add-ons and rebooted. CPU usage of svchost spikes when data is being transferred, like when I click on a link, but drops after the new page loads. Improvement, but not 100% cured.

Process Explorer shows that it is the DNS client. Any ideas?

[superdorf]

Hm... If you read through this:
Neowin Forums > SVCHOST taking up 99% CPU usage

One of the things to check is your HOSTS file. If it is large it can cause a slow down.

Another thing to try is to disable the DNS Client, in services.msc.