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    SVCHost going wild

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by skogkatt, Apr 6, 2009.

  1. skogkatt

    skogkatt Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hi,

    I have troubles with svchost eating 50% (or a full core) of CPU. I can see that two services depending on this svchost instances are plugandplay and DCOM. With another tool (Process explorer) I could find that back thoses services were sometimes bluetoothstack, windows synchro, or just nothing.

    Troubles happened after I upgraded two drivers from Dell website: Webcam and GeForce. I have now the latest instances from Dell.

    Grafic driver seems quite old to me (11/2008). Any advice against using the nVidia driver (from nvidia website)?

    Other ideas to solve this issue?

    Thanks for for help.
     
    skogkatt, Apr 6, 2009
    #1
  2. BatBoy

    BatBoy Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Would be helpful if you told us what OS and system specs you have...
     
    BatBoy, Apr 6, 2009
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  3. Redlance

    Redlance Notebook Consultant

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    umm.. just for fun.. have you updated windows lately? might run a good trojan scanner. as svchost is often used by the backdoor zombie type trojan.
     
    Redlance, Apr 6, 2009
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  4. skogkatt

    skogkatt Notebook Enthusiast

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    Oops...Sorry, just realized I have no signature on this forum (yet).

    So it's an XPS 1530, with Vista Ultimate SP1.

    I can try to run Defender, but I'm quite paranoid (firewall on d-link router + comodo on my machine). Coming back with the result tonight.

    EDIT Vista 32 bit Ultimate SP1
     
    skogkatt, Apr 6, 2009
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  5. krionX

    krionX Notebook Evangelist

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    It's happening to me as well. (Studio XPS 1640, P8600, 4GB RAM, WinVista Home Premium 64). There are times when SVCHost would just take ~50% CPU usage.

    I have all the latest Dell-provided drivers and Windows Update files available installed on my machine. Also I'm 100% sure I don't have any spyware/virus/malware/trojan/worm/etc. on my notebook.

    Early today I checked Task Manager and saw svchost.exe's CPU time to be around 5 hours. (PC has been on for about 28 hours)


    I managed to get the list of services associated with that 50% svchost.exe process on my machine. I'll post more details when I get home later.
     
    krionX, Apr 6, 2009
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  6. BatBoy

    BatBoy Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    If you have Dell MediaDirect installed, go to your Startup Items (you can use CCLeaner (Tools Menu) or use MSConfig from the Windows Run Command. DISABLE PCMService. This is used by MediaDirect but not needed. It has caused High CPU utilization in the past.

    Do you have GoogleUpdate installed? If so, disable it.

    Also, as Redlance mentioned, be sure you have run Windows Update recently.
     
    BatBoy, Apr 7, 2009
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  7. krionX

    krionX Notebook Evangelist

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    I narrowed down the list of services running under svchost.exe which causes it to eat 50% of the CPU resource. It can be one or more of the following services:

    1. Superfetch
    2. Desktop Window Manager Session Manager
    3. Windows Driver Foundation - User-mode Driver Framework


    I suspect it's Superfetch. When I try to disable the service, it went to the "stopping" mode/state indefinitely. After that I had to restart my machine.
     
    krionX, Apr 8, 2009
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  8. BatBoy

    BatBoy Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    You should leave Superfetch enabled. It learns over time what you frequently access and helps to cache certain apps, etc.

    The drive access is most evident on a new install of vista - but, your choice.
     
    BatBoy, Apr 8, 2009
    #8