svhost: what is it doing ?

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D

doh

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Jul 9, 2012
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Hi,

It's been a while since my last post - not that I haven't had questions !

I've had a few problems with my PCs recently but this post doesn't really concern them. This is more of discussion opener.

I've been using an 'old' clone (May.2016) to boot my PC from recently. This boots and runs very well.

Once it has settled into Windows XP/SP3 Home, after a few minutes, the CPU runs at 100% or so with a process, according to windows task manager, svhost.exe I know this is some kind of proxy process for another program (?). How do I find out what that is, so I know how to stop it and release the CPU ? I don't really want to use procmon because that entails wading through the literally thousands of entries (I am sure I don't how to use it).

The only application I am running is speedfan, which seems to take <1% of CPU

doh !
24.February.2017

Compaq Presario S5160UK DT261A (Celeron 2.7 GHz 2x1GB RAM) - MSI MS6577 v2.1- XP/SP3
GeForce Ge7800GS in AGP slot
 
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svchost running heavy can be an indication of a virus. It's sort of a catchall program that covers a lot of sub processes, and viruses like to disguise themselves as one of these sub processes. It doesn't hurt to kill a svchost process that is being greedy. Sometimes explorer will need to restart but most of the time nothing happens other than the CPU load drops. Personally I'd say it's time to upgrade your PC to something that can run windows 7 which is far more secure (still supported by MS)
 
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Also an old computer running updates can have svhost take all the memory and CPU cycles. We had issues as work of old "forgotten" machines with 2GB of RAM that would jam up for hours every time a update would try to fire on Windows 7.
 
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Thank you both, t53186 and grimfox
->t53186 :I found the post you referenced interesting, specially the bit about services, but on services, I am as much in the drk about whether I can safely stop a serice as whether I can stop svhost !!
->grimfox my kind of solution: just stop the offending process ! However, stopping window explorer sometimes results in the loss of the taskbar and hence loss of control of your programs as you cannot switch from one to another and the windows icon is also lost ! I have got W7 systems (but no W10 systems: I've got a Linux flash drive but have still only kept telling myself I ought to learn Linux !)but I like to my XP system up because it has both useful date and programs on it

Doh!
24.February.2017
 
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->MCMunroe I believe that that in unsurprising as I think even running on 2GB of RAM is pushing it ! Even starting Windows 7, on an as supplied HP laptop (thus running lots of unnecessary tasks) takes up about 4GB of RAM. Also your old machines probably haven't got the CPU and bus speeds of the 'core' and newer CPUs. Yes updates do take a while, but not as long as you describe !

-> All During the time taken to prepare my OP I checked my CPU usage and it had fallen back to close to 0; but I had feared a permanent condition :) as with some USB ejections - device is busy, etc. Interesting information though (at least for me)

Doh!
24.February.2017
 
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It's not foolproof. When I was running XP I wasn't running anything terribly critical, games, browsers, music, and MS word. So it wasn't much of a bother if explorer stopped working or the PC crashed. I could just restart. That's not always a viable solution.
 
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I already have that; I run AVG anti-virus (free) all the time

doh !
24.February.2017
 
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So I believe.....but I don't whether I want to keep some (many ?) of things it finds because IDK what they are ! (pups, notably) I haven't got the patience to look through the dozens of things it does find either - when have used the program in past I have therefore selected 'remove all' or whatever the corresponding option is and been 'lucky'. Of course I made a back up of the registry, not that I know what to do with that if something went wrong.....

You see IDK how things really work; it's got so complicated I doubt if anyone knows all the details...or they're not saying.

Doh !
25.February.2017
 
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