MG wrote:
I've read many posts regarding the lengthy start-up issues
associated with svchost and MS updates - mine appears somewhat
different. After booting up, and after all services have started,
my machine runs through cycles of CPU - viewed on Task Manager
these spkies are typically around 40% of CPU, sometimes higher,
and are occurring on a very consistent cycle, around every 6-8
seconds. This happens even with nothing open on my machine.
I've run all the scans to check for viruses and spyware. I can
see that these processes running are within svchost.exe and/or
services.exe. I've tried shutting down everything that is in my
startup and the problem still exists. This cycling of CPU goes on
non-stop, all the time. As it eats CPU on these cycles, other
processes are now affected - example, a full virus scan now takes
about twice as long as it used to. As there are tons of tasks
running within svchost, I have no idea how to narrow this down.
I'm running XP Home/SP2 and have applied all updates
automatically. Any ideas?
Shenan Stanley wrote:
If you are going to repost the same question you have had going
for 8+ days now in microsoft.public.windowsupdate with many
responses and many things tried - it would be in your favor as
well as everyone elses to at least make note that this has been
posted elsewhere and they can review what has been attempted he
http://groups.google.com/group/micro...4b36d3b71d1636
After all - you did not change the subject nor the body of the
message to reflect anything tried (knowing what doesn't work is as
important in troubleshooting as finding what does.)
MG wrote:
Well thank you so much for your help. I'm on this forum becasue
I'm not a technical guru. I happen to have an issue that I've
posted on more forums than I care to mention, I've followed endless
ideas and thoughts, and spent many hours reading other posts, all
to no avail. So I guess I could have had everyone who wanted to
help trudge down that incredibly long path of attempts which didn't
work. Quite simply, I wanted some fresh ideas, and if they
happened to be things I've already tried, I simply would have let
them know. At least the rest of the respondents have attempted to
help me in some way rather than provide me a lesson on process.
Shenan Stanley wrote:
I'm sorry you believe that the people here who volunteer to help would not
do so if they had to read something. I am sorry you believe that was me
trying to teach you a lesson and not what it actually was: to help you
further by getting the people who frequent only this particular newsgroup
and not the other(s) you may have posted this to a heads up on what has
been
tried and failed.
Give those who frequent the groups and volunteer their time and knowledge
without compensation a little credit. They don't help you by knowing
parts
of the story. You get a fresh perspective just by posting where new
people
can see it - but having these new people possibly jump to through the same
hoops you've already been through simply because you did not want to add a
tag-line of, "I have been trying to get help in
microsoft.public.windowsupdate , but we have run a little dry on ideas and
I
hope someone can help me here - if you wish to see what we have done -
feel
free to look:
http://groups.google.com/group/micro...4b36d3b71d1636
.." seems to be leaving out important information to me. I am sorry you
do
not see it that way.
I see in the other thread you were requested to uninstall the McAfee
firewall.
I'll go a step further - uninstall anything McAfee related...
Once you have done that - do this (and yes - I know you have installed the
latest version of Windows Update and the patch for the SVCHOST issue
before - but this is a step-by-step thing - not just that... It just so
happens you will have to do that again at the end of the process.):
Get Dial-a-Fix:
http://wiki.djlizard.net/Dial-a-fix
Use its options to fix:
- Windows Installer
- Windows Update
- All the Registration Center options.
Turn off the "Empty System32\Catroot 2"
Do NOT do "Flush SoftwareDistribution".
Then click "GO" and wait until it is done... Reboot.
- Download/Install Windows Update v3.
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=91237
You *WILL* want to install it using the command line switch "/wuforce"
right
after a reboot - immediately after logging in.
- Download/Install the 927891 patch.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...9-404327772E5A
- Reboot.
Come back - let us know!
MG wrote:
OK - first, I've gotten your point on all the volunteers, so please, no
more
lectures. One thing you must also understand is for folks like me, who
don't
know much about PC's, these forums at times offer lots of advice from
folks,
quite honestly, that are unknowns to those of us getting the advice. So
as
is the case here - I need to understand the "why" portion a bit better.
Your
advice to uninstall everything McAfee - why? This is my virus protection
for
my machine currently. It has also been on my machine for several years,
so
why a problem now? If I uninstall, I have no virus protection - right?
McAfee was provided via my ISP, which has since change hands - Comcast to
Time Warner - so my ability to reload McAfee if I need to is not that
easy.
So I'll offer a little advice of my own - it would he helpful when
offering
the advice to help folks like me, which I do appreciate, is to provide a
little more of "why" we are supposed to just somewhat blindly follow the
instructions. Just as the case here, if I'm going to uninstall my virus
software, I need to know why I should just go out and do that. You should
understand that I've also spent many hours reading and following the
advice
which is yet still not resolved my issue. So while I do appreciate the
hours
folks like you volunteer to do this, please understand that I've gone down
a
very long path so far in making changes, installing software, rebooting
gazillion times and so on. As such, I'm now seeing a another lengthy list
of
tasks to perform, starting with removing my virus protection --- so I just
need to know why I would do that...
It is not a lecture - it is common courtesy and helpful advice on how to get
the best answers to *your* problems.
McAfee and other antivirus applications - particular McAfee and Norton - are
particularly intrusive and install themselves into many places and ways that
cause your system resources to be taxed more than normal. Just because you
have used McAfee for 'years' does not mean that some round of updates, some
virus definition or something else it automatically updated (or you manually
updated) could not have conflicted with other software on your computer or
just be 'defective'. You lose nothing but time uninstalling it - and you
have been working on this for over 11 days - so that is obviously not a
concern at this juncture.
I seldom recommend the McAfee line of products or the Norton line of home
products for home machine virus protection because of their track record. I
do not speak out against them - but I give many free options that are as
good or better and generally use less system resources in doing their jobs.
The fact is - you could be infested with all sorts of malware and not know
it right now. The problem may/may not be related to McAfee. It could be a
hardware issue even. What is being attempted in this conversation and the
other thread you started is to get you to perform simple troubleshooting
steps to eliminate what isn't the problem. You are the ONLY ONE who can see
your system and we are left only with your descriptions and our knowledge of
other issues similar to yours we have either personally solved and/or done
the research for you and read about and are passing on to you by means of
getting you to eliminate possibilities...
So the short answer is that we cannot figure out what is wrong without
eliminating what *might* be the cause one possibility at a time. McAfee has
been known to cause performance issues... Eliminate that by uninstalling
it. Windows update and mal-registered DLLs and bum installs have been known
to cause issues - eliminate that next. After that - people may ask you more
questions about your system - asking for installation list, process lists,
startup lists, etc... However - it all depends on you working with us in
trying to figure this out - otherwise, you aren't asking for help - you are
just waiting for someone to give you the final answer. ;-)
If you want a suggestion for a better antivirus:
( Good Comparison Page for AV softwa
http://www.av-comparatives.org/ )
AVG Anti-Virus System (Free and up)
http://free.grisoft.com/
eset NOD32 (~$39.00 and up)
http://www.eset.com/products/
Kaspersky Anti-Virus (~$39.95 and up)
http://www.kaspersky.com/kav6
Trend Micro (~$44.95 and up)
http://www.trendmicro.com/en/products/desktop/tav/
(Free Online Scanner:
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/hous...start_corp.asp)
avast! (Free and up)
http://www.avast.com/
AntiVir (Free and up)
http://www.free-av.com/
Panda Antivirus Titanium (~$39.95 and up)
http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/antivirus2007.htm
(Free Online Scanner:
http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/)
Those are semi-"in the order" I would personally recommend them.
If you would like to scan your computer for spyware completely - to
eliminate that possibility:
SuperAntiSpyware (Free and up)
http://www.superantispyware.com/
Lavasoft AdAware (Free and up)
http://www.lavasoft.de/products/ad-a...e_personal.php
(How-to:
http://snipurl.com/atdn )
Spybot Search and Destroy (Free!)
http://www.safer-networking.net/en/download/
(How-to:
http://snipurl.com/atdk )
SpywareBlaster (Free!)
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/sbdownload.html
(How-to:
http://snipurl.com/ate6 )
A least get the freeware version of the first, update and perform a full
scan. It will take a while - but that is one of the better/more complete
antispyware applications in my opinion and should cover most things you
might possibly have.
You say you have 'ran all the checks for viruses and spyware' -- but
without details, we don't know if you have used any of the online virus
scanners (to eliminate yours being corrupted and not catching the issue) or
if you have used some of the tools we would in cleaning up your machine if
you were to bring it to us and pay one of us as a customer...
--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html