I am overjoyed to see people discussing the Local Network SVCHOST. This has caused me no end of pain. The computer will not allow me to shut it down through Task Manager. It says that Access is Denied. I am an admin. Any suggestions?

On the subject of Proccesses running 99% of the CPU in WinXP, is it bad to right-click them in the Task Manager and lower their priority? That ended up being the solution when I had a problem with MCShield and its 99% CPU usage.

Maybe there's a chance that the screwy hijacker thinks it's still giving you a hard time but Windows is simply ignoring it thereby freeing up the computer for you? -The end of my WinXP story is not happy, but that was a victorious moment when I lowered the Priority....

That might also be a way to get around "Access is Denied" for you, BennettB. Don't make it disappear, just make it quiet.

Hi I am having the same problem were svchost is taking up all of my processor. And I was wondering how to look at each process running under this program.

Much information on svchost, the legit Windows programs that use it, viewing the programs that are using it, and how it can be compromised by a virus or other hack, can be found here:

http://ask-leo.com/archives/000105.html

Thanks for the link. FWIW I do try to keep that article, and several related to the same topic, up to date.

Enjoy,

Leo

Good to know Leo- thanks.

Hi All!!!

To resolve this problem:

Svchost.exe Takes 99% of CPU memory Usage

go to my Home and read the article!


Regards,

aSeptik

justsched.exe is certainly one culprit, but unfortunately, there are many more causes for excessive resource usage than the one given on your page.

I may have found the answer - this worked for me and took 2 min to sort the problem!

I found it here: http://www.it-digger.com/modules/new..._id=2&forum=14

This problem is caused by Microsoft Windows Installer 3.1 v2 (Msi.dll version 3.1.4000.2435) that tries to scan for Microsoft Office update.

There are a number of ways to correct this (bug)!! The following is what I did and it worked:

1. Go to the the Microsoft Update page: http://update.microsoft.com
2. Click 'Change settings' on the left tap
3. Click the option at the bottom of the page to disable microsoft update.

Once it was disabled, I rebooted and the problem was gone!!!

I am a happy boy!

Other solution:

-*- obtain the Microsoft updated version of Msi.dll (version 3.1.4000.2805)
(There is no link at the moment of writing this article you must contact Microsoft Product Support Services)!!!!!!

Dummy description of svchost.exe is that it acts as an agent for different applications. It fetches or gets its "manual" and does what it's told. This means that if its manual is corrupted ( due to some biterror somewhere along the path) it can loop, get nowhere, ask for more and more resources and never finish.
In that case it is possible to run msconfig from /Run and type "tasklist /svc" and figure out which processses that asks for its help, and by trial-and-error detect which process that is the cause of the problem. ( Important thing is that its not the process that calls svchost that is corrupted, most likely it is the "manual" it presents for svchost) Good ol' reinstallment of the application that runs the process is nr1 thing to do... if you detect the process that is.
Deleting the svchost.exe file will most likely not solve your problem and is neither advisable as it is being used by multiple applications on your system ranging from detecting network channels to displaying nice fonts..The problem is most likely not the svchost.exe itself.

The "manual" I mention is a .dll file

Case 2 is trickier:

Hackers can design a process or thread that calls svchost.exe to do certain instructions, then imediatly it will shut itself down, making it harder to detect it in tasklist, as the process is already terminated and maybe designed to cover its identity as even being seen as a process to the operating system.

Svchost.exe though has not terminated, it either does heavy amounts of work that leads to nowhere but eats resources ( picture you get put to dig a hole in the ground, and when it is deep enough , you are instructed to fill it), or it can easily enough be asked to ask CPU for loads of resources ( "o'boy mr CPU.. heavy shipment coming in, I need your full attention") but no work is ever being done. This can explain the reason why it jumps from 10% to100% back and forth. Regardless of the two ways a hacker can "trick" svchost.exe to do work w/o any goal other than to eat CPU resources, problem is still the fact that it gets initiated by a process or thread no longer running. If you can find a suspicious process in your pc, sure.. it might be it, but a virus program will never find these as it has no similarity to any virus. Format the computer and reinstall :/

For those who wants to see what happens when svchost.exe is deleted, when you get the Shutdown in 50 seconds timer, type shutdown -a in /Run to terminate the timer