svchost.exe Causing CPU to Run at 100%

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL

Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix

I tried to do a MSE update and it still bombed and gave me the message window I show in the post above this one. Rebooted the computer and tried MSE update again, and same failure and message.

OK, but what about the Windows Updates, do they work yet?

Just tried to do a Windows Update with a manual launch. It did come up with a list of updates to install. When I hit the "Install Updates" button, I saw a message flash for a second that said download failed, then it listed all the updates and said they were not installed. Went to the install history and all the failed updates had the following error code (which is different than the error code seen when I tried to update MSE definitions). Error Code: 0x80246008

OK, that error indicates a problem with BITS, which is the background process used to get your updates (which makes sense as to why both WU and MSE are failing to get them). There's another fix it (this is getting pretty funny!) for that here: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=910337 And if that doesn't work, please follow these steps: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916251 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883822

 

[ZeeOSix]

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL

Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix

Just tried to do a Windows Update with a manual launch. It did come up with a list of updates to install. When I hit the "Install Updates" button, I saw a message flash for a second that said download failed, then it listed all the updates and said they were not installed. Went to the install history and all the failed updates had the following error code (which is different than the error code seen when I tried to update MSE definitions). Error Code: 0x80246008

OK, that error indicates a problem with BITS, which is the background process used to get your updates (which makes sense as to why both WU and MSE are failing to get them). There's another fix it (this is getting pretty funny!) for that here: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=910337 And if that doesn't work, please follow these steps: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916251 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883822

I just found this Microsoft page, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/910337 ... and I did the first two steps (shown in italic below) to verify BITS settings as directed. Well, in the "Services" list BITS is not even listed! To verify that BITS is correctly configured and then start BITS, follow these steps: 1) Click Start, click Run, type services.msc, and then click OK. 2) Double-click Background Intelligent Transfer Service

 

[OVERKILL]

Figured that was probably the case. Follow those three KB's and you SHOULD be good to go, as they re-register it on the system.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL

Figured that was probably the case. Follow those three KB's and you SHOULD be good to go, as they re-register it on the system.

Will give that a try. Think KB 910337 isn't useful since BITS doesn't even show up in the Services list. So will try the other two KBs (916251 & 883822). Will report back ... hope this is the fix. Thanks for the help Overkill!

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL

Figured that was probably the case. Follow those three KB's and you SHOULD be good to go, as they re-register it on the system.

Will give that a try. Think KB 910337 isn't useful since BITS doesn't even show up in the Services list. So will try the other two KBs (916251 & 883822). Will report back ... hope this is the fix. Thanks for the help Overkill!

No problem. Keep me posted!

 

[ZeeOSix]

Good news ... it seems I have the problem fixed! MSE now downloads and installs a virus update normally, and Windows Updates also seems to work fine now. What finally seemed to fix the issue was following the fix procedure steps in "Method 1" in KB916251. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916251 It still takes Windows Updates a long time to analyze and come up with the updates, but maybe it's always been that way. I never really watched the CPU usage and watch scvhost.exe go to 99% before, but maybe it always has. I'm thinking that Windows Updates might have gotten corrupted along the line while trying to determine if scvhost.exe was messed up when this all started. Guess I'll never know. At least all seems back to normal. Overkill - thanks a bunch for your help!

 

[OVERKILL]

You are very welcome and I'm glad to hear that it is resolved And yes, it is completely normal for Windows Update to take a little while to analyze and come up with the list, and consume some CPU while it does it.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Just wanted to post the following information about Microsoft fixing the svchost.exe memory hog issue in XP. The link was sent to me my another board member - thanks! I find it kind of funny that Microsoft wanted to finally fix this issue when XP is going to be unsupported in a few months. http://redmondmag.com/articles/2014/01/16/windows-xp-resource-hog.aspx