EPIA M10000 CPU usage by SVCHOST.EXE

**Bugbyte** · 05-12-2005, 04:54 PM

My Via M10000 works quite well for what I use it for but on occasion it "bogs down" and runs very slowly. That is, it is very sluggish to respond to touchscreen inputs and menu commands etc.

It usually clears up after a minute or two and its more of an annoyance than anything else. However, today I had the performance monitor in the task manager running to see how much of the CPU I was consuming when doing voice recognition and noticed that the usage would spike at 100% for a period of time, then fall back for a short period, then jump back up. It continued this for a few minutes and then fell back to the 20% range and operated normally without the big spikes.

During this time, I managed to switch to the processes running and it turns out the "svchost.exe" was the process eating up all of the time. I presume this is some kind of Windows XP thread management process but I really don't know.

My question is, what is the function of this program and does anyone have any ideas how to lighten it's load on the processor?

**marshallh** · 05-12-2005, 05:48 PM

Hi,
The SVCHOST exe is a program built into windows 2000 and XP that acts as a container for the various DLL services (like disk and network management.) The problem doesn't lie in the EXE, but the services that it is hosting.
You can see some of the servicse your XP machine is running with this:
Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services

Some are mandatory for Windows execution bu some just take of memory (like the Messenger service.)

Marshall

**numbers** · 05-13-2005, 05:19 PM

The most likely cause for the spikes is malware. As it is working through svchost.exe, I would say a worm would be most suspect.

**Bugbyte** · 05-13-2005, 07:18 PM

Crap. You're probably right. I'm normally a Mac guy, my work PC is uber protected but I haven't properly protected the CarPC because I don't often spend a lot of time connected to the net with it. However, it has spent reasonable amounts of time running in the house while connected via WiFi.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll bet I find BAD THINGS on it.

**WebDog** · 05-13-2005, 07:37 PM

Try running the microsoft ainti spyware, its free ms.com search adware.

**Mad Ad** · 05-15-2005, 08:17 PM

have you disabled indexing? (AKA stupid resource hog that activates when it feels like it)

right click+properties on all yoru drives in my computer and untick allow indexing service blah blah, ignore anything it cant manage. Also you can disable it in services, start+run+type services.msc and choose disable in the dropdown for the indexing service.

**Bugbyte** · 05-15-2005, 08:49 PM

No, I haven't. Good suggestion. I'll do that.

I'll be running the malware software on tomorrow morning's work run. I'll let you know what I find out.