svchost.exe 99% CPU Win XP SP3

[Samson]

Hi Shane,

Problems with Win XP SP3, same problem on all 3 machines at our house following recent "Patch Tuesday". No updates were shown, downloaded or installed.

svchost.exe running at 99% CPU, tried your Repair Windows Updates tool, logs attached, the only way to have a usable machine at the moment is to set  wuauserv to disabled. It's a workaround, but obviously I'm not keeping these machines up to date with security fixes.

Any help appreciated, thanks.

Samson.

[Samson]

Hi Shane,

Can you mark this thread as fixed/ locked.

All is well again, updates downloaded and installed on all machines 

I guess Microsoft's servers were overloaded, the 10th anniversary of "Patch Tuesday" was never going to run smoothly 

Samson.

[Shane]

Next time that happens write down what PID number it has int he task manager. Then run my tool here
http://www.tweaking.com/content/page/tweaking_com_svchost_exe_lookup_tool.html

Then you can see which services are attached to that pid and help find out which one was taking so much CPU

Shane

[Samson]

From memory it was PID 1020 RpcSs

All is well now, I have heard many other people have had the same problem since Tuesday's updates, but now they are able to get the updates.

Thanks Shane.

[Samson]

Hi Shane,

Problem of svchost.exe at 99% has returned. It only happens when auto updates are turned on or I try to update manually. This is a clean install of XP Pro SP3 with IE8

I have enclosed the log from your svchost.exe Lookup Tool, the PID is 1020

When I turn off auto updates svchost.exe returns to 0%

Samson

[Shane]

That is common in XP, Windows updates takes full cpu of a core when checking for updates

--------------------------------------------------------------
Service Display Name: Automatic Updates
Service: wuauserv
PID: 1020
Path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs
--------------------------------------------------------------

SO say you have a dual core system it will show 50% instead because it is using only one core. But if your on a single core cpu then it will show 99%.

That is one of the reasons I turn off automatic updates in XP and just do them manually. Microsoft releases updates on the 2nd Tuesday of every month

Shane

[Samson]

Hi Shane,

Thanks, Yes I usually update manually every "Patch Tuesday"....I guess with this laptop I'll just leave it updating manually overnight as there will be tonnes of updates due for it.

Thanks for your help, knowledge and reassurance. I'll post back and let you know how it goes

Samson.

[Samson]

Hi Shane,

Success, 128 updates later....All done, problem solved   

Thanks again,

Samson.

[Shane]

Good to hear, also possible one of those updates might have fixed that ol 99% cpu thing as well

Shane