100% cpu usage in windows xp?

[legacyfan]

recently ive noticed that on my laptop running windows xp svchost uses 100% cpu all the time and ive found no way of fixing the problem if any one could help with this it would be much appriciated

Edited December 15, 2022 by legacyfan

[NotHereToPlayGames]

That is generally a required process.

But you could have something "piggybacking" that process (I don't recall the correct term).

Show a screencap of your Task Manager's "Processes" tab and I bet there is something else running that looks "suspicious".

[legacyfan]

here is the screenshot you requested that one svchost is using 21.424k usage

Edited June 4, 2021 by legacyfan

[NotHereToPlayGames]

I'd also look at what "services" you have running.

I seem to recall that a small handful of services show up as "svchost.exe".

[NotHereToPlayGames]

1 minute ago, legacyfan said:

here is the screenshot you requested (this was taken with lightshot)

Next time you see it at 100%, see if mscorsvw is running - if so, you have a .net process updating or even "optimizing itself", axe it and see if svchost's percentage drops.

As a rule of thumb, I axe anything called "updater".

[NotHereToPlayGames]

After a few reads on mscorsvw, your configuration has the operating system "optimizing your machine to launch apps faster".

I would seek out that configuration setting and disable it.

"Optimizations" going on behind your back is never a good thing, IMO.

 

I'll add that once it took me three days to figure out why an online radio station would have choppy audio.

The culprit there turned out to be the disk drive "defragmenting" itself behind my back - I no longer allow disk drives to "defragment" behind my back.

Edited June 4, 2021 by ArcticFoxie

[legacyfan]

is their any way to completely disable that service? also thanks in advanced for all your help its good to know i can always turn to this forum for help in a dire situation like this

Edited December 15, 2022 by legacyfan

[NotHereToPlayGames]

Not in my experience.

There's SEVERAL services that run in the background that are "required" but only show up in Task Manager as "svchost".

You may have more services running than you need.

[NotHereToPlayGames]

If you can isolate to mscorsvw, here is a good read as to what it is doing  --  https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/wondering-why-mscorsvw-exe-has-high-cpu-usage-you-can-speed-it-up/

[NotHereToPlayGames]

My XP x64 has two ".NET Runtime Optimization Service" services listed in Computer Management -> Services.

I have them BOTH DISABLED.

[Dixel]

 What is that suspicious updater.exe process ? Even two of them !

[Dave-H]

A shot in the dark, but is Automatic Windows Update enabled?
I seem to remember that scanning for updates could result in a very long running svchost process running and using a lot of CPU time.
As Windows Update no longer works on XP, I'd disable it anyway if it isn't disabled.

[RainyShadow]

Run Process Explorer.

Double-click the svchost process which is torturing the CPU.

Select the Services tab to see which services are running in the process.

Stop those services one by one until you find which one is responsible for this.

Edited June 5, 2021 by RainyShadow

[Dave-H]

Good idea!

Bear in mind that version 16.12 of Process Explorer is the last one which works properly on XP.

[dmiranda]

21 hours ago, legacyfan said:

is their any way i can completely disable that service? also thanks for all your help its good i can always turn to this forum for help-legacyfan

Try p-serv - http://p-nand-q.com/download/pserv_cpl/index.html. I have version 2,7 running since forever, and it works like a charm. I haven't tried newer versions, but would like to know if someone is running them