When I do a windows update, and it scans my comp for needed updates, my svchost.exe goes upto 100% CPU usage!

I have never seen this before, and never seen svchost do this on windows update.

Any ideas?

Use Dial-A-Fix to "Fix Windows Updates" and see if that works. There's lots of information on Google about this as well as MSFN, as it's not the first time someone has asked about this.

WU uses the Automatic Update service which is started with the following command:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs

Here you go.

What'd you expect, 0%?

I mean, it's doing something, so I wouldn't mind if the CPU usage went up as it was checking.

If it stays at 100% and slows down the system afterwards, then it's a problem.

The scary part is it looks like Blaster.

If you download something like Process Explorer, you can see what system call is using the most CPU time - assuming you've configured your symbol path variable, of course:

To use the Microsoft Symbol Server

1. Make sure you have installed the latest version of Debugging Tools for Windows.

2. Decide where to store the downloaded symbols (the "downstream store"). This can be a local drive or a UNC path.

3. Set the debugger symbol path as follows, substituting your downstream store path for DownstreamStore.

SRV*DownstreamStore*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols

For example, to download symbols to c:\websymbols, you would add the following to your symbol path:

SRV*c:\websymbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols

Been doing a lot of searching, found this:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309615/en-us

anyone know of a fix before I have to go through th epain of contacting MS support...which they probably wont help me with as my copy of XP is OEM.

I experienced the same problem on all my PCs at home. Every time I'd start up my gaming system and jump right into a game, it would start stuttering like crazy after a short while to the point where the game was unplayable. Five minutes later all would be okay.

On my Media system, I'd turn that on, load up a DVD and the first 5 minutes of the DVD were unwatchable due to stuttering.

It had gotten to the point where I was really fed up with this and I started investigating. I noticed CPU was at 100% during the "Stuttering" mainly caused by one of the SVCHOST.EXE. I used ProcessExplorer and found the culprit to be "Automatic Updates."

I have since then disabled automatic updates on all my systems.

To the guy that said "what did you expect, 0%?" Why does a process have to take up 100% the first 5 minutes at the power on. Why didn't M$ give this service a lower priority? I mean, it's rediculous... You boot up your PC to "quickly" do something. Next thing you know your stuck waiting for for Windows Update to finish.

Recently the company I work for moved to SMS2003. Now were experiencing the same issues on a LOT of client PCs. SMS uses Automatic Upates as well to install SMS updates. Some user's can't use there PC's for 2 days after updates have been spread via SMS. The SMS team have tweaked some settings and for most people its okay now, but there's still problems with some PCs having 100% CPU usage.

I suggest you disable Automatic Updates service and manually install the updates if you permanently want to get rid of the problem.

Good luck,

'nuff

While I agree this is not normal, I have to reply to this:

Why didn't M$ give this service a lower priority?

In Vista, this service is a delayed service : it starts after the computer has fully booted.

Theres a Discussion about this here

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=80372

and

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=82932

Personally i have yet to try the patch

Edited December 29, 200619 yr by glent

Tried the patch and didnt make any difference!

I deceided to leave windows update running, and it did complete....without problems, svchost.exe went through the roof, but stopped wen updats had finsihed scanning...weird.

stopped wen updats had finsihed scanning

Nothing to worry about.