Runaway SvcHost.exe on bootup

[rodommoc]

I have seen some things on the net but have not seen a fix for this.

On boot up my pc seems to hang or take a long time to finish booting. The desktop with icons comes up and the hourglass goes away but if I click a program such as Outlook or IE the pc takes a long time to respond. I bring up task manager and click the memory column and the first item is SVCHOST.exe and it is over 100megs. I can kill the process and my pc is fine with normal response times.

What is this process? Can I stop it from running at boot up? I have run CCLEANER, AdAware, Antivirus, Hijack this. I even uninstalled Office, All Java installs, .NET framework 1 2& 3, Disabled Automatic update & Windows update. I even added RAM figuring the more Ram I had the less this would impact my other programs. It grew with the added RAM.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Rodommoc

[[deXter]]

1. Click Start on the Windows taskbar, and then click Run.

2. In the Open box, type CMD, and then press ENTER.

3. Type TASKLIST /SVC, and then press ENTER

Check which svchost is causing the problems by opening the Task Manager and matching the PID shown there with the PID shown in TaskList.

Once you identify the proper svchost, take a look at the services that are being launched by that svchost. Disable all the services started by it and enable it one by one to isolate the exact service that's causing the problem.

[rodommoc]

svchost.exe

PID 1084

AudioEndpointBuilder

CscService

EMDMgmt

Netman

PcaSvc

SysMain

TabletInputService

TrkWks

UmRdpService

UxSms

WdiSystemHost

WPDBusEnum

wudfsvc

[[deXter]]

Copy-paste this into notepad and Save As something.bat ( choose All Files in the drop-down box). Run the batch file.

@echo off

net stop AudioEndpointBuilder
net stop CscService
net stop EMDMgmt
net stop Netman
net stop PcaSvc
net stop SysMain
net stop TabletInputService
net stop TrkWks
net stop UmRdpService
net stop UxSms
net stop WdiSystemHost
net stop WPDBusEnum
net stop wudfsvc

pause
net start AudioEndpointBuilder
pause
net start CscService
pause
net start EMDMgmt
pause
net start Netman
pause
net start PcaSvc
pause
net start SysMain
pause
net start TabletInputService
pause
net start TrkWks
pause
net start UmRdpService
pause
net start UxSms
pause
net start WdiSystemHost
pause
net start WPDBusEnum
pause
net start wudfsvc

After each Pause, a service is started. Wait for a service to load and check the memory usage. If its normal, then that's not the service. Keep starting the services and waiting till you get the service that's using up the memory.

[Sonic]

Disable Windows/Microsoft Update and check ...

[Zxian]

This is a well known problem with Microsoft Update having to parse certain XML files. Disable Microsoft Update and the problem should be gone.

Microsoft KB - The Automatic Updates service may stop responding

[cluberti]

Guys - the svchost he's talking about ISN'T THE WINDOWS UPDATE SVCHOST. His best bet is to break out all of the services inside that svchost into their own svchost_<servicename> services and see which one _specifically_ starts chewing up virtual bytes.

[Rothiseph]

Copy-paste this into notepad and Save As something.bat ( choose All Files in the drop-down box). Run the batch file.

......

After each Pause, a service is started. Wait for a service to load and check the memory usage. If its normal, then that's not the service. Keep starting the services and waiting till you get the service that's using up the memory.

Thanks for that batch code man, I'm suffering the same problem with this ridiculous svchost.exe taking up over 60,000K, seemingly doing nothing. I tried out this file as you suggested, and believe I've found the renegade service to be 'SysMan' aka 'Superfetch'.

IRONICALLY, in Process Explorer, it explains that the service "Maintains and improves system performance over time". Good job there Vista.. there's no point having a 2 Gig RAM laptop if rubbish like this keeps taking it all up!

Anyway, what would your advice be now? Just disable that SysMan thing and see if it works? I'm not sure if it would make long-term system performance suffer as a result, though.. guess I could just always shut down instead of putting the comp to sleep. It just seems a pain in the neck for an svchost process to be taking up such an amount of RAM, when it has so little to do..

[[deXter]]

Copy-paste this into notepad and Save As something.bat ( choose All Files in the drop-down box). Run the batch file.

......

After each Pause, a service is started. Wait for a service to load and check the memory usage. If its normal, then that's not the service. Keep starting the services and waiting till you get the service that's using up the memory.

Thanks for that batch code man, I'm suffering the same problem with this ridiculous svchost.exe taking up over 60,000K, seemingly doing nothing. I tried out this file as you suggested, and believe I've found the renegade service to be 'SysMan' aka 'Superfetch'.

IRONICALLY, in Process Explorer, it explains that the service "Maintains and improves system performance over time". Good job there Vista.. there's no point having a 2 Gig RAM laptop if rubbish like this keeps taking it all up!

Anyway, what would your advice be now? Just disable that SysMan thing and see if it works? I'm not sure if it would make long-term system performance suffer as a result, though.. guess I could just always shut down instead of putting the comp to sleep. It just seems a pain in the neck for an svchost process to be taking up such an amount of RAM, when it has so little to do..

Superfetch is *supposed* to use so much RAM. Don't be worried about it, SuperFetch will release memory to other apps if they require it. It's just making sure that your idle RAM isn't going to waste - the idea is that SuperFetch preloads code/data into your free physical RAM so that when a program requires it, the data will be readily available in the RAM and your PC won't have to waste time loading it from the HDD. This generally translates to improved performance. So yes, even though its using a lot of RAM, it's a good thing.

Btw, Welcome to the MSFN community and I hope you enjoy your stay here!