svchost.exe file - What is it?

[gordonlr]

That disk activity is a huge clue. I don't have the answer, sorry, but
if you can get Process Explorer or similar tool to either log the disk
activity during those times, or show the activity to you in real time
if possible, you might be closer to tracking it down. It would be nice
to know exactly which files are being accessed, by which process (not
just svchost.exe), and why it's running at such a high priority that
it locks out all other disk I/O.

I had a system here a few weeks ago that behaved exactly as you
described above, but in that case Event Viewer showed tons of hard
drive interface errors and timeouts. I replaced the appropriate SATA
cable and the problems disappeared. Your problem, despite it's
similarity to what I saw, appears to be software-related. Still, I try
to make it a point to visit Event Viewer and drill down into Windows
Logs, System, then filter out everything except the Critical, Warning,
and Error events. Sometimes that can be very enlightening.

I've replaced both hard drives, the motherboard, the memory sticks and
the CPU. I have run Norton Utilities 15 several times and checked
these out but never found any problems. Would a flawed SATA cable not
cause the hard disk to malfunciton in a way that Norton Utilities 15
would detect?

Norton usually shows a problem with one of the svchost.exe funtions
but it doesn't get specific. Norton will show a high disc read
activity, usually in the100 to 200 MB (total for this process) but it
doesn't identify the process that is causing this high disk activity.

Another page on the Norton Utilities 15 scan results shows
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software/Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FilesExts\MAPI/UON.No....
I can't read the end part of the above item but maybe this will be
enough information to give you some idea of what it is talking about.

Gordon

Norton Utilities 15 also shows a Scan Result problem from time to time
indicating that there was one item found and one item ignored. I took
this to mean that the item wasn't a serious problem.

Gordon

 

[Big Steel]

Thanks Dave. Yes, I've looked at this and found many indicated errors
or failures but I've found no solutions. Most of these problems seem
to center on the Host Process for Windows Services but there are no
solutions for these problems offered.

Svchost.exe is never the problem. It's whatever that is being hosted by
Svchost.exe that is the problem. Svshost.exe does nothing on its own. It
only hosts things and acts on the behalf of hosted processes.

 

[Char Jackson]

I've replaced both hard drives, the motherboard, the memory sticks and
the CPU.

If you had a hardware problem, Event Viewer would have a decent chance
of telling you. The hardware changes you made were probably not well
advised. You can see that in hindsight, since the problem remains, but
a good tech would have seen that back then, too.

I have run Norton Utilities 15 several times and checked
these out but never found any problems. Would a flawed SATA cable not
cause the hard disk to malfunciton in a way that Norton Utilities 15
would detect?

I honestly have no idea what Norton Utilities or Norton 360 would
reveal. I haven't touched either of those monstrosities in years and
strongly recommend to my family, friends, and customers to dump that
junk. Some people say Norton stuff has reversed course and gotten
better in recent years, but IMHO it's still nowhere near where it
needs to be, and to make matters worse, they charge money for it based
on a reputation that was earned (and then destroyed) some twenty years
ago. It's just shameful.

Norton usually shows a problem with one of the svchost.exe funtions ....

Another page on the Norton Utilities 15 scan results shows ....

Norton Utilities 15 also shows a Scan Result problem from time to time

You're killing me with this Norton stuff.

Maybe I can help by suggesting you dump that and go with better tools
that also happen to be free. MSE is good. MBAM is good. SAS is also
good. I'm sure others here will also happily make recommendations, and
I'm willing to assume that very few here will recommend anything with
the Norton name.

MSE:<http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/security-essentials-download>
MBAM:<http://www.malwarebytes.org/>
SAS:<http://www.superantispyware.com/>

This particular post of mine rather blindly follows you down the
rabbit hole of assuming malware is the root cause. It may not be
malware and may be something else entirely. Having said that, it's
always nice to try to rule out malware, just in case.

 

[Char Jackson]

I've been having a lot of problems with my desktop computer recently
and my Norton Utilities 15 shows a popup indicating that svchost.exe
is using a lot of disk time.

This causes my computer to stall out and the screen will fade. I see a
message at the top (Not Responding). This will hang things up for
anywhere from a few seconds to as much as 10 minutes, and it happens
very frequently.

Of all your posts in this thread, I have not seen anything about
how much memory your system has and how much is being used. Your
system could be swapping because of not enough memory. What does the
Task Manager show you for memory used? If it is more than your
physical memory, you will get swapping.

[snip]

I thought I had posted this information before, but here it is.
Installed Memory 4.0 GB
64 Bit Operating System
Drive C: 371 GB free of 465 GB total
Drive d: 424 GB free of 465 GB total.

Obviously not a hard drive capacity issue. The numbers above, plus the
description of the symptoms, make that clear. I think we still don't
know if you have a severe memory swap condition occurring, though.

Numerous scans w/Norton 360 have never shown any drive or memory
flaws.

This set of problems first began about 5 months ago. I was using
Microsoft Security Essentials at that time. Upon the recommendations
of a friend I installed Norton 360 and Norton Utilities 15. None of
these have ever found anything in the way of malware or hardware
failure.

I think I just groaned a little.

 

[Big Steel]

I've been having a lot of problems with my desktop computer recently
and my Norton Utilities 15 shows a popup indicating that svchost.exe
is using a lot of disk time.

This causes my computer to stall out and the screen will fade. I see a
message at the top (Not Responding). This will hang things up for
anywhere from a few seconds to as much as 10 minutes, and it happens
very frequently.

Of all your posts in this thread, I have not seen anything about
how much memory your system has and how much is being used. Your
system could be swapping because of not enough memory. What does the
Task Manager show you for memory used? If it is more than your
physical memory, you will get swapping.

[snip]

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

You know, that memory swapping to the HD could be causing problems if
it's too low, and it's beating the swap drive to death. That's why I
always set swap file size to automatic and let it grow on its own as
needed.

 

[Gene Wirchenko]

[snip]

Of all your posts in this thread, I have not seen anything about
how much memory your system has and how much is being used. Your
system could be swapping because of not enough memory. What does the
Task Manager show you for memory used? If it is more than your
physical memory, you will get swapping.

I thought I had posted this information before, but here it is.
Installed Memory 4.0 GB

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
How much memory are you using? If it is more than 4 GB, you will
have swapping.

[snip]

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

 

[Paul]

I've been having a lot of problems with my desktop computer recently
and my Norton Utilities 15 shows a popup indicating that svchost.exe
is using a lot of disk time.

This causes my computer to stall out and the screen will fade. I see a
message at the top (Not Responding). This will hang things up for
anywhere from a few seconds to as much as 10 minutes, and it happens
very frequently.

Of all your posts in this thread, I have not seen anything about
how much memory your system has and how much is being used. Your
system could be swapping because of not enough memory. What does the
Task Manager show you for memory used? If it is more than your
physical memory, you will get swapping.

[snip]

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

I thought I had posted this information before, but here it is.
Installed Memory 4.0 GB
64 Bit Operating System
Drive C: 371 GB free of 465 GB total
Drive d: 424 GB free of 465 GB total.

Numerous scans w/Norton 360 have never shown any drive or memory
flaws.

This set of problems first began about 5 months ago. I was using
Microsoft Security Essentials at that time. Upon the recommendations
of a friend I installed Norton 360 and Norton Utilities 15. None of
these have ever found anything in the way of malware or hardware
failure.

Gordon

You can try the Kaspersky Rescue CD if you want.

It is used to boot the computer. It will attempt
to contact their web site, and download definition
updates. And then, you use the interface in it, to
scan whatever partitions you want. The letters it
uses for partitions, may not be the same as in Windows,
so you have to do a bit of checking, as to which partition
is which. For example, when I scan this computer, the
partition I need to scan is E:. Even though under Windows,
that partition would be known as C:. They made a recent
change, to try to improve that, but you should still
be on the lookout for that, before starting the scan.
I generally only scan my OS partition to save time,
so I don't usually "tick all the drive letters". And
then I have to figure out, which one to scan.

http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/rescuedisk/main?qid=208286083

"Iso image of Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10 (237 MB)"

If you don't have CD burning software, you can always use
a copy of the free Imgburn. The ISO9660 file, must be
converted to a bootable CD, with some kind of burning package.
And Imgburn can do that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imgburn

Once the CD is burned, reboot the computer, insert the CD,
and make sure your ADSL or cable connection is up and running.
The OS on the CD will then download fresh definitions,
and after that, you're ready to scan.

If you prepared the CD correctly, there will be more
than one file showing on it. You'll see a "boot" and a
"rescue" folder.

Paul

 

[Dave-UK]

I've replaced both hard drives, the motherboard, the memory sticks and
the CPU.

It's odd that you forgot to mention this in your first post.
Try replacing the keyboard operator next.

 

[choro]

It's odd that you forgot to mention this in your first post.
Try replacing the keyboard operator next.

What a nasty thing to say? LOL--
choro
*****