Still having svchost.exe CPU problems

Our Small Business Server 2003 pushed some updates to our client
laptops a few weeks ago and ever since then, the svchost.exe process
that runs Windows Update maxes out the CPU for a number of minutes
every hour or so. This happens on all of our client machines (they all
run Windows XP sp2).

I have searched the newsgroups, Microsoft website, help forums, etc.
and have found many suggestions, but none of them have helped. I have
even tried the HOTFIX suggested in this knowledge base article:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...;EN-US;Q927891

We continue to experience this problem. Does anyone have any idea why
this might be happening? It is really starting to interfere with our
productivity and is become VERY aggrivating. Please help!

Thanks.

I'm running WSUS and a growing number of our client PCs are exhibiting the
99% CPU utilization for svchost. The kb927891 patch slightly alleviated, but
did not fix the issue on the XP PCs I installed it on.
M$ needs to correct this problem.

"Yofnik" wrote:

> Our Small Business Server 2003 pushed some updates to our client
> laptops a few weeks ago and ever since then, the svchost.exe process
> that runs Windows Update maxes out the CPU for a number of minutes
> every hour or so. This happens on all of our client machines (they all
> run Windows XP sp2).
>
> I have searched the newsgroups, Microsoft website, help forums, etc.
> and have found many suggestions, but none of them have helped. I have
> even tried the HOTFIX suggested in this knowledge base article:
>
> http://support.microsoft.com/default...;EN-US;Q927891
>
> We continue to experience this problem. Does anyone have any idea why
> this might be happening? It is really starting to interfere with our
> productivity and is become VERY aggrivating. Please help!
>
> Thanks.
>
>

It seems this is becoming more and more of a common issue. I wish
Microsoft would at least acknowledge the problem and let us know if a
fix is in the works. This is unexceptable.

I am having the same problem. Would someone at Microsoft please fix this
issue or tell us how to!

"Yofnik" wrote:

> It seems this is becoming more and more of a common issue. I wish
> Microsoft would at least acknowledge the problem and let us know if a
> fix is in the works. This is unexceptable.
>
>

Seeing that I am not the only one with this problem, hopefully
Microsoft will have a fix for this soon. Until then, a manual work-
around would be very helpful.

If you have converted Windows Update to Microsoft Update (may have been done
in the past), then you may be having the same issue as I do on three machines
that are running Windows XP and also have Office 2003 installed. Look at
Microsft KB article 916089 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916089) and see
if this is this issue applies to your machines.

John

"Yofnik" wrote:

> Our Small Business Server 2003 pushed some updates to our client
> laptops a few weeks ago and ever since then, the svchost.exe process
> that runs Windows Update maxes out the CPU for a number of minutes
> every hour or so. This happens on all of our client machines (they all
> run Windows XP sp2).
>
> I have searched the newsgroups, Microsoft website, help forums, etc.
> and have found many suggestions, but none of them have helped. I have
> even tried the HOTFIX suggested in this knowledge base article:
>
> http://support.microsoft.com/default...;EN-US;Q927891
>
> We continue to experience this problem. Does anyone have any idea why
> this might be happening? It is really starting to interfere with our
> productivity and is become VERY aggrivating. Please help!
>
> Thanks.
>
>

Well that definitely sounds like my problem. However, this article
redirects you to KB article I attached in my very first post. It
didn't seem to help much.

Yofnik,

Please see both of my posts in an earlier discussion article dated 4/11/07
(a few down from this one and called "svchost taking 95%!!!"). I encountered
this issue months ago on three machines that have Windows XP, Office 2003,
and were using "Microsoft Update" with Automatic Updates. The workaround I
suggested (in the post on the other article) has eliminated this problem
until Microsoft fixes this issue. Note: It seems that the problem is when
Microsoft Update scans for "Office Updates", that makes the svchost.exe
process max out the CPU, and performance in XP comes to a crawl. If I stop
using Microsoft Update and revert back to Windows Update, I do not have the
issue. When I do that, I have to manually scan for Office updates (like I
used to do before Microsoft Update came out) but that process works well and
I don't have any issues with that.


I hope this helps you.

Sincerely,

John

"Yofnik" wrote:

> Well that definitely sounds like my problem. However, this article
> redirects you to KB article I attached in my very first post. It
> didn't seem to help much.
>
>
>

"cybersaur" wrote:

> I'm running WSUS and a growing number of our client PCs are exhibiting the
> 99% CPU utilization for svchost. The kb927891 patch slightly alleviated, but
> did not fix the issue on the XP PCs I installed it on.
> M$ needs to correct this problem.

Interesting. I don't think I've seen it any time except at boot up but as I
noted in another reply I am getting used to letting my machines settle down
before using them these days. In my case I just boot the machine up then go
make a cup of tea or whatever. After five minutes my machine is usually ready
to use although yesterday it wasn't.

Hi John,
Thanks for your suggestion. Unfortunately, these problems started for
us when we switched to a WSUS environment on SBS 2003. I no longer
have that option to Stop Using Microsoft Update when I visit the
Windows Update web page.

I found this article pretty interesting. It seems many people are
having this issue, so I can only hope Microsoft has a fix soon. Until
then, I think my only option, as one user suggested, is to change my
Update Interval in the Server Group Policy and let it check for
updates once in the morning while I give it 5-10 minutes to boot up.
Unbelievable, huh?

http://www.wsus.info/forums/index.ph...075&hl=svchost