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Why is my PC's CPU always running at 100?

I noticed my computer was running really slow so I opened the task manager. The CPU usage is at 100% and the?

  • Physical Memory is at 55%. I looked at the processes and there are 72 running so I scrolled down and there is a process running called svchost.exe and it shows up 12 times! To me this seems like a virus. The memory some of them are using is 60,000 K, 62000 K, 31000 K, and then others are using 3000 K. One specific process, under the CPU row says 50! I'm doing two virus scans and I will see if something comes up. What should I do if there are no viruses detected? Is this many processes running common?

  • Answer:

    download malware bytes anti malware..svchost.exe is a legitimate process but sometimes viruses use it. this programme finds stuff other antispyware can't..and if a file is locked as some viruses and malware do to keep from being removed it has a thing called file assassin to get rid of the junk. go to start, run ,and type in msconfig. hit run, under start up click and see what is running when your computer first starts up..any programmes there you don't recognise? uncheck them, restart computer, and see how things run. don't uncheck processes tho, unless you know what they are. I'm currently running at 6 percent memory and have 65 processes running. So running that many processes isn't uncommon. You don't need all programmes to run at start up, if you uncheck them they won't be silently running in the background consuming memory, but still be available when you need them by clicking on the icon. Programmes when first installed commonly auto select run at system startup. This is stupid unless its something essential like antivirus etc. Its how people end up with your problem. svchost is used by a lot of programmes. Go to this link, it explains what svchost.exe is and why you shouldn't freak when you see it. It is titled what is svchost and why is it running on my machine? http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/what-is-svchostexe-and-why-is-it-running/

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A virus free, clean Windows without any background applications has around 40-50 processes running. Multiple svchost.exe entries is normal, although these shouldn't take much RAM. On my system I have 3 svchost's running on a total of around 25MB RAM (25,000 K), so either you have ALOT of unnecessary stuff open or you might have a virus. Getting a virus out of system files like svchost is very troublesome. If you find a virus on your system IMO the best solution is to backup your most important data (photos, mail) and do a complete wipe of everything on the computer and a do clean Windows install. At least I do it like that, I don't take any chances with viruses ;)

Rolle

NO, your proccesses are fairly large (avg is about 40-50) svchost.exe moght be the virus scanner, but it sounds like your computer is really bogged down, try deleting any unused programs, adding more ram/memory to your computer, or more hard drive space. Hope this helps!

jkvbmc

Are you on Vista? Also, svchost.exe is not a virus. There can be viruses that imitate that name, but it itself is not a virus. Don't stop anything without knowing what it is for sure! If your virus scanner comes up with nothing, download another one and see if it gets anything. If you don't get anything, then you know the problem is your hardware and that you need more RAM and a better CPU.

Tako_400

svchost.exe is not a virus. infact it is an anti-virus, norton 2009 and some other anti-virus softwares run this. the problem is the rediculous amount of programs you have running. 72 processes is A LOT, my gaming computer has tons of programs installed so that i can do anything i want to on it but even still it only runs 44 processes. try cleaning up the programs you dont use and your CPU usage should go down

dusty

Could be a virus. The scanners probably won't pick it up because the virus is cloaking itself to look like a windows process. Download Avast Anti Virus (totally free) and when it asks to "Schedule Boot Time Scan" (or something like that) click yes and restart the computer when it prompts you too. This will run a virus check before Windows has a chance to start up.

121a

Svchost will run several times and that's normal. The 50% user is indexing I would bet and that is normal also. Some virus do mimic svchost, so run your anti virus and another scanner like Malwarebytes Anti-Malware http://www.malwarebytes.org/ also. Download Startup panel and turn off unused start up items http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml , then read about shutting off unused windows services at http://www.jasonn.com/turning_off_unnecessary_services_on_windows_xp . Good luck!

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