weird cpu activity buildup

brucegriffing · #1 10-08-2003, 04:12 PM

I have a strange problem on a wireless xp node on my network. The node is an Athlon xp cpu on a Gigabyte GA-7VAXP mobo (via kt400 chipset). The system has 512mb of main memory and used a Dlink dwl500 pci wireless ethernet card. I upgraded that, but I will get to that later. The system uses Norton AV to the max. Frequent scans find no virus or worm.

The symptom is that following boot, cpu activity builds up slowly over time. By slowly, I mean that initially, with no apps running there is 0-2% cpu activity. This corresponds to what I see on a duplicate (though not wireless) system elsewhere on the network. Over a period of 5-8 hours, cpu activity will reach 50%, as measured by the task manager. There are no apps running. The process that is taking all of this resource is a copy of svchost with the user name LOCAL SERVICE. When I do a tasklist, the active registry entries under that name are LmHosts, SSDPSDRV and Webclient. I found out that the DWL500 is not supported under XP so I thought it might be the problem. I used the system manager to turn off the card and activity dropped from 50% to 20% so I thought I had it. I replaced the wireless card with a new Linksys wmp54g. It has a current and supported xp driver. No joy - same problem. I don't have a good idea of what next steps to take.

brucegriffing · #2 10-10-2003, 05:31 PM

Even if you don't clearly understand this - pls make some next step suggestions. Tnx.

scouse · #3 10-10-2003, 05:43 PM

ok i am a member of this site and THIS also, it is good to have 2 places to share a problem, i have brought a few people from there her and vis versa and they all post an awkward problem in both places 2 heads are better than one right

so check out hardware there and put your problem up. to the site owners or mods, not poaching here i rate this site aswell as the other very highly and i advertise both sites to people but sometimes it takes posting in 2 places a problem to get a good response on certain problems.

Play_The_0dds · #4 10-10-2003, 05:46 PM

this is really hard to do without looking at the computer it's self. the problem may not be one program but a combination of programs, you say you have norton, do you have Goback also, what cd burning software do you have, can you list if you have run a spyware scan? can you give a rough list of what programs are installed. i know people love norton, but i dont use it because it is very hard on resources, not saying this is your problem,but i have tried every version of norton to date even 2004 and i am not happy with it personnally. if you can provide the list i asked for ,myself or someone else may be able to spot the conflict.

brucegriffing · #5 10-10-2003, 07:32 PM

To answer your question about apps installed, they include MS office, CD burner is Record Now Max, DVDxcopy is also installed. The machine also has an HP USB DVD. Adaware is used regularly to scan for offensive cookies, etc. Goback is not on the machine. Winrescue is used for backup. Please remember that this buildup of CPU activity happens with no apps running per taskmanager. The machine is used mostly for e-mail, office work and web browsing. The biggest office use is the preparation of presentations in Powerpoint by my wife. No games are installed other than those that come with windows.

Play_The_0dds · #6 10-10-2003, 08:27 PM

right click the my computer icon or start menu link, select manage, double click services and applications in the main window, do the same on services on the next screen, now scroll down the list, right click IMAPI CD-Burning Com service, and select properties. make sure the startup type is disabled, might want to disable remote registry while your here also, optional, disable help and support, error reporting, automatic updates, and set the messenger to manual or disabled, reboot and see if the problem happens again, may be a burning software conflict, if you have any cd detectors, may want to disable them.

brucegriffing · #7 10-10-2003, 11:12 PM

I went into the services list starting with a focus on local service, since that was the category of service causing the problem. One at a time, I deactived any active local service. When I got to SSDP discovery service, it was listed as starting. I deactivated it and lo and behold all of the cpu activity stopped. For some reason, the cpu is spending all of its time trying to activate this service. I must have something munged somewhere in connection with the loading of this service by svchost. Any Ideas on how to repair this?

Play_The_0dds · #8 10-11-2003, 12:59 AM

have your xp install cd in the drive , go to start, then run type
sfc /scannow
run it then see if this fixes the situation.

brucegriffing · #9 10-11-2003, 03:24 PM

I tried system file checker - again no joy. The problem persists with the SSDP service set to manual or auto. When disabled things are fine. The interesting thing is that when lots of cpu resource is being used, SSDP is listed as starting in service manager. If I start it manually using the service manager, it returns the message that it started and stopped immediatly because it had nothing to do. But then right away it is listed as starting again and sucking up cpu resources. From what I can tell this service is for installing networked devices - like a remote printer. It may do other things, but I can't really see why it is trying (unsuccessfully) to start anyway. I think the problem may be a misbehaved uninstall munging something in the registry so I am off to look there.