Slow performance due to 100% CPU usage ?

[Gandhik]

I have a desktop system, it is quite old now. I purchased it online from ebay 4 years back. I have got a pentium 4 processor and Windows xp as an operating system. I have got an internet connection from Hathway, but have an antivirus too of Symantec. I am facing some issues with my desktop system as it is very slow and takes a long time to perform simple tasks as well such as opening a folder or refresh the page. I am thinking to buy a new pc as I have lots of office work pending, but will not be able to pay much , so it would be better if some one please help me in boosting the speed of my system , I did not try anything because of the lack of technical knowledge. But I can surely assist you in case you want to know anything about my system and it's parts. How much cash can I expect if I sell it.

[Zavier]

Yes it seems your system is quite old and you are using internet on it since the day one you purchased it , so you may expect a bit of reduction in performance , even human beings leave this very world and those computers are machines so how can you expect your system to be all the time with you ? Nevertheless this forum is meant for technical help and not for solicitous advise, so I will ask you about your internal system configuration of your system. What exactly are you experiencing I do not understand, are there any more symptoms you can mention , so that it will be better to understand the issue more. No I do not think you should disgrace your self trying to sell that machine , because I doubt any one will be interested in that thing. You can change your processor if you want.

[Gandhik]

Yes I will be very glad to tell me about my system's information. I have a pentium 4 processor as I have already mentioned, 160 GB of disk drive space which is almost full to capacity, Asus motherboard and 512 MB of RAM. My brother asked me to look in the task manager and check the CPu Usage, and it shows it as 100 % of usage which is being used by svchost named process, one I kill that process my system hung up and I do not have any option at all but to reboot the system again. Is that svchost a virus or have I deleted some necessary file , which I should not have , please help me as I cannot bear it much longer, it is driving me crazy.

[Xylina]

I do not think that no one will be ready to buy your system, you can sell it to a student. Because there are lots of students who need a system just for there projects which does not require anything more than MS office tools . You can approach such people and sell them for 5000 or 6000 bucks.Please have patience, yes I think there can be two reasons for for your slow performance , first it can be your hard drive which is full to it's capacity , it may cause the processor a longer time to fetch any data as it is full. So you can delete the non required stuffs if you can and the second reason seems to be the virus issue, better make sure that you have updated Anti Virus software installed in your system run a scan on it and check for those malicious objects, if you find any difficulty then please feel free to post back.

[Felisha]

Yes the full hard drive can lead to such issues, you can extend your hard drive and get one more of equal capacity and then establish a master and slave combination in your system I do not thing any virus can be any issue, the process you are talking about is SVChost or Service host to be more precise which is normally designed to run multiple instances of processes at one time so when you delete it, it hold up lots of lot of tasks. I think you should reinstall the Operating system.

[Deep123]

One solution to this problem is to bring the Windows Automatic Update service to a halt. You can open this in an option called Process Explorer, and if you find Automatic Updates is there in the given list, then you can click on the stop button visible right out there. Then you can check the CPU usage again, if it falls down from it’s original state then you have you have recognized the problem. You can stop Automatic Update service and prevent it from initializing again , to stop it right click on My Computer and click on Manage. Maximize Services and Applications, and then below that click on Services option. You will see a list over there on the right hand side, find for Automatic Updates.I have heard that Microsoft actually has a solution for this issue, but that you need to call up and ask for it rather than getting it through normal channels. I'm not certain that this repair is actually for this precise setback that so many people are going through.Also, keep in mind, once the issues is resolved , make sure Automatic Updates feature is enabled again. This way you can keep your system up to date.