Vista "updating" for three days

Thread Starter

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
Patch Tuesday happened. My computer downloaded something. Now it has been running something in the background for 3 days at 50% of my CPU power.

C'mon. That's enough computing power to copy my O.S. 20 or 30 times.
Anybody know what's up with Micro$oft and Vista this week, or has my computer gone buggy?
 

Thread Starter

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
and, yes, joey, I know installing the Linux hard drive will fix this, but it still won't run any feature on my printer except printing one face of one page at a time.
 

joeyd999

Joined Jun 6, 2011
5,237
and, yes, joey, I know installing the Linux hard drive will fix this, but it still won't run any feature on my printer except printing one face of one page at a time.
Since I'm on you ignore list, anything I have to say wouldn't be helpful anyway.
 

Thread Starter

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
I can still see* that you posted, and your post is not helpful.
Have you ever considered NOT posting when you can't be helpful?

Edit: *corrected grammar
 
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wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
When some mysterious thing is burning CPU cycles, my first step is to pull up the lists of running tasks and see what's at the top. If I can't recognize it or can't verify why it's running, I go to google it and get an idea. It's fairly rare that someone hasn't been there first. After that, finding a fix can be a hit or miss effort.
 

SLK001

Joined Nov 29, 2011
1,549
Did you at least try hitting the reset button? Flash will do that to my machine while running Firefox. Sometimes processes don't properly terminate.

Pull up Process Explorer and look for what is running at 50% (probably something running at 100% on one processor).

And every machine has a reset button. Lately, it's been holding down the power button for 8 seconds. At the very worse, pull the plug or pull the battery.
 

Thread Starter

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
According to, "fixit stick" the Avast antivirus had a virus, but it's not fixed.
It's been running for 3 minutes and svchost.exe is running at 50% of my CPU power.
Both processor cores are running at variable rates. They look normal for an update, except this thing should be running at 3% with my normal stuff running.

And, yes, I turned it off and back on, several times in 3 days.
 
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Thread Starter

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
I did an, "end process" on svchost.exe and exactly 3 minutes later it came back on at 50% CPU usage,
so I killed it again.
It came back on exactly 3 minutes later, but now it isn't using 50% of my CPU...and is still holding at about 3% CPU use nearly 2 hours later.
If this starts the same way the next time I fire it up, I will just install a clean back-up copy.

I wasn't really looking for you guys to help diagnose it, just, if anybody else is running Vista, did yours start running overtime, like something was poisoned in Patch Tuesday downloads?
 
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Thread Starter

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
my first step is to pull up the lists of running tasks
Yep. Did that. svchost.exe
a program so often used that there are usually several functions running under that label.

However, this might be a fight between two programs. There was a time when Avast antivirus had a fight with Firefox, so I disabled Avast.
After a few months, I let them both run, and they played well together for a year or two. Maybe they are fighting again.
I'll try whacking Avast before I reload the O.S.
 

SLK001

Joined Nov 29, 2011
1,549
Load the Microsoft program Process Explorer. It will show what process svchost.exe is running (there are several svchost.exe instances running at any given time). It gives a much more detailed look at your running processes than task manager.

Here is a version that will run on Vista.
ProcessExplorer-14.zip
 

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joeyd999

Joined Jun 6, 2011
5,237
Load the Microsoft program Process Explorer. It will show what process svchost.exe is running (there are several svchost.exe instances running at any given time). It gives a much more detailed look at your running processes than task manager.

Here is a version that will run on Vista.
ProcessExplorer-14.zip
Oh, yes! By all means run a zip file uploaded to the internet. That'll fix your problem...
 

Thread Starter

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
I think my computer has a hardware problem.
I backed it up by 7 days...no help.
I backed it up by 15 days...no help.
I backed it up to February 2016...no help.
Beginning to suspect the RF board that connects to the router.
Wireless Adapter?
Anyway...still working on it, and I feel lucky to get on The Internet at all, considering the computer keeps complaining that it can't connect to Microsoft Update.
 

Thread Starter

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
Installed the Linux HDD. It's idling along at about 4% CPU power. Must be a Micro$oft problem.
 
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