My computer is running terribly slow these days. It's a Dell Dimension
8200, with a Pentium 4 CPU and 512 Mb memory and a 80Gb hard drive.
Anyways, I noticed something that should help in the diagnostic of why
our computer is so SLOW; when I turned the computer on this morning, I
immediatly went to the Task Manager and checked the performance. It
shows, without us having even started to use the computer, CPU usage
of 97-100%, most by a System process, one of the "svchost.exe" ones.
What does this mean, to you? Generally, what can this be remedied by?

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Request for Question Clarification by livioflores-ga on 23 Oct 2006 09:32 PDT

It could be great if you canpost a HijackThis log; download and run
the following HijackThis autoinstall program:
http://thespykiller.co.uk/files/HJTsetup.exe

To see how to get and post a log here see the following tutorial at 
BleepingComputer.com; remember to only post the log without fixing
anything, I will tell you which items must be selected to fix:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/index.php?showtutorial=42#HowToUse

After you post the log here me or other of my fellow researchers will
analyze it and tell you what to do.

Regards,
livioflores-ga

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Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 23 Oct 2006 15:16 PDT

johnazrael...

Just a hunch, but worth a try:

R-click on My Computer and select Manage. Click on the + to the
left of Services and Applications. L-click on Services. Select
DNS Client in the window on the right. R-click on it and select
Properties. Under Service Status, click on Stop. Go to Task
Manager and check your CPU usage. If it's dropped down to normal,
go back to DNS Client Properties and select Disabled under the
Startup type section. Reboot and check your CPU usage.

Let me know if this resolves your problem...

sublime1-ga

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Request for Question Clarification by keystroke-ga on 24 Oct 2006 06:42 PDT

Hi johnazrael,

Sublime1-ga may be along the right lines. SVCHOST.EXE is the software that
is used to control and run services at start up. A brief description of
it is here:

A Description of the SVCHOST.EXE process in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314056

Try out what Sublime1 has said and let us know what happens.

--Keystroke-ga

Slow process..

Only 2 factors..

1) Your machine has a virus
2) Hardware problems (Harddisk, Video Card, Motherboard, Memory, etc).

For virus, i suggest that you do an online virus/spyware scan.
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

Or any free antivirus online scan (try searching google for the link
on mcaffee, etc).

If its hardware, best bet is to bring it to a shop for diagnostics. Or
if you are a techy, diagnose it one by one.

HTH,
Louie

Is wuauclt.exe running also when svchost.exe is taking a lot of
resources?  On my PC just after bootup 100% of CPU is used by
svchost.exe while the PC is checking for automatic updates (the
wuauclt.exe process).  Once that has completed (several minutes), CPU
drops back to normal.  You can turn off automatic updates and then
reboot to confirm if that is the culprit.

I recommend the use of the tool AVG
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5#avg-anti-spyware-free.

I recommend the TuneUp Utilities 2006.  Is possible that have problems
of registration and/or spyware