services.exe 100% cpu (old issue i know)

[tucansam]

Win2k with all of the available service packs and hotfixes as of today's date. services.exe routinely takes up 99% cpu and hangs the machine for up to 60 seconds at a time. Most often this happens right when the machine comes out of sleep mode, and I believe it is taking its time in finding the wireless network. Once network connectivity is established, the machine runs well.

Until today, when services.exe now suddenly decides to jump to 99% on its own, for no reason that I can find.

I've searched this forum and others, and plenty of other sites, and all of the hotfixes that are mentioned for removal are not listed (ie, a post from 2004 said remove hotfix blah blah but apparantly since then Microsoft has released new stuff). All of my hotfixes are KB84xxxx, 89xxxx, 90xxxx, etc.

Ideas would be most welcome, with thanks in advance.

 

[josewaldo]

Hello,
I may have an answer. I just had the same problem over the weekend. I did some searching online this morning. It seems that my problem might be with Spybot S&D's giant hosts file. It seems that there is a problem with Windows 2k DNS Cache Client service trying to deal with spybot's host file. I have not been home yet to try the fix on my machine, but you could theoretically either get rid of Spybot's Hosts file, or disable client side DNS caching.
I have not tried either of these yet, so I make to promises.
Here are the links that got me this far.
Good Luck,
Josewaldo

http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=817923

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/245437/EN-US/

 

[josewaldo]

UPDATE: This was the fix. I removed the hosts records that Spybot Search and Destroy 1.5 had written. To do this you would simply search your computer for the file 'hosts'. Open it with notepad and delete all of the lines that spybot created. Note, you will no longer be stopped from visiting these sites, but at least your computer will work. Hope this helps someone.
Josewaldo

 

[dbjneedham]

THANKS josewaldo!!!!

My son had recently upgraded S&D. Lo and behold, the symptoms you mentioned left that old kitchen Win2K machine sitting deserted and unwanted.

At each logon, Services.exe goes into blocking state, dragging out to near eternity the time to get WLAN connected. Even after WLAN connection, occasional relapses of 99% CPU to services.exe freeze the machine for minutes at a time.

BTW: I found Win2K's "hosts" DNS-cache file at
\WINNT\system32\drivers\etc

It needs to be write-enabled before opening to delete the gazillion lines added by Spybot. Each line is a mapping of a seedy web site to the null IP (127.0.0.1) so as to prevent access to the site. I would guess Microsoft did not intend/expect this file to ever contain such a bloated list.

Thanks Again... Win2K machine is back in business!

 

[borius]

Thought I would post this for anyone else having this prob. Recently did Spybot-SD update and scan. My Win2K machine has been spiking processor usage to 80-100% about every 5 minutes for about 2 minutes lately. Tried running freshly updated spyware and antivirus scans of every brand I could find to no relief. This post solved my problem. Thanks a billion, now I can get back to work…..as if that is a reward. F-ed if you do, f-ed if you don’t.
M

 

[rwbrick]

Does anyone know if Spyware Blaster can cause the same problem as Spybot? I have a very small "hosts" file (one line other than comments) and nothing that looks suspicious in the Program Files. But I have the same/similar problem: random periods of extreme constipation (95-100% CPU usage lasting 1-3 minutes) usually occuring shortly after start up (which lately seems to take too long...)

Wild speculation: could Zone Alarm's massive data files do the same??

Rod B.

 

[wolluf]

Haven't heard spyware blaster being a hog - spyware doctor - yes. And certainly zone alarm is - or had been reported as so (recent versions of it - think it was ok until about a year ago). If you can still get hold of free version of agnitum's outpost firewall (if you need a free one), think that's a lot lighter on resources.

PS. And if you're behind a router, don't really need a firewall.