Page 1 of 1

how many svchost's does it take to crash a computer?! :x

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 5:58 pm
by S13driftAZ
Alright guys, I am fed up with d3 crashing on me all the time during online games. I'm no computer expert, but I believe it is because of the amount of utter crap laying around in the proccesses of my task manager. I have included the entire list of what is running on my system.

Thanks

Image

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 6:07 pm
by Duper
all those scvhost are necessary. ..well most. As a rule of thumb, you can turn off the smaller ones at the risk of getting errors. There are a couple larger ones that are critical and you will get a forced reboot if you turn them off.

Get rid of that video junk. and THIS is why I don't run Macaffey or Norton. .. there are what...8 instances of that program running various sub programs. blech.

Also, what is msksrvr tied to? There are programs that will ID those those all for you and allow you to turn them off.

..wait.. are all 3 windows worth of stuff running at the same time and you scrolled down and took an screenshot of it?!?? o_0

Dude, take this again right after bootup before you start running apps. That way we know what is only running in the background and not active. thx!

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 6:11 pm
by Insurrectionist
So what is the total amount of processes you have running? Should be at the bottom of you task manager when you start it

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 6:13 pm
by fliptw
start uninstalling stuff.

Re:

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 7:13 pm
by S13driftAZ
Duper wrote:Get rid of that video junk
Kay.
Duper wrote:Also, what is msksrvr tied to?
Dunno.
Duper wrote:..wait.. are all 3 windows worth of stuff running at the same time and you scrolled down and took an screenshot of it?!?? o_0
Duh.
Duper wrote:Dude, take this again right after bootup before you start running apps. That way we know what is only running in the background and not active. thx!
programs running: firefox, MSWord, McAfee.
Insurrectionist wrote:So what is the total amount of processes you have running? Should be at the bottom of you task manager when you start it
60.

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 7:19 pm
by Duper
Image



These are the only things your system needs to run.

now, If you are on a network, then you might need to leave the remote thing on and probably all the anti-virus crap.

I forget how old you are. If you are younger and this is your folks' system; DON'T DO ANYTHING TO IT. If it's yours alone, the do whatever.

The HP I assume is printer software. You have a HP printer?
S13driftAZ wrote:
Duper wrote:..wait.. are all 3 windows worth of stuff running at the same time and you scrolled down and took an screenshot of it?!?? o_0
Duh.
common dude, how are we supposed to know that. just trying to help. Being vague in tech support will get you incorrect answers.

You have a couple of things besides the 3 you listed running. MS paint (twice) and a color Key ..uh..CYNHKey.

Anyways. i cut out most of what you don't need. also, it looks like you have a program that hung on boot up: "dllhost.exe"...that or it's a virus.

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 7:25 pm
by S13driftAZ
Wow really? That's a lot you took out of there. Anyways I am over a WLAN.
My parents try to school me on computers, but sadly there is much fail.
Yes this is my computer, and could you direct me to the software you mentioned earlier that detects useless processes?
Thanks!

edit: sorry duper, just being a smartarse. I'll fill you in more. Also, colorkey?

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 8:13 pm
by Insurrectionist
60 processes is a lot of processes. A fresh install Of vista 64 bit you should have only 44 processes running. http://www.blackviper.com/ can help you go along way and will teach you a lot about all the services of Windows. He has some tricks and complete guides to which services you can do without. ALWAYS BACKUP EVERYTHING. YES REGISTRY TOO. Before you do anything. You also might want to get a reg cleaner. Somewhere on this board they have a great list of awesome free software just for that stuff.

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 8:38 pm
by Xamindar
Probably should start with disabling things you don't need in msconfig. Then, get rid of Mcafee. That and Norton are the worst anti virus you could use.

Re:

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 9:06 pm
by S13driftAZ
I'm not planning at all in the near future to install vista. I use CCleaner as my reg cleaner, and untill I get a new virus scanner, which will be paid for, McAfee is not going bye bye.

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 9:09 pm
by Insurrectionist
There are some excellent free virus scanners out there. AVG And Avast to name two. What are you running now?

Re:

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 9:28 pm
by S13driftAZ
Insurrectionist wrote:There are some excellent free virus scanners out there. AVG And Avast to name two. What are you running now?
McAfee :roll:

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 9:36 pm
by AceCombat
AVG has a Pay version called AVG Pro or AVG Internet Security. much better than McAfee

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 9:59 pm
by S13driftAZ
Actually, I'm really leaning toward BitDefender, because in the reviews I've read, its the best. But I could be wrong.

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 10:08 pm
by Xamindar
That's probably fine. Ones to steer clear of:
Mcafee
Norton
Trend Micro
Webroot

Those are the ones that come up the most for causing more problems than they are supposed to prevent. I personally use AVG free but I hardly boot into Windows anyway let alone do any extensive dodgy browsing in there to even get a virus.

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 10:42 pm
by Sirius
Just to note, svchost.exe is used to run system services. If you want to turn them off, you should do so through the service manager rather than by killing processes, or they will just come back after reboot.

I would also recommend knowing exactly what a service does before disabling it.

Re:

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 11:04 pm
by VonVulcan
S13driftAZ wrote:could you direct me to the software you mentioned earlier that detects useless processes?
Thanks!
Process explorer by sysinternals will identify what processes are connected to. Don't remember how/where I got it sorry.

Re:

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 11:11 pm
by VonVulcan
Insurrectionist wrote:Somewhere on this board they have a great list of awesome free software just for that stuff.
viewtopic.php?t=16170 :)

Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 12:16 am
by Duper
Thanks Vulcan. I wasn't able to get to it. The Wife had plans the minute I walked in the door... and out we went! :mrgreen:

Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 1:29 am
by VonVulcan
Occasionally I am useful. :wink:

Re:

Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 5:18 am
by Insurrectionist
S13driftAZ wrote:
Insurrectionist wrote:There are some excellent free virus scanners out there. AVG And Avast to name two. What are you running now?
McAfee :roll:


I was asking about the OS sorry didn't clarify enough.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysi ... fault.aspx

Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 11:07 am
by Duper
This might sound hoaky, but I use a program called \"SuperAntispyware\". It's a virus sweeper as well as a spyware watcher. Google it, it's free and does a good job. We use it at work as a back up. (Whenever our corporate Norton takes a dump :mrgreen:)

Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 6:07 pm
by S13driftAZ
Tell me, does this look right..?
Image
Yes, that's all of them.

Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 7:30 pm
by Duper
Much better. You must have some stuff hidden as there needs to be a couple SVCHost programs running. Is that google thing necessary??

You can kill ctfmon.exe if you want or need to free up 4 megs. (xp is a true multitasker even if it's a bit sloppy. Mem won't be used if the program is idle.) But much better.

Re:

Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 1:43 pm
by S13driftAZ
Duper wrote:Much better. You must have some stuff hidden as there needs to be a couple SVCHost programs running. Is that google thing necessary??

You can kill ctfmon.exe if you want or need to free up 4 megs. (xp is a true multitasker even if it's a bit sloppy. Mem won't be used if the program is idle.) But much better.
All I ever did was go into CCleaner and disable some startup junk and completely uninstall McAfee Security Center... 0.o

Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:37 pm
by S13driftAZ
Great. I wake up today to find that I have 52 freaken processes running.
what. the. hell.

Most of them are things that I need running, says uniblue process scanner website.

:x

Oh and another thing, since today, my computer decides to not want to load crap, connect to LAN printer, load webpages, and open task manager if it is at idle for a an hour or two.