Windows – High CPU usage by ‘svchost.exe’ and ‘coreServiceShell.exe’

cpu usagesvchostwindows 7

I am having a laptop running on Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit. Since past few days, my laptop is facing a serious problem. Whenever I connect to Internet, either svchost.exe or coreServiceShell.exe or both hog the CPU. The coreServiceShell.exe consumes a lot of RAM also.

High CPU Usage

Going into the details, I found that high CPU usage of svchost.exe is caused by Network Location Awareness service.

Tracking svchost.exe

And the high CPU usage of coreServiceShell.exe is caused by Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012.

Tracking coreServiceShell.exe

That kind'a makes me think that Trend Micro may be the root of the problem.

After further testing, I found that if I use IE or Firefox to browse the Internet, immediately after connecting to Internet, things are normal. See

CPU usage on using IE

and

CPU usage on using Firefox

But if I use Google Chrome, the coreServiceShell.exe hogs both CPU and RAM.

CPU usage on using Chrome

At this point, if I disconnect the Internet, the CPU and RAM usage by coreServiceShell.exe continues to be high till I close the Chrome. Also, when I close the Chrome, while Internet is connected, svchost.exe continues to hog CPU but coreServiceShell.exe leaves the race.

CPU usage after closing Chrome

That makes think that Chrome is the root of the problem, but again, tracing coreServiceShell.exe takes me back to Trend Micro Internet Security. Stopping the Protection by the Trend Micro Internet Security doesn't help either (I am not able to stop its services though).

I have updated the Chrome, but no help.

I just can't figure out who is the culprit. I can't do without the Google Chrome (of course, by not using it) because of its immensely useful and indispensable features both during browsing and development. Secondly, I can't uninstall the Trend Micro Internet security Suite since it still has few months before it expires and is proving me reliable protection.

What could be the cause of the problem and what can I do to resolve this?

Thanks in advance

Best Answer

On researching further, I found somewhere that that culprit may be the hosts file in Windows/System32/drivers/etc directory. I opened the hosts file and found that its size was about 1.2 MB with few thousand entries, instead of just about 1KB file. Whenever I connected to Internet, the servicehost.exe process looked up the file, which was unusually large. I removed all the entries in hosts below the default ones, and amazingly, the problem was solved.

Another thing that I found was that such entries are written to the file by Spybot SnD. And in fact, I had scanned my laptop several times in a month or so to remove frequent Spyware infections, which used to block the Internet on the laptop. That justifies the point.

That eventually leads to the conclusion that both the anti-viruses I had installed were not doing enough to stop the Spyware. Then I switch to Norton Internet Security, removed Spybot SnD. Now, I am not having any problem since about two-and-a-half months.

Conclusion, when suffering from such a problem, clear your hosts file and use some "Reliable" Internet Security suite.

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