wuauserv causing svchost memory usage to explode

Layback Bear said:

Well if you still can't update your system after cleaning out all the bad things. I would suggest posting here for Update help.

https://www.sevenforums.com/windows-updates-activation/

Repair Install

Oops...just to be clear, I can update my system. That is not the problem. The problem is that even with Windows Update set to "Never check" (ie. I do it when I want to do it) *something* is still calling wuauserv. And when wuauserv runs, memory usage spikes. Physical memory percentage was jumping from say 40% to 86%.

If this was only happening when I was actively running Windows Updates it would not bother me. But since I have updates set to "never check" something was still calling wuauserv and this memory spike was crashing Chrome because of insufficient resources.

I suppose, since I have narrowed it to wuauserv I should still consider posting in the other area you mentioned, so thanks for that link.

(I have all critical updates installed...some optional ones are not installed.)

If you don't have your Win7 patched with all Important and Optional Updates, then just like if you'd avoid SP1 you don't actually even have Windows 7. This is because there are so many critical patches (many not even named that or queued inexplicably under Optional) that the OS at any point in time is truly a collection of all of these patches to be in good running order.

I know this is hard to accept if you're facing a problem with wuaserv spiking your CPU, but it could very well be one or more of those patches that resolves this, and you must have a fully patched system to even properly troubleshoot it.

I have helped in over a million installs every one of which is set to Auto Update and have rarely had problems with Updates which are statistically about one in a million.

There of course could be other problems. What we often see with those who turn off Services is that they make other tweaks that Win7 will not sustain being a featherlight OS. So the first thing to resolve is if you have a perfect install as all those I've helped do. Everything that works best for Win7 since beta is compiled in Clean Reinstall Windows 7 to compare with your install. If it's much different to begin with, then I'd strongly consider getting that one great install that you can then preserve in an image so you never need to do it again.

Layback Bear said:

No don't go anywhere. Just stay here. I did misunderstand you. It's been that way for me all day.

Did you set your updates as I suggested in post #5?

I have done that for the moment yes.

gregrocker said:

If you don't have your Win7 patched with all Important and Optional Updates, then just like if you'd avoid SP1 you don't actually even have Windows 7. This is because there are so many critical patches (many not even named that or queued inexplicably under Optional) that the OS at any point in time is truly a collection of all of these patches to be in good running order.

Just to be clear, it is not like I have hundreds of optional not installed. It is a total of 25. Of those 25, 8 are specifically for Office 2007 *HELP* functions. So I really only have 17 Optional hotfixes that are not currently installed.

There of course could be other problems. What we often see with those who turn off Services is that they make other tweaks that Win7 will not sustain being a featherlight OS. So the first thing to resolve is if you have a perfect install as all those I've helped do.

Look, don't take this the wrong way, but I am still a long, long, long way away from even considering a reinstall. Not even close to considering it. I am not trying to be difficult and I understand why you would recommend it to people who have OEM machines. Also, I do not go around turning off services all the time. I turned off wuauserv yesterday because of the physical memory spike affecting svchost and because I knew what wuauserv was as one of the processes on that instance of svchost. It was enabled until yesterday. Before that, it has been ages since I last opened services.msc.

I did look at the instructions in your link, but honestly, I did a clean install when I switched to my SSD drive (granted, over a year ago) and since this was a custom build anyway, I never had any of the bloatware to be found on OEM Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. systems.

I will admit, against what appears to be common advice here, I do *not* have System Restore enabled so I do not have any restore points.

Anyway, I will go ahead and install the 17 optional updates and get back to you.

Good. Then there is a way to drill down into specific Processes which are spiking in Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7.

Working through all of those steps will also often uncover the problem, unless someone has more specific suggestions.

gregrocker said:

Good. Then there is a way to drill down into specific Processes which are spiking in Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7.

Working through all of those steps will also often uncover the problem, unless someone has more specific suggestions.

Yeah, that link was suggested yesterday (which is why I posted my MBAM and SuperAntiSpyware results). I do need to try the Process Explorer suggestion and have another look at Event Viewer under the custom view as suggested.


I have completed all updates and "Windows is up to date".

I will say, and I mentioned it in a post last night, after I ran Disc Cleanup and cleaned up system update files (3 gb) that while svchost still jumps from around 22,000 to 1,120,566 that physical memory percentage has not gone as high as yesterday. Instead of spiking to 86% usage, it has remained under 50%. So that is progress.

Right now, for some reason svchost is hanging at 551,948...considering updating is done and not openly running, I would have expected it to drop back down to the normal 22,000 level. lol. right after I posted it dropped down to 23,408.

Update: Honestly, did not do any troubleshooting at all yesterday. Wanted to just run things and see what was going on. Yes, Windows Update was enabled and set to check but let me choose.

I also didn't watch the usage every second.

So the first thing to note is that I have not experienced any Chrome crashes in at least 36 hours and maybe a little longer. I was getting crashes multiple times an hour so this is a great improvement.

Looking back, it seems the biggest improvement came after I ran disk cleanup and included Windows Update files to be cleaned up (which it said took up over 3gb).

Was there probably more to it than that? Yeah, probably. I had updated most of the critical updates before I did the disk cleanup, but after the disk cleanup I did all the optional updates and 2-4 more criticals that popped up.

Now, wuauserv does still explode in memory from betweeen 20 and 30 D to over 900 K or more in task manager. However, physical memory percentage is staying at a reasonable 40% range rather than 86%.

So, I'm going to keep an eye on it for another day or two and if we are still stable I will come back and mark solved.

Thanks for all the help!