svchost.exe (netsvcs) is always downloading something

[Julio Andretti]

im running build 7100 fresh install. help, i need to shut this thing down.

 

[rsvr85]

Open a command prompt and type;
tasklist /svc /fi "imagename eq svchost.exe"
From there you should be able to determine by the PID which service is the culprit.
Open up taskmgr and under the services tab, find the corresponding PID and shut her down.
Hope this helped

 

[Julio Andretti]

thanks, it's annoying no more

 

[rsvr85]

thanks, it's annoying no more

You're welcome Julio out of interest what was the service bothering you?

 

[matze]

i have the same problem but there r so many services with the same pid.
can i shut them down one by one??
Julio which one was the bad service?


edit: found it. service name: BITS

 

[SilverJig]

I have a similar issue.

After reading this thread I ended the svc.exe that was the one downloading something constantly. I had already identified it by matching it by the number of threads it was using because I never knew what the PIDs were before, so thank you for that information first off.

But my problem is that it started up running again with a different PID and is continuing to download at about 120kb/s which is the maximum speed of my internet.

This worries me because I don't feel that my computer should be downloading something like this without telling me, and it is using up all my available bandwidth so my whole internet usage is being slowed down.

Does anyone know what is going on here? Should I be worried? Or is Windows just doing a background update of some kind?

 

[matze]

stop and deactivate the service called BITS not the .exe
(on my german windows the service is named: "Intelligenter Hintergrundübertragungsdienst"
so maybe then shown name is like: intelligent backroundtransferservice or so ^^ )

do u know where to find the services??

 

[SilverJig]

Thank you for your quick response. I do not know how to find the service, I am not entirely sure as to what that means actually.
I'm no computer pro, I'm only 17, I just learn as I go, haha, and I've never had a problem like this before.
I've been reading some stuff though, and it seems to say that this "svchost.eve (netsvcs)" as it shows up in my resource manager is a virus, some kind of trojan or something.


Edit: I figured out what you meant by services, and I stopped the service, but I do not know how to deactivate it.
When I looked into it in more detail it seemed to say that it's a "Background Information Transfer System" and that it is used by Windows in updating, so is this really something I want to stop from running?
I'm very confused as to whether it is good or bad at this point..

 

[travelingmatt]

I think I found an easy way to stop this from happening... I had the same problem, and was sure there wasn't a virus or malware problem in my computer.

Take a look to make sure that your computer isn't sharing it's internet connection. You can do this by going into network and sharing center, managing or changing your adapter settings, then click on your connection's properties. There will be a tab for Sharing in the properties, if the internet connection sharing is checked, uncheck it.

Basically ICS is for situations where your computer acts as a router for other computers on your network (i.e. your computer is connected directly to the modem for internet connection, and other computers connect to your computer in order to get to the internet conncection). Most home networks are set up so that a router will take care of all of this, so you don't need to have it checked.

When it is checked, it means that Windows is constantly looking to see if anyone wants to connect to the internet through that computer.


Hope this helps someone

 

[AndyH W7f]

I attempted to follow the instructions above to stop the offending service. tasklist produced a list of 12 entries, some with quite a few names associated with a give PID. There were no clue there, that I could recognize, about what might be causing the constant downloading activity.

Using Task Manager I located BITS in the list of services. “Access Denied” was the result when I attempted to stop it. I attempted to stop many of the services tasklist associated with svchost.exe. I attempted to stop other services whose descriptions seemed to suggest they are probably not critical. The system protected all.

Eventually I managed to stop one, name unfortunately forgotten in an immediate distraction. When I stopped it there was a message bubble from the notification area. I think it said something like “Windows Security Center deactivated” but like those message always do, it immediately evaporated without a trace.

The distraction was that I spent some time trying to find out what had just happened. This produced nothing; there isn’t a Windows Security Center in Win7 and nothing in the Activity Center revealed a deficiency I could recognize.

Anyway, back at the Task Manager services list, I tried a few more stops, again being rebuffed with “Access Denied” every time. Eventually I tried BITS again and this time it did stop. The download traffic immediately stopped. I was able to use the internet connection for myself.

By and by I rebooted the machine. Everything was then back to as before (with the possible exception of whatever it was that produced that brief message in the notification area). Downloading, of who knows what, was constant as long as the modem was connected to the internet. There were 12 PIDs listed for svchost.exe. 14 other services had the same PID as BITS. None could be stopped.

Is there some other way, some effective way to make services stop? Either BITS was responsible or some coincidence occurred, but managing to stop it that one time had no lasting effect. Probably something else is controlling it. that is what needs to be discovered and remedied, but how can that be done?

 

[Starfish]

I am experiencing exactly the same problem as AndyH W7F with the BITS service the apparent culprit. As with Andy I can stop the service and the problem goes away only to return again the next time the machine is restarted.
Can anybody help ?

 

[AndyH W7f]

Having read things posted on many sites, it seems to me there are many potential causes of this. Svchost.exe is used for dozens of legitimate purposes so various types of malwear also fine ways to utilize it. Some of these are hard to find and hard to excise. However, I seem to have solved it, at least in a manner of speaking (I've so far been able to make the symptoms go away).

I never allow any automatic updates. If you want automatic updates, this will not work.
In Control Panel select Administrative Tools/Services. BITS is Background Intelligent Transfer Service. Select it and stop it.

Then Find Windows Update. Although I have Windows Updates under Control Panel set as Never Check for Updates, which requires me to go there and click on Check for Updates when I want to get the latest updates, the service Windows Update was set to Automatic and was running. Stop it and set it to Manual.

p.s. somehow, as if just by looking at it in order to assure I was writing this post correctly, BITS was turned on again and set to Automatic (not while I was looking at, however). Windows Update was still set to manual but started. The subsequent downloading prevented the forum page from re-displaying, once I had signed on. I've reset them as above again. The downloading had been stopped for a couple of days, but obviously this isn't exceedingly reliable.

 

[Starfish]

Thanks. I will give it a try.
I have also set Windows update to only advise when updates are available but not download them without my command. However just like you have experienced, the Windows update service seems to continue doing its own thing regardless of how I set it.
I was not aware of the Control Panel manual control - so l'll try it and let you know how it goes.

 

[Stallion90]

The PID thing is really cool, just wanted to say so.

But forget about it for now, BITS is the problem. You need to go to control panel -> Administrative tools -> view local services ---> Search for BITS (Background Intelligence transfer service) Right click and stop service (it'll take 10 secs or so) then right click again and go to properties and change the "Start-up type" to (disabled) so that when you restart the PC the service doesn't Auto-start.

Forget about disabling the service from task manager, or any other service for that matter. Otherwise it should work well... Reply if it doesn't work.

 

[agent47]

I sucseed

i stopped the BITS and my problem solved. thanks all

 

[bonyjose]

type services in start menu search,click it and you get a list of services,find background intelligent transfer service,right click,select properties,click startup type and set it as manuel or disabled,press ok and exit...your'e done...

 

[girishkdesh]

Thanks a lot

Hello Dear,
Today you taught me how to keep programs other than the browser, away from eating up big chunks from the already scanty internet speed I am getting.
Thanks a lot for this forum and the discussion therein.
Girish

 

[UrAsish]

Could not find BITS. Using windows 7 Home Basic on HP Pavilion g series. For the relative PID it shows N/A. And Whenever I stop it, svchost automatically starts from another PID. What to do??

 

[Thakmere]

Hello, the BITS thing seems to have worked. I don't know if it's related or not, but when I "disabled" it, my wireless card didn't "have enough resources" or something when I started up. So I changed BITS to manual, restarted and now I'm fine, so I'll leave it as is for now.

But my problem NOW is that where are the file(s) that this thing has been downloading for the last few days? I'm currently running on a very small partition which I can't increase and can't re-install right now, so I'm trying to remove all unnecessary stuff (managed to get to 15 GB free a couple days ago, and now at 13.6) (these numbers don't match EXACTLY what I've had reading on my charts, but it's most certainly the cause for the loss of over a gig in a few days). Any ideas/help would be great, thank you.

 

[italiano20000]

Stop Services

go to control Panel, administrative tools, Open Services

Stop Background Intelligent Transfer Service, and make it disable