Jim Lawrence
accessd at shaw.ca
Wed Aug 4 15:36:42 CDT 2010
Hi Tina: There are a number of possibilities. That can be cause by three events: 1. A bleeding app... Bad coding resulting in memory leaks which will flood the memory causing a crash. That would suggest a new set of driver(s) was/were installed. 2. Hardware error. They could be physical issues with older or cheaper equipment that tends to just wear out. There is some free hardware testing software and then there is SpinRite if it is a hard drive issue... a bad spot on the drive could cause all sorts of havoc. 3. A file transfer, update or installation process that was inadvertently halted in mid progress leaving a seriously corrupted file. The file, " svchost " is just the internal/external communications manager and is unlikely to be the problem though it is first to report it. Without seeing the equipment or knowing anything else I would suspect a hardware issue. A bleeding app or driver would not be running continuously unless it was video driver or was caused by serious core dll corruption as the errors would not otherwise be so persistent. Of course it could always be malware but it seems that your son-in-law is a logical fellow and appears to have plenty of security software. If this is helpful I could provide more details on pursuing a particular error... but this is enough for now. Jim -----Original Message----- From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Tina Norris Fields Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2010 12:08 PM To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues Subject: [dba-Tech] Svchost.exe error Hi All, I could use a little help figuring this one out. My son-in-law, Brad, has this problem: during some operation, could be booting up, could be almost anything, he gets the warning "svchost.exe application error" usually with something like "instruction at referenced memory at "0x00000010" and "memory could not be read." It seems to me I have recently seen this error with a corrupted or faulty update of some software - I think I had that happen with an HP companion process, something like "image monitor" that bogged down my whole system, and in my case the problem was solved by a reinstall and a disabling of the culprit application (it was hogging my CPU resources, and I really didn't need it). Googling the svchost.exe error postings, I find that it is likely caused by some corrupted dll file that didn't get to finish whatever it was doing, and nothing else could function because of that bottleneck. Several of the postings suggested that it might be a failed or incomplete or corrupted Windows update, and the solution could be as easy as doing a manual Windows update and rebooting. When I tried to get to the Windows update site from his computer, I could not get there - IE consistently reported that it could not display the page. This was true whether I used the Windows update command on the menu or I launched the browser and typed in the URL. I tried Googling the Windows update and clicking the link from the Google search results, too. Nothing worked. Because he is doing work, often using a VPN connection with his home office, he has IT support available. I told him that while I believe I can get this figured out and fixed, it will probably be a lot faster to make use of his IT guys. Today, they have been working remotely on his computer - they've uninstalled all his malware protection and reinstalled fresh copies, they've updated his browser to IE8, they thought they had it fixed, and then it popped up again, while they were getting ready to sign off. Does anybody on this list know what I'm really dealing with here? I would love some guidance! Best regards, T _______________________________________________ dba-Tech mailing list dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com