A process called Service Host: Local System is using up all of my laptops resources

Anonymous
2012-12-04T00:03:08+00:00

My laptop has been running very slowly for the past few days which is weird because my laptop is quite powerful and has always run very fast. I looked at my task manager and saw that a process called Service Host: Local System was using up almost all of my RAM. I am running Windows 8 Pro on a Sony VAIO S13P. What can I do to fix this problem?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Performance and system failures

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-06-28T16:11:04+00:00

    Switch off your Windows update completely.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-06-28T15:52:19+00:00

    I have windows 10 and the same issue

    i am gonna die

    new laptop, i5

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-06-21T10:08:30+00:00

    Hey, we seem to have reached the same conclusion: that it's Windows Update. In my post below I explained how I came to suspect that. Still haven't taken action on it, my discovery being only a few minutes old.

    But the solution really seems to be to take Updates as seriously as one takes paying bills on time every month, manually.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-06-21T09:57:47+00:00

    There are a lot of Service Hosts:

    The highlighted, for me, was consuming up to 39% of CPU, and I thought that's why my laptop's fans went spinning at full capacity. So I investigated. My immediate issue was not the CPU (it should be, long term) but the fan noise. My problem isn't fixed.

    However my investigation uncovered the mess that Task Scheduler is. I thought it was the same user-oriented Task Scheduler from Windows 98. Boy was I in for a surprise. This thing is not user-oriented at all. It's SYSTEM oriented.

    Screenshot:

    I do not even have space to display all the items in the list on the left. All these contain items, which display in the center. There's a column, "Triggers". Be very careful cleaning up Task Scheduler.

    Many have given up on random computer wakes also. I am almost certain fiddling with the items in there will solve this. Having a $2000+ laptop as a CS student, I am concerned about the impact these excessively frequent wakes from sleep will have on my computer's life. It's worse than running CPU intensive tasks IMO unless technology has progressed so far voltage changes are like, nothing. Just like Start-Stop systems on cars.

    Speaking of the culprit, it started again:

    Note that Windows Update is the new item, increasing the list to 13 members from 12. That has nothing to do with Task Scheduler, so instead of focusing a lot of effort with it (highly populated & restrictive) may be one could look into how Windows Update operates.

    Anyway, see if fiddling with Task Scheduler solves your issue.

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