For the last several days, LU has grabbed my computer, frequently throughout the day, and virtually locks it up with cpu and HDD traffic.
Well...it's not just LU -- but that seems to initiate it. After LU is completed (often large d/l's), Windows System and svchost just take over my computer -- cpu use ranging in the 50-70% area, and giant, continuous HDD I/O's, for 10-minutes or so. Very frustrating when you're trying to do something.
What is going on? Anyone else having these problems?
Also, another thing -- NIS is back to its trick of "Doing Background Tasks," regardless of Idle Time settings, etc, (mine is set to 30-minutes as "idle"). The little black and white "Notice of Background Tasks" box on the lower right of the screen will pop-up several times a day -- even while I'm doing intensive, important work. WTF?
I suspect that NIS is trying to download a large update to your computer.
If you have NIS 20.x (2013) and your setting for Automatic Download of New Version is On (the default) then Symantec is probably trying to push an upgrade to the new NIS 21.x (2014).
If you have NIS 21.x, (2014) then you are likely receiving the v. 21.1.0.18 product update - see Tony Weiss' 10-Oct-2013 announcement here . F4E reporting receiving the full 145 MB download yesterday for the engine update - see here.
Try changing your Windows power settings to delay sleep mode (see here) and leave your computer in idle mode for a few hours to see if that solves the problem.
------------ MS Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2 * Firefox 24.0 * IE 9.0 * NIS 2013 v. 20.4.0.40 HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
Tks for reply, imacri. I have 20.4.0.40. And Automatic Download of New Version is OFF.
These "updates"/lock-ups of my system have been going-on for quite some time (several days? a week?). I don't think it's trying to d/l 2014. Something else is going-on.
And why does it grab my computer -- when I'm actively and continuously using it -- to do "Background Tasks"??
These "updates"/lock-ups of my system have been going-on for quite some time (several days? a week?). I don't think it's trying to d/l 2014. Something else is going-on. And why does it grab my computer -- when I'm actively and continuously using it -- to do "Background Tasks"??
It's possible that your NIS v. 20.4.0.40.installation has been corrupted if this has nothing to do with an upgrade to NIS 21.x.
If you go to the Performance window during or shortly after these periods of high activity, do you see high peaks of yellow (i.e., ccSvcHst.exe - the Symantec Service Framework)?
If ccSvcHst.exe is the culprit, look in your Norton Tasks window and see if you can correlate the Last Run time and name of the Norton task with the periods of high activity. If it looks like the Insight Optimizer task is responsible, check your setting at Settings | General | Norton Tasks | Idle Time Optimizer and see if this disk defragmenting task is turned On.
EDIT:
You should also check your LiveUpdate history (History | Show | LiveUpdate) to see if there are any log entries that indicate that your Automatic LiveUpdate sessions are not completing normally.
------------ MS Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2 * Firefox 24.0 * IE 9.0 * NIS 2013 v. 20.4.0.40 HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
Again imacri -- tks for the help. And yes, I'm aware of the defrag tool in NIS optimizer. Have *always* had that turned OFF.
I'll look at the performance page -- but part of the problem in having NIS grabbing everything, is I can't get to it. NIS and Windows System are running so high (esp on HDD), that Performance won't load.
So...we're back to "corrupted installation," etc -- use NRT, etc, etc (which wipes out GHOST and NU too) -- and reinstall.
I"m just not gonna do that. Screw it. Maybe I should look elsewhere for Security Software. This kind of thing has been going on for many years (6 or so?) with NIS.
I don't mean in any way to be jumping on you imacri -- but Norton/Symantec needs to do some thinking about these kind of "Uninstall/Reinstall" problems and solutions. I don't have time for it.
I'll look at the performance page -- but part of the problem in having NIS grabbing everything, is I can't get to it. NIS and Windows System are running so high (esp on HDD), that Performance won't load.
So...we're back to "corrupted installation," etc -- use NRT, etc, etc (which wipes out GHOST and NU too) -- and reinstall.
Glad to help, and I certainly sympathize with your comment about the amount of work it takes to diagnose and fix a corrupted installation.
One other suggestion if you can't get into the Performance Monitoring window. The Resource Monitor on the Perfomance tab of your Windows Task Manager might provide some information about the offending process. I prefer using Microsoft Sysinternal's Process Explorer since I don't find Task Manager to be very user friendly.
If you're worried about a possible malware infection, try running a full system scan with the free Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware to see if it can detect anything missed by NIS. If you haven't used MBAM before, be aware that it will sometimes detect low-risk pop-up ads and browser toolbars as PUPs (potentially unwanted programs) or PUMs (potentially unwanted modifications).
------------ MS Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2 * Firefox 24.0 * IE 9.0 * NIS 2013 v. 20.4.0.40 HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
Yes, Krusty -- I have left it sitting for some time (hour or so?) in the past, to see if NIS would get it's "Background Tasks" thing done.
And, it seemed to work -- for a while. But, then in a day or so it starts-up again. Makes no sense.
Hi Robby:
Further to Krusty13's comments, if you've changed your default NIS idletime settings to try and delay your background Norton tasks from running during idle mode, high prioity Norton tasks like the automatic Quick Scan will eventually override those settings and run even when your system is not idle - see SendOfJive's post here (and note the comment in that post about issues with wireless mice). This ties in with your comment in message # 1 about one of your idle timeouts being set to 30 minutes. Regardless, you should be able to catch what's going on if you monitor your NIS Performance graph and Norton Tasks window as described in message # 5.
I would try resetting your idletime settings back to their defaults. Go to Settings | General | Norton Tasks and click on Use Section Defaults. Remember to turn your Idle Time Optimizer back to Off before clicking on Apply.
If you haven't done so already, one other simple thing you can do is to start an automated support session at Support | Get Support to see if AutoFix can find a problem with your NIS installation. If AutoFix suggests that you upgrade to NIS 21.x you can decline and skip the upgrade if you wish.
------------ MS Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2 * Firefox 24.0 * IE 9.0 * NIS 2013 v. 20.4.0.40 HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
Tks, imacri, for the helpful suggestions. And, apologies for the long-delayed reply -- have been moving into another house. Ugh.
So far, what I'm trying -- in an attempt to solve the problem -- is to set my "Idle Time-Out" to 1-minute, when I first start-up in the morning -- and then just let the computer sit (idle) for about 1/2-hour or so, while I eat breakfast, etc. Then I set it back to 30-minutes while I'm doing computer work. Later, when I'm not so busy on the computer, I'll set it back to 1-minute and let the computer be idle for a while.
That may be helping to let NIS "do its thing(s)" on maintenance, etc.
Yet, even with that approach, I'm still having strange things happen. For instance, after following the above procedures yesterday, NIS "ccsvchst.exe Toshiba" ran for nearly 90-minutes at around 2%-to-30% of my cpu. But nothing shows to be running in "Tasks."
Yet it clearly shows up in "Performance." And...here's the strange thing..."Perfromance" shows all this to be going-on while my computer is in "Idle Mode." I clearly was NOT in idle mode. I was using my computer quite heavily.
Fortunately, this level of cpu use is not very disruptive. The heavy, continuous HDD activity is what just absoltuely freezes-up my computer. I'm still quite uncertain as to what causes that.
Robby, I notice you have a few Norton products on your computer. Are any of them running concurrently ?
Also, I notice you only have 1.5 gigs of ram. Not really enough to be able to multi task. 4 gigs would be the minimum. Memory is very cheap, and would be worthwhile upgrading yours. XP will *see* up to 3.6 gigs of ram, normally....
XP can "see" up to 3 GB and yet the mobo has to support the additional RAM.
Also it would be nice to know if there is a single core CPU.
But all these doesn't explain the constant large size of LiveUpdates.
I think that it might be a conflict with other Norton products or some remnants of a previous installation and the ccscvhst.exe toshiba doesn't exist unless the name of the user is toshiba.
Normally is ccsvchst.exe * user and ccsvchst * system.
I think that additional details are required from this user in order to see what is happening with this system.
Yet, even with that approach, I'm still having strange things happen. For instance, after following the above procedures yesterday, NIS "ccsvchst.exe Toshiba" ran for nearly 90-minutes at around 2%-to-30% of my cpu. But nothing shows to be running in "Tasks."
Yet it clearly shows up in "Performance." And...here's the strange thing..."Perfromance" shows all this to be going-on while my computer is in "Idle Mode." I clearly was NOT in idle mode. I was using my computer quite heavily.
Hi Robby:
I just noticed something odd - I can't see the signature at the bottom of your posts showing your system specs [NIS 2013, GHOST 15, NU 15. Win XP SP3. 2004 Toshiba 17" laptop, 3.1GHz "dual-core" cpu, 1.5 GB mem (max 2.0), 80GB HDD] unless I sign out of the forum. The same thing happens with posts from other users like peterweb who also use a signature so it must be a problem from my end.
I would have to agree with F4E. You appear to have an older computer and a lack of RAM is likely a large part of the problem. Please see RichD's post here as well as the screenshot here of his RAM usage on the Memory tab of the Performance graph (zoomed out to 1 week) to show the difference an additional 1 GB of RAM made to his system.
The Symantec Service Framework (ccSvcHst.exe) runs continuously on your system - even when your system is out of idle - because it actively monitors your system in real-time for malware. Normally, the % of CPU consumed by ccSvcHst.exe when your system is out of idle is very low, but there are multiple reasons why ccSvcHst.exe might be consuming high levels of CPU out of idle. As Apostolos said, this includes (but is not limited to):
a corrupted NIS installation (see ghjbox's post here about a corrupted Insight Optimizer defrag)
a conflict with other software on your system (see Maverick's post here on problems created when his system checked for e-mail)
an orphaned file or registry entry from another anti-virus software program that was not uninstalled properly (see further comments here).
As Apostolos suggested, it would help us to narrow down the problem if you could post more information. The next time your system enters one of these periods of high activity, wait for about 15 to 30 minutes, open your Performance window, and capture and post screenshots of the graphs for both the CPU and Memory (RAM) tabs using Yaso_Kuuhl's instructions here. If you click your mouse inside the graph where the activity was peaking a pop-up should display what processes were running on your system at the time of this high activity.
EDIT:
A screenshot of your startup programs (in NIS 2013, go to Performance | Startup Manager) might also help us to identify a few programs that are loading into memory at boot-up that might be wasting RAM. ------------ MS Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2 * Firefox 24.0 * IE 9.0 * NIS 2013 v. 20.4.0.40 HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
Another possibility may be the old hard drive on this system may have some physical problems. If your Norton definition files are getting corrupted, the program will re download the definition, or program files, and replace them. This could explain your high CPU and HD usage.
To check your hard disk, click on the Windows Start button. In the search box type CMD. Right click on cmd.exe and click on run as administrator. In the command prompt type "chkdsk c: /r" without the quotes. A message will come up asking if you want to check the disk on the next restart. Answer 'Y'. Reboot and the check disk will run before Windows starts up. This check will check the file system as well as the physical disk surface. This scan can take a long time, depending on the size of your hard drive.
If this scan finds and fixes errors, there may also be corrupted Windows files.
Click on Start and type CMD in the search box. Right click on cmd.exe and click on Run as Administrator. Type 'sfc /scannow' without the quotes. This will check your Windows installation and try to correct any errors it finds.
