Hello, new to this forum.
In short - dllhost.exe in task manager seemed to eat up all my memory (I had 10GB free) and make my computer extremely slow. I opened safe mode, freed up space, and have had no issues since. I need to know whether this was a normal problem with not having enough free space or whether it was caused by a virus.
Not so short -
I read that if the dllhost.exe file is in system 32 it's fine. I searched my computer for dllhosts and found 1 in system 32 and 3 others. Is it normal to have more than 1 of these? If not, I guess these are viruses?
Here are the file locations:
C:\Windows\System32
C:\Windows\SysWOW64
C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-com-surrogate_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_43fa44d954d596e7
C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-com-surrogate_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_a018e05d0d33081d
I had a problem with a dllhost.exe file, but now I have no issues at all, so I'm unsure whether I'm infected or not.
What happened to make me think I might be infected:
Yesterday I was on youtube and got a message urging me to close chrome down because of too much memory use. I did, then reopened chrome, and got the same message. I closed it down again and my computer was running slower. I clicked a video in one of my folders to play and it played fine. I closed the video down and all the thumbnails were blank and my computer was very slow. (I don't know if these were blank before or after clicking the video.) I opened task manager and dllhost.exe with description com surrogate was using up a lot of memory. I checked my main drive's free space (C drive) and it was on around 1GB - before this it was on around 10GB. I then closed everything down and then was no longer able to open anything. After searching (on my phone) I found that there is a virus which calls itself dllhost.exe which does this.
What I did to solve my problem:
I went into safe mode and deleted many files from my main drive (C drive.) There were no issues in safe mode. I then restarted the computer and since then I have had no problems whatsoever. I haven't even seen dllhost.exe in task manager since.
Why I think it might not be a virus (though unsure) :
I scanned these 4 dllhost files with microsoft security essentials and AVG and no threats were found.
Everything is running perfectly fine as though there never was a problem.
The common dllhost virus issue I read in other forums was about multiple dllhost.exe *32 com surrogates in task manager. This was just 1 single dllhost.exe com surrogate in task manager. without the *32.
One thing aside from just to make sure which makes me think this might be a virus is that after freeing up space on my main drive I had around 32GB free space on it. That was yesterday and today, when I booted my computer, I found the drive was now on 24GB, and have no idea where this went.
So...
Is it possible for my issue to happen without a virus causing it? - could this simply have been a case of having low memory and my computer trying to do something which required more memory than was available, resulting in this?
Is having 4 dllhost.exe files normal and safe? Are these definitely viruses or is there a chance that they are legit files?
Is this overnight loss of GB normal? Could this be being used for temporary things, or is this a bad sign?
Thank you, anybody who can answer any of this. I'm either in great need of help or great need to know my computer is fine.
In short - dllhost.exe in task manager seemed to eat up all my memory (I had 10GB free) and make my computer extremely slow. I opened safe mode, freed up space, and have had no issues since. I need to know whether this was a normal problem with not having enough free space or whether it was caused by a virus.
Not so short -
I read that if the dllhost.exe file is in system 32 it's fine. I searched my computer for dllhosts and found 1 in system 32 and 3 others. Is it normal to have more than 1 of these? If not, I guess these are viruses?
Here are the file locations:
C:\Windows\System32
C:\Windows\SysWOW64
C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-com-surrogate_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_43fa44d954d596e7
C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-com-surrogate_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_a018e05d0d33081d
I had a problem with a dllhost.exe file, but now I have no issues at all, so I'm unsure whether I'm infected or not.
What happened to make me think I might be infected:
Yesterday I was on youtube and got a message urging me to close chrome down because of too much memory use. I did, then reopened chrome, and got the same message. I closed it down again and my computer was running slower. I clicked a video in one of my folders to play and it played fine. I closed the video down and all the thumbnails were blank and my computer was very slow. (I don't know if these were blank before or after clicking the video.) I opened task manager and dllhost.exe with description com surrogate was using up a lot of memory. I checked my main drive's free space (C drive) and it was on around 1GB - before this it was on around 10GB. I then closed everything down and then was no longer able to open anything. After searching (on my phone) I found that there is a virus which calls itself dllhost.exe which does this.
What I did to solve my problem:
I went into safe mode and deleted many files from my main drive (C drive.) There were no issues in safe mode. I then restarted the computer and since then I have had no problems whatsoever. I haven't even seen dllhost.exe in task manager since.
Why I think it might not be a virus (though unsure) :
I scanned these 4 dllhost files with microsoft security essentials and AVG and no threats were found.
Everything is running perfectly fine as though there never was a problem.
The common dllhost virus issue I read in other forums was about multiple dllhost.exe *32 com surrogates in task manager. This was just 1 single dllhost.exe com surrogate in task manager. without the *32.
One thing aside from just to make sure which makes me think this might be a virus is that after freeing up space on my main drive I had around 32GB free space on it. That was yesterday and today, when I booted my computer, I found the drive was now on 24GB, and have no idea where this went.
So...
Is it possible for my issue to happen without a virus causing it? - could this simply have been a case of having low memory and my computer trying to do something which required more memory than was available, resulting in this?
Is having 4 dllhost.exe files normal and safe? Are these definitely viruses or is there a chance that they are legit files?
Is this overnight loss of GB normal? Could this be being used for temporary things, or is this a bad sign?
Thank you, anybody who can answer any of this. I'm either in great need of help or great need to know my computer is fine.