When I first installed windows I didn't have a problem,
but about 3 months later a process called svchost started
using all my processing power. My computer used to be
idling at 2-4% now idles at 35-50% CPU usage. It's now
hard to run any programs. Someone please help me.
Svchost.exe is a general purpose process that Microsoft provides to run various
services (background tasks) that let you use the various features of Windows.
If one of the services is running heavily, you will see svchost.exe using a lot
of resources (CPU and memory).
If you want to know more about the many processes running on your computer, get
Process Explorer (free) from
<
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml>. Provides way more
information than Task Manager. You can look at any process and see what modules
it contains, and who wrote or distributed each module. For instances of
svchost.exe, you can see what services each provides.
For a good reference to the many system services, see
<
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm>. For discussion about most
processes in general (what is each one, what does it do, is it necessary), just
type it in to your favorite search engine. Anything dangerous is probably being
discussed somewhere on the web.
Please look carefully at the process name. Might it be "svchos1.exe"?
Cheers,
Chuck
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.
