svchost.exe is hogging my CPU constantly

[Lukas]

I have several instances of svchost.exe running, as
displayed in the task manager. But one of them, beginning
on startup, is constantly using my CPU, taking 10% to 50%
at any given time. This results in all my other
applications running slowly. Now, if i keep it running,
all of my sound devices work fine - volume control,
speaker, media players etc. But when I end the process
through the task manager the sound does not work. When I
try to adjust the volume, I get an error mesage saying no
mixer drivers are installed. When I try to use my Winamp
mp3 player, I get an error messsage saying my sound card
is already in use. This happened suddenly as I was
downloading SP2. Any suggestions?

 

[S.Sengupta]

Scan your sysem with latest virus definitioned antivirus,or you may get
it scan free online here:-housecall.antivirus.com/
see also:-http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k/svchost.htm
regards,
ssg MS-MVP
pronetworks.org

 

[Herbert Nagler]

Scan your sysem with latest virus definitioned antivirus,or you may
get it scan free online here:-housecall.antivirus.com/
see also:-http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k/svchost.htm
regards,
ssg MS-MVP
pronetworks.org

-----------------

I just had my first look at XP (Home) on my son's new PC.
We installed AVG, Ad-aware and Zonealarm.

The first thing we noticed, was Zonealarm warning about SVCHOST.EXE wanting
to access the internet.
AVG finds a clean slate. Is this SVCHOST.EXE (generic host process) ever
supposed to access the internet as such?

I read the info about Welchia and Assarm Worms in the links above. Going to
try the manual spotting approach tomorrow.
As for the legit svchost.exe in Xp: is it supposed to want to access the
internet?

Thanks for any help
H.N.