Win 2K & svchost.exe problems

I've looked at most of the previous threads on the subject of svchost.exe but most of them seem to apply to XP. I'm running 2K and am having problems with svchost taking 98% of resources and running that way for a very long time. Sometimes it then stops and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the problem goes away if I reboot but not always. This is a problem that periodically rears it's ugly head for a while before it disappears for a while. What draws the dragon from it's lair is beyond me. So I know this subject has been beaten to death but I am having a hard time applying what I have read to my situation.

As I said I am running 2K Professional Service Pack 4 (build 2195). I have a 1.1 gig AMD Athlon XP with 128K Primary Memory Cache and 256K Secondary. I have a MSI MS-6712 1.0 MOtherboard. I have 1024MB Ram, 512MB in slot "0" and the same in slot 1. I have 2 80GB drives. I have a NVIDIA GeForce4MX 440-SE graphics card. I run a Realtek AC'07 Audio off of the motherboard.

I don't know what other info might be useful. Any guidance would be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

Sometimes and typically what works with xp, may also work with w2k.

When exactly do you notice these issues? Is it upon initial startup of the machine? During browsing the internet, installing an app? Need a wee bit more info.

You may want to install Process Explorer:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4566

Which may give you more details on what program svchost is giving you issues.

 

When it happens it almost always happens when I turn on the computer. Once everything loads it just sits there using 100% of my CPU. Sometimes it resolves itself after a while but other times I have to do a cold reboot. There have been occasions when I have had to do 2 or 3. It has only happened once or twice when I've already been running a program but that hasn't happened in a very long time.

I've done a complete updated virus scan (Norton) and spyware (zero spyware) and there's nothing there. Svchost is in the the system32 folder where it should be. I can't believe it could be Norton because I've been running that forever. I haven't had this problem in months and then it pops up again now (haven't installed any new programs). It's been a problem before but then seemed to go away after a period of giving me a headache.