svchost.exe using a ton of memory

[Epical]

I see 12 svchost.exe processes (3 from SYSTEM, 3 from NETWORK SERVICE, 6 from LOCAL SERVICE) taking a total of 640MB of RAM. The majority of that is coming from two of the svchost.exe processes: one taking 385MB (LOCAL SERVICE), another taking 131MB (SYSTEM).

I know these are essentials components of Windows, but does them taking this much memory sound right? I'm running 64-bit Windows 7 Pro on 4GB RAM.

[Caiyuo]

By the nature of svchost it's kind of hard to say why or what is specifically causing high memory usage because it's a general process that windows services depend on. What you can try to do is use the app found here (no install needed) to see which services are causing the memory usage behind svchost and see if they're necessary to be on at all, or possibly set to manual instead of auto-start: http://blogs.howtogeek.com/mysticgee...ance-is-doing/

It's also possible that there's a form of virus or spyware masking itself as "svchost.exe" but you seem pretty tech savvy. May be worth scanning if you have no luck, though.

[Celeras]

Just checked for you, I have 13 of these processes. 6 local, 4 system, 3 network totally 263~ mb. My highest system is 110k, and the highest local is 22k. Difference obviously being that one local process of yours.

In my experience, the most common reason svchost could be acting up is a problem with an automatic updater. Antivirus/windows update/security suite/etc. Try disabling all of these types of things and see if it has any effect on the usage. If that doesn't point to anything you may want to consider a HJT log analysis from someone(I'm no good with this).

[SephYuyX]

svchost is the gdamn devil when it comes to processing.
As suggested, do lots of scans, and start disabling things to see if that fixes the problem or not.

[Spekkio]

can try process explorer to pick apart what services each svchost is handling. nice little tool, btw. got the whole sysinternals suite on a thumbdrive for cleaning up messy computers.

[DAKPluto]

can try process explorer to pick apart what services each svchost is handling. nice little tool, btw. got the whole sysinternals suite on a thumbdrive for cleaning up messy computers.

This ^

Process Explorer is a godsend to cleaning up tons of useless shit.

[Kryssan]

SysInternals; the one stop shop for everything from debugging Windows to scaring your friends with BSOD screensavers. Whatever would we do without 'em.

[Spekkio]

SysInternals; the one stop shop for everything from debugging Windows to scaring your friends with BSOD screensavers. Whatever would we do without 'em.

well, they used to be an independent company and msft was so enamored with their work they bought them out and hired their staff if i understand correctly, so i guess msft felt the same way!