SvcHost and me...a question

[malthaussen]

I have picked up a used laptop, and the previous owner left a lot of crap on it (75 processes running at once?). My query, though, is about the behavior of SvcHost. When I start the 'Net (WiFi connection), it uses up over 2.5 gigs of memory, which since I only have 4 gigs, means that I'm using about 90% of my available RAM. This degrades my surfing experience, so to speak. But suddenly, after a couple of hours of tedium, I find that it's only using 80k or so of memory, and I'm occupying only about 30% of available RAM.
Okay, I'm an ignorant idiot, but why is this happening, and is there anything I can do about it? I kinda like surfing, watching the odd video, and posting at DU.

-- Mal

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Only 75? I've got 120 on a good day. But, svc is a necessary tool for Windows...

https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/Windows-vista/what-is-svchostexe-and-why-is-it-running/

Basically, it sorts out how "real" processes talk to each other. Kill it, and it all dies.

First thing, though, is to boost your laptop memory. You probably have an empty slot, so buying another 4GB would be maybe 25 bucks or so. It's amazing how that speeds things up. Right now, vast amounts of background stuff is being shifted back and forth between disk and memory, and keeping it in memory is much faster. Make sure you get memory compatible with this computer, though.

[ManiacJoe]

2. SvcHost.exe is a wrapper for many background services in Windows.

The program itself does not do all that much. However, the DLLs (libraries) that it loads do all the work.

Most times multiple services will be running in a single instance of SvcHost.
Multiple instances of SvcHost.exe are used to run most of the background services.

Some services start and stop as needed. System startup time is where the startup of the services is most noticed.

If you log into an admin account, you can run the Services panel and see all the services available (some running, some not). If you know what you are doing, you can shut down any services you don't need.