Im having an issue here on both my laptop and the parents computer downstairs.

Ever since an update (a whole heap of them last week), SVCHOST.exe randomly hogs 100% of my processor, makes everything else slower. I can watch my laptops cpu usage jump all of a sudden from 20% to 100% and stay there for ages until I force the particular session of svchost causing the problem to end. This would happen if im doing nothing on my computer, or if im just browsing tekforums, itll just go skyhigh.

Now as I said, end tasking svchost when it does it stops it happening, and it doesnt happen again, or at least doesnt seem to. Except... having endtasked it means that for some reason my sound will no longer work, windows thinks that there are "no available mixing devices" just like Ive removed a soundcard.

Id have thought its drivers, but it cant be, the laptop has AC97 stuff, and the computer downstairs has nvidia onboard crap (but not ac97).

Anyone else suffering this issue??

Ive seen this issue before on my own PC, turned out to be a nasty residing in explorer.exe. Once that was removed it seemed to go back to normal.

hmm... a scan I shall do!