svchost.exe problem!

[ChaosControl]

After my format (read other topic) I reainstalled Windows XP Pro + SP2.
Only now when i connect to the internet my computer crashes..

The taskbar doesnt work and so do a lot of small things.
When I open task manager it says svchost.exe is running 100% of the cpu.

I have Windows Firewall turned on and my router isnt letting in any.
so I dunno why i have this.

I hope anyone can help, this is hell. (reinstalled windows 6 times today...urgh...)

[sfx1999]

Run a full scandisk. Your hard drive may be dying.
Another posibility is bad RAM. Use MemTest86 at http://www.memtest86.com/

[Aaron]

It's probably a Windows service misbehaving.  Can be annoying to figure out which one.  Lots of them run under the svchost executable.

You can use msconfig to disable services from starting.  You can use this to narrow down and find the problem service, it just takes a lot of reboots.
You can also start and stop services while Windows is running by going to Start -> Run "services.msc".

When you find out which one it is, then you can know if it's really a problem of not.  You may even be able to Google up a fix (so that you don't have to disable the service).  Lots of times I've seen this and it turned out to be a service that really wasn't important anyway.

[ChaosControl]

I tried to find the service that was doing it and it seemed to be windows update.
Thanks!

I can't figure however, why did it do it after formatting 6 times?

[sfx1999]

Did you use scandisk?

[ChaosControl]

Yes, and almost every tool which had something to do with scanning a HDD.

[Aaron]

I doubt it's a hardware problem.  (It may be some bizarre hardware "conflict" with Windows or that service, but that wouldn't explain why it wasn't happening before you formatted the first time.)  Who knows.

I have seen this before.  I remember having a problem like this with the SSDP Discovery Service on another machine.

[ChaosControl]

Yeah, I think it happened because I put an USB extension cable in it after format.
Maybe the cable wasn't good anymore and made some short circuit or something which made windows cry and error up.

[Zack]

I've had this problem numerous times before and I've had to use different solutions. Oncwe it was a faulty laptop battery, another is was windows update...

[sfx1999]

I've had problems with various installers and svchost. Killing the svchost in question usually solved the problem.

[ChaosControl]

Yeah, but it would also kill all the other services attached to it.

[sfx1999]

I think each process gets its on instance of svchost.

[Aaron]

This is true, I believe each instance of svchost only runs one service.
I would prefer to figure out which service was causing the problem, though, and either fix or disable it (instead of just kill it).

[ChaosControl]

Every instance of scvhost runs up to 8 services, just so you know.

[Aaron]

Alright, didn't know that...
Thanks.