svchost.exe issues

[SubLiminate]

I'm having problems with svchost.exe. I've seen other threads describing issues with this, but the problems are a bit different, so I'm not sure the solutions will work.

Just in the last few days, my hard drive usage will get locked up at 98-100%, according to Resource Monitor. The CPU usage is between 40-60% and RAM reports 1400MB or so out of 2GB. The reported service that is accessing the drive is

svchost.exe (local system network restricted)

and there are dozens of these running, some doing large read/writes, others doing small ones. The PC is virtually unusable when this happens. It happens on boot, and then at other times, seemingly at random. I thought maybe the pagefile is doing something, but that appears to report as a different process.

One other oddity: svchost.exe doesn't show up at all in Task Manager, only in Resource Monitor, and only under the HD tab.

Toshiba Satellite
T2370 Core2
160 GB HD
2GB RAM
Vista Home Premium

Only peripherals - Sansa e270 and MS Wireless Mouse
Plugged in or on Battery makes no difference to problem

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated

[pro_newbie888]

Do you have any heavyware software (anti-virus or other security)..??
try to uninstall it and use the lightware security, or you can defrag it or check for errors..

You're not post your vista version..??
My suggestion is to upgrade your version to SP1

Hope useful..