svchost.exe Error messing up my PC

Can anyone tell me what svchost.exe is?

Firstly I have been getting a small box up saying this for a long time (happens randomly) it say's in the box
"the instruction at "0x745f2780"referenced memory at "0x00000000". the memory could not be read"
This crashes my sound card every time it happens, unless I say OK in which it crashes my PC, so I just press the x to close window and reboot in the hope it wont come up again, sometimes it wont.

Right now I have rebooted 4 times and it comes up every time with 3 other error reports saying
"Generic Host Process for win32 services has encountered a problem and needs to close, sorry for the inconvenience"they're the send error report boxes.

Now the only reason i'm able to type this message is because I haven't closed them all, but they take up alot of space on the screen.
Can anyone help me out trying to find the cause of the problem plz???

[edit on 8-1-2007 by chris01621]

Could be due to the automatic update feature. You should read the thread below.

www.infohq.com...

If that doesn't work, throw your PC out the window and buy a Mac.

Originally posted by kinglizard
Could be due to the automatic update feature. You should read the thread below.

www.infohq.com...

Thanks for that, not such an uncommon problem then, I notice no one says anything about their sound card, but that happens every time for me.

I closed all windows after the original post, it crashed and I turned it of by the button, like usual and it hasn't come up this time, but it was the 5th time I had to switch off.

I have turned off automatic updates and now can only hope it works in future...

I just Googled for the error that you posted and that was one of the hits. If it doesn't work you should do some more Googling.

I can tell you that svchost is normal and should always be running. Its used by windows to tackle certain tasks. It is even normal to see it running more than once at a time.

Microsoft | SVCHOST.EXE Process Information

If an svchost process starts pegging your CPU, then there is something that is running THROUGH svchost thats the problem... not svchost itself. It is supposed to be there.

Can you tell me more about the symptoms of this occurance? When did it first start happening? Have there been an recent hardware or software changes?

(MCP Certified, Network+ Certified, Dell 3rd-Tier Gold Tech Support Assoc.)

~DMN~

EDIT: Just re-read your post... have you tried booting up in Safe Mode? If you get the same problems there, then the issue is likley hardware related (or a really really bad Windows error). If the computer runs just fine in Safe Mode, then you likely have a software or registry problem.

Is it a Dell by any chance?


[edit on 27-1-2007 by damajikninja]

[edit on 27-1-2007 by damajikninja]

Chris, I think windows was trying to tell you exactly what the issue is.

""referenced memory at "0x00000000". the memory could not be read""-it could very well be a bad/flaky ram stick.

Bad is easy to tell, flaky-interminitant issues, is more challenging.

Try replacing your ram with ram from friends rig and see if issue still continues.

Another issue, since you say it crashes your sound card-is something else trying to use the same IRQ as the sound card???

Also try uninstalling the sound card and install the newest driver for the card.



[edit on 1/28/2007 by mrmonsoon]

0x00000000 is not a valid memory pointer. This seems like a software problem, not a problem with bad memory.

Originally posted by damajikninja
I can tell you that svchost is normal and should always be running. Its used by windows to tackle certain tasks. It is even normal to see it running more than once at a time.

Microsoft | SVCHOST.EXE Process Information

If an svchost process starts pegging your CPU, then there is something that is running THROUGH svchost thats the problem... not svchost itself. It is supposed to be there.

Can you tell me more about the symptoms of this occurance? When did it first start happening? Have there been an recent hardware or software changes?

(MCP Certified, Network+ Certified, Dell 3rd-Tier Gold Tech Support Assoc.)

~DMN~

EDIT: Just re-read your post... have you tried booting up in Safe Mode? If you get the same problems there, then the issue is likley hardware related (or a really really bad Windows error). If the computer runs just fine in Safe Mode, then you likely have a software or registry problem.

Is it a Dell by any chance?


[edit on 27-1-2007 by damajikninja]

[edit on 27-1-2007 by damajikninja]

No it's not Dell, it started happening about half a year ago, but it was never as bad as when I started this thread, it just kept crashing.

It hasn't happened since I turned off automatic updates.
I was thinking that they are just conflicting with other programs, but i'm no good with technical stuff so I could be wrong.
So far though it seems good...