svchost.exe question

When I look at task manager, svchost.exe is using A LOT more memory than any windows process should be (I think). While playing DoD I noticed that it was running at an unbearable pace and I saw that after the game, svchost.exe was #2 in terms of memory usage. So I ended the process despite warning, and DoD started to run at normal speed. But then I realized doing that somehow messed with my volume control and I couldn’t play sounds for certain file types. So I restarted my computer, and it’s back, eating my memory.
Right now a svchost.exe is using around 30,000K of my memory. Do I have worm or is that normal? (Virus scans runs daily, and spyware almost daily)

It can be very hard to say what is normal, because svchost is (as I understand it,) a ‘placeholder’ executable used exclusively to run programs that require a helping hand to stand up in the windows world. Often they’ve been written in the form of some sort of DLLs, which cannot run on their own, but must be hosted by .exe programs. Another program might connect to them, or they can use svchost to run essentially by themselves.

So, without knowing what that particular copy of svchost is doing… almost impossible to say. It does seem like quite a lot of memory.

Actually, IIRC svchost is a shell within which Windows services run. Other apps, such as support applications for device drivers, can install themselves as system services (rather than running as startup apps) in order to have the security and control that Windows gives its services. In the case of the OP it sonds like his sound card’s mixer app or something similar installed as a service, and disabling it killed his ability to control mixer functions such as volume.