svchost.exe taking CPU to 100%

Thanks Layback Bear ... yes, I returned to yr comment and carried out that action through syst. config (viz disable all)

There is only one active anti virus (avira - which I loaded today getting rid of AVG which I found too invasive and memory hungry) - the Trend Micro used is the online one (wanted to be sure in light of the bizarre CPU behaviour) and I use malwarebytes only for scanning for malware.

What would you suggest as a next line of inquiry to stop what's shown in the sc. shot above (taken when the laptop is at rest)?

Make sure you only have one anti virus program installed. Just disabling them is not good enough. That includes online/cloud or any other kind of anti virus program. I noticed you did have Zone Alarm installed. Is it completely removed?

Malwarebytes is not a anti virus program. I know of no problems that Malwarebytes will cause.

Reboot and then see if it helps. Using around 2 gigs of memory is normal.
I use 2 gigs of ram on my systems with just 1 Firefox page open.

Your hard drive at 27 % indicates something is running in the background doing something.
At the present time my hard drive is between 1 and 2 %. I have MSE and Malwarbytes both active at this time. Because you have a laptop their will be some things you will need to have checked in Services and Startups that a desktop doesn't need. You will not need all those auto updates like Google and such.
I do all updates manually. That way I can keep track of what is installing and when.

I'm on my other system at this time and this is what it looks like.

Zone alarm is firewall only. There is only one anti virus.

Hello HIMA,
yes, not sure now but think the latter was AVG -Zen. Anyway I found AVG rather intrusive and demanding of memory so have removed it entirely and replaced it with Avira. I've also been scratching my head as to what may have happened ... have scanned individual folders added etc but really I haven't been doing much as I get lousy internet during the day (oversubscribed tower) and recently the Service Provider has been upgrading the local towers so there have been outages ... = low usage of computer.

Okay, so now that you have Avira installed is you SVC host still showing high CPU?

CPU is highly erratic, even when computer is at rest ... see last screen shot. However, SCVhost seems to have settled since Updates were turned off.

What antivirus have you been using prior to having installed AVG earlier this month?

MSE - however that caused a major conflict (again with Updates) and it necessitated my first even Remote Assistance with Microsoft to remedy. So I was keen to not continue using MSE.

With the removal of AVG I followed up with a Registry scan (CCleaner) and that removed what was lingering .

Thanks ... d/loaded and ran the removal tool.

However, as you can see the CPU remains highly erratic.

Alvira only loaded on yesterday ... ZA is a remnant. I had ZA suite for many years and after I ended subscription I retained the fire-wall as it's familiar and I liked the notifications. It's never caused a problem and doesn't show up on Resource Monitor.

I do appreciate your input HIME but to be honest I'm feeling exhausted as I'm not very technical and for now I've run out of things to check. I've been staring at Resource Monitor non stop for a few days now :) Maybe it's best to leave it for a bit and come back with fresh eyes.