something always running on my XP machine

[samhill]

I have a 3GHz, 256ram machine. It has 3 drives of 20gig each. I have XPSP2 and am current on patches.

Here's what has me questioning. With no software running, I open Task Manager, go to performance and it shows a 0 to 4% CPU usage bump every second. Up down up down up down...Then I check process to see what's running. It toggles between svchost.ext and system idle process. I lock Zone Alarm internet access-still no change.
With the svchost.exe CPU at 03, the system idle process CPU is 97.
With the svchost.exe CPU at 00, the system idle process CPU is 99.
Keeps going like this.

Any suggestions for what I can do to stop this action?

[ECA]

If you really want to know that isnt bad.
If you want to know more, I would suggest hitting the spyware section, and asking for an evaluation...
He will ask that you run Hijackthis, and see whats running. Then give you suggestions.

[Ioman]

What if you shut down Zone Alarm, does that help? Can you copy and paste your processes in here?

[samhill]

I have run spyware several times [I already have hijackThis and checked it out [found nothing I didn't recognize] and I have turned Zone Alarm off. I have also turned AV, popup stoppers off. Trying to eliminate as many running processes as possible. And perhaps find the source of the activity as well. Still has no effect.

[Ioman]

hmm anyway you can copy and paste what is running here?