A process called Service Host: Local System is using up all of my laptops resources

There are a lot of Service Hosts:

The highlighted, for me, was consuming up to 39% of CPU, and I thought that's why my laptop's fans went spinning at full capacity. So I investigated. My immediate issue was not the CPU (it should be, long term) but the fan noise. My problem isn't fixed.

However my investigation uncovered the mess that Task Scheduler is. I thought it was the same user-oriented Task Scheduler from Windows 98. Boy was I in for a surprise. This thing is not user-oriented at all. It's SYSTEM oriented.

Screenshot:

I do not even have space to display all the items in the list on the left. All these contain items, which display in the center. There's a column, "Triggers". Be very careful cleaning up Task Scheduler.

Many have given up on random computer wakes also. I am almost certain fiddling with the items in there will solve this. Having a $2000+ laptop as a CS student, I am concerned about the impact these excessively frequent wakes from sleep will have on my computer's life. It's worse than running CPU intensive tasks IMO unless technology has progressed so far voltage changes are like, nothing. Just like Start-Stop systems on cars.

Speaking of the culprit, it started again:

Note that Windows Update is the new item, increasing the list to 13 members from 12. That has nothing to do with Task Scheduler, so instead of focusing a lot of effort with it (highly populated & restrictive) may be one could look into how Windows Update operates.

Anyway, see if fiddling with Task Scheduler solves your issue.

I also have an HP, but the problem was it was Downloading maps for offline

I had the same problem once in a while beside the "not responding" problem that also came up on its own while.

Today, it happened after I plugged in a Kingston USB thumb drive that had my 2014 Turbotax file to work on 2015 tax return. I saw that Windows 8 "tried" to install and got "stuck" on Device Setup while the laptop's memory got gobbled up chunks by chunks by that horrible thing "Service Host ..."

Like before, the laptop got really sluggish, the mouse pointer jerked, my blood pressure rose, ...

To "solve" all the problems, I pressed and held the power button for 5 seconds. The laptop shut down. I pressed the power button again to turn on the laptop, and that horrible "Service Host ..." stopped eating the memory.

So the question of "Windows 8 is supposed to be a fully functional operating system on its own, is it not?"

To me, it's not. To solve this kind Windows problem, it's been "if the software hangs, turn off the hardware" that worked except the ongoing work would be lost. I just hope that someday, Chrome will let me migrate to it smoothly.

Dear Microsoft,

This is quite remarkable. We are now in March 2016 and the first post is from December 2012. About 2000 other people seemed to have had the same problem on this forum and the first answer apparently did not solve the problem for most customers.

I have the exact same problem with a clean installation of Windows 8. The Service Host process is consuming approximately 1 GB of RAM and practically brings the computer to a standstill. I have not installed a single piece of third-party software and the computer came with a pre-installed version of Windows 8. I have since installed the operating system twice manually, but the very same thing happens every time.

I have tried installing all Windows updates, I have tried not installing any updates. I have thrown off all the pre-installed Toshiba system software - to no avail. The suggestions other users gave here on the forum also did not work for me. All I can do is to kill the process manually and then continue working. However, at any moment Windows will automatically start the process again and it will immediately go back to its high usage of memory.

Is there any solution to this?

I do not even expect an answer from Microsoft really. But if for some reason I do get a response, please do not tell me to upgrade to Windows 10. Windows 8 is supposed to be a fully functional operating system on its own, is it not?