SvcHost and me...a question

[malthaussen]

I have picked up a used laptop, and the previous owner left a lot of crap on it (75 processes running at once?). My query, though, is about the behavior of SvcHost. When I start the 'Net (WiFi connection), it uses up over 2.5 gigs of memory, which since I only have 4 gigs, means that I'm using about 90% of my available RAM. This degrades my surfing experience, so to speak. But suddenly, after a couple of hours of tedium, I find that it's only using 80k or so of memory, and I'm occupying only about 30% of available RAM.
Okay, I'm an ignorant idiot, but why is this happening, and is there anything I can do about it? I kinda like surfing, watching the odd video, and posting at DU.

-- Mal