Windows 10: Bizarre behavior from factory reset computer. 100+ background processes and 4GB RAM idling.

Okay, this is wild. So.

Back in 2015, 15 year old me got a Lenovo Y40-80 pre-installed with Windows 8, which then was upgraded to Windows 10. Time passed, it sat in our basement for a few years, and then this year I decided to bring it to school with me to help with some beefier programs and video stuff I was working on. I realized that the fans seemed to be working pretty hard, so I went in and looked at what was going on; it was using a TON of RAM (up to 7GB at a time, with this computer having 8GB preinstalled) and was running slow. So last week, I restarted it to factory settings and started fresh.

But it's still happening, along with a few other really weird things. The fans are still very loud, not constantly but dipping in and out. The CPU and Disk drive can both get up to 100% usage just with basic stuff, but then will drop back to 0-10% use without me touching anything. It's using 4GB of RAM just idling with only task manager open. There are over 100 background processes, most of which look like they're Service Host background processes, all of which using 1-3 MB except for a couple who are using 10-80 MB. The natural thing is to check for malware, so I did a scan with Windows Defender that told me that there was nothing wrong, then did a deep scan with Kaspersky and that found nothing wrong. I force-purged the windows.old temporary file, downloaded the microsoft process manager and froze any tasks not published by lenovo, AMD, intel, or microsoft (although none of them were marked as malware), had Kaspersky scan the System32 folder (which came back clean, idk what I expected), de-fragmented the C: drive, and then manually started ending tasks in the task manager. It still is acting the same way.

I don't really know what to do at this point; it works, but it's clearly struggling and I cannot imagine what kind of virus survived a full factory reset, which makes me nervous. The computer is old but decent... one of my friends is suggesting that I just reset it again, sell it, and build my own desktop PC with the money, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to take that step yet.

Any ideas of what to do here?

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:)

 

Windows shows 8GB RAM installed but 4GB RAM is usable

Hi There,

I've just upgraded my pc from 4GB RAM to 8GB RAM. Windows seems to have detected this upgrade but why does it show as only 4GB RAM available. The following is what I have tried so far with no luck:

• I have tried the msconfig method on ensuring maximum memory is not checked.
• physically removed the new RAM and reinstalled it

Any thoughts/suggestions on how i can resolve this matter?

Thanks

 

number of background processes and windows processes?

Is this a new or recent Windows installation?

If not, how long ago did this behavior start?

Have you looked at services? I have about 253 listed; about 240 Microsoft and about 13 other

I have about 90 microsoft services running right now and 10 of the other. Total of about 100 running.



Have you:

Tested your hard drive? Tested your RAM? Turned off most or all of your startup items as a test?

Try Task Manager to see what processes are taking up the most CPU cycles after a cold boot.

Does Task Manager show a high percentage of RAM usage?

 

Background Processes

Hello Andrew,

Task Manager shows you the running processes or programs depending on what kind of services they are.
Background processes run in the background without user intervention. The processes you see under this category include processes that involve logging, system monitoring, scheduling, and notifications. These are the processes that programs
usually use in the background. Windows services on the other hand, shows you the list of processes that make up your computer's interface or behavior. This explains why what you normally see under this category are the Windows services that
tell your computer how to operate.

Regards.