Slowdown of System, High CPU, Cannot Find Source of Problems

AnEdge said:

The next thing is to boot into safe mode and see if a rouge program is causing the problems...have you tried safe mode yet?

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2...dows-10-a.html

You may have a virus also...have you run Malwarebytes Free?

https://www.malwarebytes.org/antimalware/

When your in Safe Mode with networking download the free Malwarebytes and run a scan

AnEdge said:

The next thing is to boot into safe mode and see if a rouge program is causing the problems...have you tried safe mode yet?

Yes I have:

Flutters said:

Eventually I managed to get into safe mode by a very finicky method, which was by turning the computer off during startup which made it do a startup repair next time it turned on, from which I was able to enter safe mode. And in safe mode--everything works. None of the described issues happen there. I am able to use all the windows features (aside from those blocked in safe mode), ctrl+alt+delete and restarting function properly, and I am able to connect to the internet and use firefox, everything works. So this means that there is something there causing the problems, and it is being blocked by safe mode, but I cannot find it!

Also yes, I have run Malwarebytes; several times.

Evidence seems to be suggesting it is an errant driver, tho; however when I did a driver maintenance scan it came up with nothing. And trying to find the awry driver manually is a daunting task to say the least!

do you have a restore point a few days back where everything was working fine?

AnEdge said:

do you have a restore point a few days back where everything was working fine?

Forgot to mention, I tried that too this morning! I had a restore point from yesterday before the windows update after which things stopped working--though there is also one from the 27th I could try, too. I am just worried about losing some of the work I have done recently so I should probably just back up some of those files first as I was planning to do anyway. I will try that and update you in this thread on what happened.

Ok, flutters let us know

MS probably downloaded drivers with the update

You can go into system>advanced system settings >hardware> device instillation settings and say no

This will prevent windows from installing drivers

AnEdge said:

You can go into system>advanced system settings >hardware> device instillation settings and say no

This will prevent windows from installing drivers

Thanks for the tip, I'll make sure to do that too! :)

Okay, so... the system restore failed, said there was a file it could not access, but didn't say what file or why exactly... So that option is out! I really wish I could figure out exactly what's going on