New
#1
CPU always at 100%; multiple copies of programs
I have several issues going on and wanted to see if anyone has an idea of what could be going on. I'm technically unsavvy so unsure if I have malware, or when things are just normal, etc. I had a cyberstalking ex a few years ago so am a bit paranoid at times.
Firstly, when I hit ctrl alt del (which I have to do often cause things run slowly and if I open 3 or 4 apps inevitably things "stop responding") I see that CPU is always 100%. My laptop isn't even halfway full and I didn't reformat it, though I do use Veracrypt (but not for full-disk encryption, as that option is greyed out).
There are also multiple examples of a program running-for example, there will be dropbox.exe 5 times though there are only 2 users for the computer.
There are also countless svchosts.exe (over 50). Things keep popping up when I end a task or have it set to manual, like Cortana (even though I've disabled it in settings) and when I end it it keeps immediately popping back up 4 times over! The only time I ended something and it actually turned my computer off and gave me that scannable bar code to show an error was when I ended "remote procedure call" (I know I shouldn't end programs when I'm not sure of what they are, but I always end things with words like "remote," "telemetry" and "workstation" though they come back anyway.)
I often have to force close things-I had every app closed I could think of but couldn't delete a simple file because it "was open in another program."
Finally, even though my system is for Windows 64, it seems that when I download apps for Windows, it's always the 32 version. If it's supposed to be automatic, why are programs like Dropbox and most other apps using the 32 version even though I have a newer machine?
Thanks-if anyone has answers to those questions individually or can see a larger pattern that could be contributing to my problems I'd be very grateful. I have Avast and malwarebytes installed (there are always like 7 instances of them open, 32-bit version of course) and use CCLEANER and nothing shows up but my computer is almost unusably slow!