So, what I ended up doing was doing a factory reset (after I backed up my important files, of course), and after that, viola, the computer is running better than it ever has before, all sorts of...

Well I'd say use the method of elimination and remove your drives from the computer (as well as anything else that can be removed) until you can isolate what is making the noise.

From your description and from the video, that sounds like a hard drive failure. The "loud click of death" I believe it's called. Can you tell if the sound is coming from the hard drive or not?

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...

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

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...

Yes I have:

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....

Okay I finished that, and the report says "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations."
So it didn't find anything, just like everything else I have tried thus far. So...

Thanks, I'll try that now! :)

Oh, I think we may have misunderstood each other; the sound is fixed and I change the volume using keyboard buttons, not the mouse. I use a trackpad, as well. The major issues are the high CPU usage...

Oh, yes it does; the sound works fine now, and I can see/use the sliders when they work, sometimes they are sluggish or will not show up, just like the other windows functions I mentioned; it's very...

Hello everyone! I have been having a rather infuriating/frustrating problem on my system since early yesterday. I'll just give a timeline of all that I have done in an attempt to fix it and how/when...