Given the info provided and the general performance problem, a couple of things you could try are:
1. Search for and remove malware
2. Remove unwanted software that have been installed in soft stealth mode
3. Identify high-resource app and disable/remove it
In the same order, here are guidelines on how to do each:
1. Malware Removal
Download on-demand scanners.
Update your regular antivirus program.
Disconnect from the Internet and reboot in Safe mode
Install and run the on-demand scanners
Run a full scan of your regular antivirus program.
There are any number of web sites that offer detailed instructions on the above process. Two reliable ones are:
How to Remove Malware From Your Windows PC
How to easily clean an infected computer Malware Removal Guide
2. Remove Unwanted Software
i. Click on Start, Control Panel, then on Uninstall a Program
ii. Scan through the list of installed software for suspicious looking programs. If in doubt, google the name of the program to understand its purpose.
iii. If you identify any unwanted program, right-click on it and select Uninstall/Change.
iv. When done uninstalling, simply close the Program Uninstall utility.
Usually a reboot is not necessary, but if the program publisher indicates that one is necessary, you should do so.
3. Identify High-Resource Apps
Here you run the Task Manager to identify apps that are unusually high CPU and/or memory users as well as being software that you are not aware of or don't usually use. Sometimes, it could be a legit app but is suffering a conflict with some other app, and causing the performance degradation. If both conflicting apps are legit, you could try uninstalling and re-installing them.
To run Task Manager, right-click anywhere on empty space in the Task Bar, then select Start Task Manager. Click on the Processes tab to see individual apps, their CPU and memory usage. Click on the CPU column-header to re-order the apps by CPU usage, then on Memory for memory usage.
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