Computer Always Running At High Memory Usage, And Reliability Monitor Questions

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me with this!

I just completed a little malware removal with the help of the other forum, and alas, the item that I still don't understand is why, when the computer is at rest, my task manager is showing a minimum of 8% CPU usage at all times, and minimum of 40% memory usage. I do have about 25 tabs open on Chrome, but can't imagine that having this significant of an impact. Perhaps I need to expand allocation to each of those?

I'm running Windows 8.1 on a Dell XPS laptop with a solid state hard drive, i7 processor and 16gb of RAM, so hardware shouldn't be the issue here .

I don't do any gaming, and only use this for business; email, web, Excel spreadsheets, PDFs, Word Docs. The tasks that seem to be taking up most of the memory allocation are:

• Chrome - 145 MB
• Outlook - 102 MB
• Skype - 72 MB

But I also have 122 Background processes running ... and some individual programs have a lot:

• 36 from Chrome
• 5 from HD Audio Background Process
• 12 are various from Intel
• 9 are various from NVIDEA

I found the Reliability Monitor from another thread on this forum, and now see that there are anywhere from 64 to 96 items that have been failing to update - and virtually all of them seem to have to do with that annoying windows screen with all the icons of different apps like news, amazon apps, etc - all what I consider bloatware that I have never used. I have attached that report file here.

Thanks again for any help!

 

since you never use it, i would unpin / delete all of the tiles on the live start screen.
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2352-start-screen-pin-unpin-app-folder-drive-windows-8-a.html

 

Is this a company computer or your personal computer? If it's a company computer, you may need your IT department's assistance.

 

The Reliability file is in .XML format and I can't make heads or tails of it.

 

What's using the rest of the memory?
Look in Task Manager.

 

The majority of the xml file contents relate to, as harmless said, tile apps, specifically that they're not updating - Windows Store/login type issue?

Apart from any unnecessary startups, Chrome looks the biggest memory/resource hog there, no way would the x86 version of Chrome use as little as 145MB of memory if it was using 36 Processes and the default x64 version would use ~20% more than the x86.

 

Agreed - and I saw from harmless's post the easy right-click to unpin the tile apps, but I wonder if there's an underlying issue that would be preventing them all from updating? I can unpin them all and maybe even delete them all, but any thoughts on how to fix their updating issue?​

Sorry for the confusion - there were 25 tabs open on Chrome, but Task Manager was showing 36 processes from Chrome running. I will be updating to Chrome x64 as well. But is it normal for there to be 50% more processes than actual tabs open? Looks like I do have 12 extensions running, so maybe that adds to it?​

I've attached a word doc showing pics of my task manager - only 4 applications open, and at idle the computer is at 13% CPU and 40% memory. Note that there is a second screenshot on the second page after sorting by the top memory users.

Thanks again!

 

well, in my mind, it's not worth the time nor effort to fix their updating issue. i'm more of a mac person, but i did look at two windows 8 computers for other people who complained about their slow computers. when i saw all of those live tiles, i asked if they were useful in any meaning of the word. the 2 people said no, so i deleted the vast majority of the live tiles, especially any that needed the internet for updates. and, surprise surprise, the computers became responsive, and the 2 owners were happy, once again, with their computers.
good luck with it.

 

You perhaps could uninstall (most/some of) the Tiles you don't need, though I do wonder whether this is as a result of running some AntiSpy/blocking software like ShutUp 10.