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Excessive CPU use, possibly caused by infection


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Hello,

Over the past few days, I have been noticing that my CPU use has been excessively high. I have a laptop with a 7th gen i7-7700HQ CPU, but on idle, my computer sits at a 60% CPU usage. This gets even worse when I want to do something, often with 100% usage when using any browser.

I tried doing a full, 2-hour scan of my computer through both Malwarebytes and Windows Defender, but they picked up nothing.

I decided to look into anything that may cause this - i tried things such as debloating windows and removing excessive tabs. However, these did not seem to work. Yesterday, I decided to go on Performance Monitor through Task Manager in order to check my CPU usage. At the top, in blue letters (Idle) were SearchApp.exe, YourPhone.exe, LockApp.exe, and ShellExperienceHost.exe. I disabled LockApp and ShellExperience Host's trees through Performance Monitor, as they had PIDs of around 15000 - 20000, and my CPU usage immediately dropped to an average of 25%, with 2 browsers and around 50 tabs open. I performed a search for LockApp and located it inside the system32 folder, where I have been told it should not be. I gave Administrators (myself) access to delete and change files in system32 and deleted LockApp.exe. It did still prove a problem, as I apparently did not delete the right one.

However, i have found that, even without LockApp and ShellExperienceHost, other .exes have been using my CPU. Among these are BackgroundTaskHost.exe, SearchApp.exe, and YourPhone.exe. While conducting searches for all of these, I have found them in C:\Windows\WinSxS, with folders that had names like amd64_microsoft-windowss..sktop.appxmain.root_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.19541.1000_none_47914ef124dcad03. I have also found them in various other folders, such as in C:\Windows\SysWOW64. As I do not know how to view file locations through Performance Monitor, I cannot pinpoint which ones of these .exe files are causing problems.

Any help would be appreciated - Thank you!

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Hello, Welcome to Malwarebytes.
I'm nasdaq and will be helping you.

If you can please print this topic it will make it easier for you to follow the instructions and complete all of the necessary steps in the order listed.
===

Download the Farbar Recovery Scan Tool (FRST).
Choose the 32 or 64 bit version for your system.
and save it to a folder on your computer's Desktop.
Double-click to run it. When the tool opens click Yes to disclaimer.
Press Scan button.
It will make a log (FRST.txt) in the same directory the tool is run. Please copy and paste it to your reply.
The first time the tool is run, it makes also another log (Addition.txt). Please attach it to your reply.

How to attach a file:
In the Reply section in the bottom of the topic Select Click the Choose a File.
Navigate to the location of the File.
Click the file. It will appear in section.
Click the Saving button.

Please post the logs for my review.

Wait for further instructions
====

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • Root Admin

Due to the lack of feedback, this topic is closed to prevent others from posting here.

If you need this topic reopened, please send a Private Message to any one of the moderating team members. Please include a link to this topic with your request.

This applies only to the originator of this topic. Other members who need assistance please start your own topic in a new thread.

Thanks

 

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