Memory high and CPU needle very erratic

Hello all! My trusty, stable Windows 7 Professional HP Elitebook laptop has encountered an issue that I can't seem to resolve. Typically when I have a browser open, the memory is in the vicinity of 50%, and the CPU needle is relatively steady at about 30%. For the past few days, the memory is over 80% and rises to over 90% over time, and the CPU needle jumps all over the place when a browser is open. When the browser is minimized, the CPU needle teases me with under 10% usage. When a browser window is opened, it will often go to 100%. This happens with both Chrome and Firefox. So something has definitely changed.

I immediately assumed virus, but anti-virus and Malwarebytes come up clean. I may have identified the culprit? One svchost.exe file is at 155,000 memory. The rest are all between a few hundred and 8,000 memory. As the image shows, right clicking the file reveals the following highlighted files: wudfsvc, WPDBusEnum, Wlansvc, UxSms, TrkWks, SysMain, PcaSvc, Netman, HomeGroupListener, hidserv, AudioEndpointBuilder.

Is this normal? If so, what could be the issue? And if it's not normal, how do I fix this? Many thanks for any ideas!       

Open Google Chrome, and when it starts playing up again, press SHIFT+ESC to open the Chrome Task Manager. Click the column-headings for "Memory footprint" and "CPU" once or twice to display the most memory-hungry and active processes at the top.

Also in Chrome, open a "New Incognito window", close the main Chrome instance, and see if the problems occur there too.

Let me know what you discover for both suggestions.

By the way, the Task Manager screenshot you posted is completely normal.

Get Win 11 it allows you to see what is running in svchost  llllollll

Get Win 11 it allows you to see what is running in svchost  llllollll

So does Windows 7 - its Task Manager is just as capable.

Very interesting, Secret-Squirrel! Thanks for this info. Will try it and report back. 

Chrome is not a very capable memory manager.  For every 10 instances it is around a gig of ram being used.

Svchost suggest run Speccy and Publish a Report for here or just for yourself and go through it counting up where your ram is going.

(I forgot a lot of Win7, do not understand why it is being used it's so ugly. Each there own).

Hi Secret-Squirrel. The Chrome task manager is replicating what the CPU needle is doing. Soon after opening the Chrome browser, the CPU for the task "Browser" jumps around wildly for a while, ranging from 3.1 to over 80. In a few minutes, it settles down to a range of 3.1 to 15 generally. I don't recall the needle jumping around this wildly before. 

Firefox behaves differently. I'll report those findings shortly, after I confirm what I saw initially.  

How many and what extensions are you using ??

Please run this and do not skip Basic Repair at the end : https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/