[SOLVED] New PC Background Processes

[kubrat]

Greetings,

I've recently managed to build and install a brand new PC, with a lot of help from two of the moderators ( cin19 and USAFRet ). So I could never really thank them enough.

But the new PC has too many background processes running on it, and while I have read, that it's normal for a computer to have several background processes running, I also know ( from what I've read and from my bad experience with my laptop) , that too many running processes, that are not necessary to be running all the time can cause unnecessary memory and CPU usage etc.

And honestly I am not good ( though I would like to learn how ) with properly figuring out, which ones have to be kept running all the time and which not. I know every process must have it's purpose, so I am not asking which ones are completely useless ( as I know there's no such thing as useless process ), but rather asking which ones should I keep all the time and which should I keep closed generally.
I will be using the new PC mostly for gaming and other programs, that have higher PC requirements. The rest of the time I will keep using my laptop (as soon as I manage to reinstall it).

So my question is how to properly manage those processes and decide which ones should require to be running at all times and which ones should not.

The PC has Ryzen 3 2200g with 2x4gb ram (ddr4 3000MHz) and 500gb SSD and 1tb HDD

Providing screenshots from the Task Manager:

https://ibb.co/874SLgP

https://ibb.co/WP2TMWC

https://ibb.co/2ZjmLbG

https://ibb.co/BsKLVBN

https://ibb.co/GxTFgKF


I will appreciate any tips on how to properly manage those and any other processes in the feature. I really want to properly optimized my computer and manage the programs that are running on it better.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Colif]

I assume your last PC had an older version of win 10 on it than new one?

About a year ago, MIcrosoft changed how Service hosts work, up until that stage there was only about 8 of them but services shared a host, so 1 of the old hosts could have up to 24 services running under it. Now windows has a service host for every service and you can see from your listing that most of them are in fact not using any CPU and virtually no ram.

So there aren't more things running really, you can just see them now. It should make identifying problems easier as if a service is playing up, you can zero in on one and not a group of them. There are one or two with things grouped under a common host but most are single purpose

You actually have way less background services compared to me (i have 64) , and your windows processes are also lower (mine = 90). Its normal, don't worry about it

 

[kubrat]

I assume your last PC had an older version of win 10 on it than new one?

About a year ago, MIcrosoft changed how Service hosts work, up until that stage there was only about 8 of them but services shared a host, so 1 of the old hosts could have up to 24 services running under it. Now windows has a service host for every service and you can see from your listing that most of them are in fact not using any CPU and virtually no ram.

So there aren't more things running really, you can just see them now. It should make identifying problems easier as if a service is playing up, you can zero in on one and not a group of them.

You actually have way less background services compared to me (i have 64) , and your windows processes are also lower (mine = 90). Its normal, don't worry about it

Hey, thanks for your reply!

I was referencing my bad experience with not managing background processes with my laptop (which was my first computer) - at some point a friend of mine checked my laptop and said it had lots of unnecessary running processes and closed the ones, that didn't need to be running at the time . The laptop has windows 7 though.
Thus that bad experience I want to do better with my new desktop.

In any ways, the desktop is a brand new with Windows 10 - I build the PC about a week ago and then bought and installed the Windows 10 a few days later, so everything is brand new.
So from looking at the screenshots you say there isn't a process that needs to be generally closed ( until I need it )?

Also do you know ( and if so could you link ) good guides on how to manage background processes and keeping your computer as optimized as possible - I want to better maintain the new Desktop as well as my laptop ( which laptop I want to reinstall, but I am going to post about another thread about it).

 

[Colif]

It depends what you use PC for as to what services are and aren't needed on the listing. I uninstalled Movies & TV, and MY phone service, as I don't use them but they are hardly using any resources on your PC right now and you might use them. You can't remove defender without replacing it and most 3rd party AV/firewalls will add more files to services, so its not a solution.

Every different person has different ideas about what services should and shouldn't be running on PC.

I generally just let windows be and only think about things like that if I have a problem. I don't install much at all anymore, 20 years ago I used to install way more silly things than I do now. many installs of windows later I only load safe things now.

Did you decide on 8gb of ram for a reason? 16gb would have been better for future proofing and mean the number of services running wouldn't appear to be a problem as you would only have 25% ram usage - though chrome is just greedy and still uses about 750mb on my pc

 

[kubrat]

It depends what you use PC for as to what services are and aren't needed on the listing. I uninstalled Movies & TV, and MY phone service, as I don't use them but they are hardly using any resources on your PC right now and you might use them. You can't remove defender without replacing it and most 3rd party AV/firewalls will add more files to services, so its not a solution.

Every different person has different ideas about what services should and shouldn't be running on PC.

I generally just let windows be and only think about things like that if I have a problem. I don't install much at all anymore, 20 years ago I used to install way more silly things than I do now. many installs of windows later I only load safe things now.

Did you decide on 8gb of ram for a reason? 16gb would have been better for future proofing and mean the number of services running wouldn't appear to be a problem as you would only have 25% ram usage - though chrome is just greedy and still uses about 750mb on my pc

Well I am mainly going to use the desktop for regular gaming ( I'm no streamer or something like that ) and I don't really use any ''heavy'' programs.
I guess I will use only programs, that are necessary for using the pc as optimized as possible, for gaming and for lighter use, since I am not a person, who understand much about software, so I am not going to use really demanding programs, I think.

I am not going to disable defender ( unless temporally for a certain game, I guess ), as I have learned my lesson, that there is no real point in other additional anti-virus programs, as I have probably tried to download almost any existent anti-virus in the past on my laptop

I have Paint.net and Steam, I guess as ''the most demanding'' software, in addition to anything else, that my OS installed. And as you can see from the screenshots I have PotPlayer for movies and µTorrent for downloading torrents. I will maybe install Microsoft Office too.

Other than that ( unless at some point I have some crazy ideas ) I don't see myself using anything much more than what you see on the taskbar and the ones I mentioned.
I am trying to minimize everything and have only one program for everything ( for example only one player for movies etc and not couple of players like before on my laptop ).


It's a budget PC, that's why I have only 8gb atm ( though it currently shows I have 5.9gb ram available, so something is eating up my ram ). But I plan on upgrading the PC by the end of the year with additional 2x4gb, Ryzen 5 2600 and RX 580. So, it will have a better performance, especially on the ram part.

For a very long time I used to use Firefox on my laptop, but I have been using Chrome for the past year, since Firefox started to crash too often and it was loading very slow.
And I installed Chrome on the new pc as well.

 

[Colif]

There isn't anything there I would remove.

Win 10 is fairly clever with ram usage and if a game needed more ram than is currently available, the PC would close anything it hasn't used in a while and get out of your way. windows just grows to use the space available, every version of windows since 7 has had similar usage and win 10 can actually run with less ram than all of them until you get to XP (which is 19 years ago and most PC back then lucky to have more than 2gb, so that makes sense).

50% usage of ram seems about normal for people with 8gb. Best answer if you start using more is that upgrade. BUt then most ram I have ever used was 12gb and it was playing Civilisation which likes lots of ram. Most days I am about 5gb or less. With no programs running on desktop I use 3.9gb of ram but I do have more background processes like Discord and HD sentinel chewing up ram. Unused ram is wasted ram so having empty ram really isn't helping you.

Its a learning process to see what you use on a daily basis. And having more programs than you use doesn't really matter as if they not running, it doesn't take resources. I generally only use browsers most days, and maybe word... we all had to learn what not to do, you have learned to reduce your program choices... i learned that having 30+ screensavers wasn't necessary (that was a long time ago, when people still used them)

defender is fine if you don't go to bad sites. As I never know where questions here might take me, I prefer bitdefender as it catches many more things before they get onto PC than defender does... though defender is getting better.

 

[kubrat]

There isn't anything there I would remove.

Win 10 is fairly clever with ram usage and if a game needed more ram than is currently available, the PC would close anything it hasn't used in a while and get out of your way. windows just grows to use the space available, every version of windows since 7 has had similar usage and win 10 can actually run with less ram than all of them until you get to XP (which is 19 years ago and most PC back then lucky to have more than 2gb, so that makes sense).

50% usage of ram seems about normal for people with 8gb. Best answer if you start using more is that upgrade. BUt then most ram I have ever used was 12gb and it was playing Civilisation which likes lots of ram. Most days I am about 5gb or less. With no programs running on desktop I use 3.9gb of ram but I do have more background processes like Discord and HD sentinel chewing up ram. Unused ram is wasted ram so having empty ram really isn't helping you.

Its a learning process to see what you use on a daily basis. And having more programs than you use doesn't really matter as if they not running, it doesn't take resources. I generally only use browsers most days, and maybe word... we all had to learn what not to do, you have learned to reduce your program choices... i learned that having 30+ screensavers wasn't necessary (that was a long time ago, when people still used them)

defender is fine if you don't go to bad sites. As I never know where questions here might take me, I prefer bitdefender as it catches many more things before they get onto PC than defender does... though defender is getting better.

Yeah, I guess the newer versions of windows and the updates should make everything easier and simple and help keep the optimization of the computer better.

With reducing the number of programs I meant not having random cluster ( even when I only downloaded them, without installing ), like having two programs, that have the same function and provide the same options, but not really needing to have both of them.

Saying that, because I used to have lots of random software, that would just take space and will make things more confusing for someone, who generally doesn't know how to maintain their programs etc. Or someone, who used to download every software, that was recommended as useful, with me actually not really needing many of those programs, ever. But as you say you learn in time.

So now I am trying to check recommended programs and see which one is the best ( I guess best for me ) and install the one, that seem to be more convenient for me. I used to get get overwhelmed with the stuff I had on my laptop, ( even the ones I only downloaded ).

Thank you very much for your help! It is greatly appreciated!

I will have in mind everything you said and hopefully I maintain better the new PC. Hope you have a great day/evening