Issues with my "new" laptop

Hey everyone.

I’ll try my best to describe the problem in as much detail as possible, so I’m really hoping someone might be able to lend a hand here. I actually reached out to some guys over on a tech support forum earlier; they were somewhat helpful, but I feel like I'm still stuck in a bit of a mess. Following their advice, I managed to track down a Trojan that was lurking on the system, and while I think I got rid of it, the issues haven't really gone away.

Back in December, I picked up a brand new laptop. I dropped a pretty significant amount of money on it because I really needed a solid machine for college that would hopefully last me through all five years without any major headaches. I decided to go with a Dell XPS 15, and here are the specs:

macOS version: Windows 10 Home, 64 bit
Processor : Intel Core i7-7500U CPU @ 2.70GHz, Intel64 Family 6 model 142 Stepping 9 Processor count
Processor count: 4
RAM: 8072 Mb
Graphics Card: Intel(R) HD Graphics 620, 1024 Mb
Hard Drives: C: 237 GB (165 GB Free) SSD; D: 931 GB (767 GB Free) HDD;
Motherboard: Dell, Dell XPS 15
Antivirus: Windows Defender, Enabled and Updated

At first, I was actually quite happy with it, though I guess I was a little bummed that the processor is only 2 cores. It handled more complex tasks without breaking a sweat. I was running SolidWorks and AutoCAD, playing a few decent games like Assassin's Creed II and Paladins... The computer would boot up in maybe ten seconds, apps opened almost instantly, and games were staying north of 60 FPS.

But then, after a little while, things started going south. The laptop just isn't performing anywhere near where it should be, and here is what's happening:

1. Even when I don't have any programs open at all, the CPU usage spikes to 99%, and most of that seems to be coming from something called "sqlbrowser".

2. Less demanding games are crawling along at under 10 FPS—it's basically unplayable. And it's not just gaming; software like SolidWorks is stuttering so badly that it's impossible to get anything done.

3. I've been using Google Chrome with AdBlock installed, but I keep getting redirected to these weird browsers whenever I search via Google. No matter what I click, pop-ups start jumping everywhere—stuff like betting sites or those annoying "you won a prize" ads. I tried downloading other browsers to see if it was just one specific app, but the same thing happens on Microsoft Edge, Opera, and Mozilla...

After I ran a benchmark on the laptop, the results were honestly pretty depressing:

UserBenchmark: Game 12%, Desk 42%, Work 24%
CPU: Intel Core i7-7500U - 38.8%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 950 m - 2.7%
SSD: Samsung 256GB - 65.1%
HDD: HGST Travelstar 5K1000 2.5" 1TB - 52.9%
RAM: Samsung M471A5143EB0-CPB 2x4GB - 58.6%
MBD: Dell, Dell XPS 15

So, I have a few questions... What should I do next? I know this isn't some top-of-the-line powerhouse, but it's certainly not a total brick either. Could this be some kind of virus that I'm just not catching? I'm currently running Windows Defender, Malwarebytes AdwCleaner, and SUPERAntiSpyware. Do you think it would help if I popped in an OS installation disc and tried running a "repair" process?

Also, a couple of months ago, I tried running a Bitcoin mining process on the laptop for about 12 hours before I ended it. Is it possible that doing that actually damaged my hardware?

I hope I've provided enough detail here, and I'd be incredibly grateful if anyone on the forum has the time or inclination to help me figure this out.

Thanks in advance!

Best regards,
Grace Anderson83

Malwarebytes Anti-malware, CCleaner, AdwCleaner... let's see how it acts after all that.

By the way, you work with databases? 🤔

I feel like I’ve already cycled through every possible solution, and honestly, I’m starting to feel a little desperate here...

No, I don't really do any programming at all; I dabbled in Python once upon a time, but that was just the very basics, just enough to get a general idea of how things work

Then why are you even running sqlbrowser?

Besides, you should just scan all your active processes and kill whatever looks suspicious...

Task Manager is your best friend here.

I’d suggest grabbing either Norton or a McAfee rescue CD—just burn an image to a USB drive and boot from it. Let it run a full scan to see if it actually flags anything. If you’ve been hit by something nasty, especially a rootkit, you really can't trust the OS itself anymore.

Honestly, the cleanest way to handle this would be to back up your essential files—assuming they pass the scan mentioned above—and then just perform a fresh install of macOS.

EDIT: Could you drop a process list here? Also, just a heads-up: trying to run multiple antivirus or anti-malware tools at once is generally a bad idea. They tend to clash and fight with one another.

William Richardson12 said:Then why are you even running sqlbrowser?

Besides, you should just scan all your active processes and kill whatever looks suspicious...

Task Manager is your best friend here.

Well, I just spotted it sitting there in Task Manager, so every time I hear my laptop starting to struggle a bit, I just pull up Task Manager and kill the sqlbrowser process again, I guess.

Anyway, I'm heading over to the repair shop tomorrow, so I'll probably just drop the laptop off there and we'll see what they make of it and how things shake out from there.

Thanks for all the advice, everyone. 🙂