My usual task manager will show me only the obviously run programes but I did install a Security Task Manager and apparently myriads of stupid programes run sneakily in the background, slowing my computer down to snail-pace. I halted them and speed is good again but the ventilation is still a problem. :/ However since my Windows is giving me all kinds of crap lately, I may need to reinstall anyway.
Re: Another trick is to check the running processes