Hi again Thomas.
IOBit's ASC. You are using it quite extensively and it seems clear to me that you are quite comfortable with it, so I need to be cautious with how I say what I am about to say.
IOBit software is not anything the regular contributors in these forums recommend. That's the gentlest way I can describe how we feel about it. You are using it comprehensively as a system optimizer and in general we are wary of those utilities. With IOBit in particular it is very intrusive and will offer to 'optimize' so many things that do not need touching.
We often have to deal with problems reported by the members here who have non-working systems after using IOBIt applications.
Let me go through some of the tasks you mentioned.
1] RAM smart release. I don't know what that is, but why? The OS will release RAM as and when it is needed and with 4 GB of RAM anyway you will rarely need all of it. I have 12 GB of RAM and I have never used any more than 2 and a bit GB. If data is stored in RAM that the system is using at the moment, (eg Firefox page data), and ASC clears it, then that data has to be reloaded.
2] Quick Care. Again, I don't know what it is and what it does. Do you know what it does? If you are not absolutely sure, then why are you letting some 3rd party tool manage it? Sorry, I do not mean to question your use of your own applications, but the problem with these optimizer utilities is that they 'do things' under the hood that we don't always know what they are doing.
3] IOBit malware. Is this, or any other component of ASC running in the background all the time? If so, may be there is some conflict with Norton's background anti-virus scanner which is always on. They are attempting to scan the same data at the same time, and this slows performance down, like page loading.
4] IOBit Defrag 2. Umm. If you mean a full hard disk defrag then this is a confusing issue. Many will say regular and often defragmentation is necessary. I don't, and neither do my peers here in these forums. Defragging won't do any harm, but neither will it help. Hard disks nowadays with today's OSes do not get fragmented much, even with installing and uninstalling software, and so defragmenting is not as required as it once was thought. My own Win 7 system has never been defragged since I got it over a year ago, and my old XP system from 2002 has only been defragged once, and it still works fine.
5] Quick Optimization. Do you know what that does? Is it necessary?
6] Something I noticed. IOBit says Windows 7 has 95 processes running. All systems are different of course, but that's a lot. My Windows 7 Ultimate version has 38 processes running, for all users, at the moment. May I suggest that you take a visit to;
http://www.blackviper.com/2010/12/17/black-vipers-windows-7-service-pack-1-service-configurations/
This is BlackViper, a recommended resource, who lists in a table all the Services in a standard install of Windows 7, with details what they are, and whether they should be set to Automatic, Manual, or Disabled. It might be worth your while working down the list, (scroll down until you see the table), and checking your own Services list to compare. Read his notes above how to get to the Services list.
Reducing services should reduce running processes. If you decide to try that and still have a large number of Processes running, you may need to check each process in Google for more information.
7] I see that Norton came with your ISP. I'm just checking, but is your Norton subscription still valid and up to date? I have seen where an out of date subscription can cause strange things on a system.
Sorry, but I hope tha thelps.
Mark