Trouble getting Windows 7 to properly work on Lenovo laptop

[Messerschmitt]

Hi guys. I bought a refurb Lenovo laptop and while I like it a lot, I wonder if the hardware is not really playing nicely with Windows 7.

It's a T420 laptop
Intel® Core™ i5 processor i5-2520M with dual-core
Intel Centrino® Advanced-N 6205
4GB Ram
Installed my own SSD (Samsung 240GB).

I am basically having svchost high CPU usage and RAM. Since this has 4 threads, it seems to be hogging 1 of the threats all the time (hence the CPU is at 25% rather than the classic 100%).

Windows update as well infinitely checks for updates. Tried to install dotNet 4.0 so I can use the Lenovo system update to get the drives and that too just hags during installation (after the download is complete).

I have a feeling is this svchost problem. But what is the problem? The svchost hogging starts after the fresh install of Win 7. What can I do to diagnose.

edit: I decided to format again everything and keep watching task manager to see when something abrupt happens.

Everything was fine until I introduced the CD key and activated windows. As soon as that happens svchost (system) stays at 25% (100% on 1 thread) and the RAM ussage went from 300k to over 2GB while I was watching it in the span of a few minutes

 

[DavidE]

I've read a lot of people have problems like yours with a clean install of Win 7.
Windows Update takes a long time and can use a lot of resources to get all the updates.
Turn off sleep and hibernate, then let it run overnight to see if updates get installed.
Or, turn off auto checking and installing Windows Updates to see if that helps.