My Laptop is Lagging Badly—Could It Be Hacked?

From what you've shared, it seems more like a performance issue rather than hacking. A hacker wouldn’t gain anything from slowing down your machine like this. If you want to dive deeper, consider using process monitors to check which applications are taxing your CPU and RAM.

It sounds like overheating might be your biggest issue right now. You should definitely clean out any dust and consider replacing the thermal paste to help with cooling. The hacking suspicion is probably unfounded unless you've done something risky, like downloading shady software. Try checking Task Manager to see if any particular apps are hogging your CPU or memory resources—uninstalling those could help too.

Honestly, the lagging could totally be a heat issue. Try keeping the fan intake ports clean and maybe use a cooling pad. If you're really thinking about reinstalling Windows, that's a drastic step, so I'd check the usual suspects like dust and driver updates first.

You mentioned wanting to factory reset your device because your Google account is the most important thing. If you do go that route, remember to back everything up first. Also, consider that switching to a desktop gaming rig might save you from these overheating issues!

I agree, hacking seems unlikely based on what you've described. Generally, laptops have performance drops due to hardware issues or software bloat. Have you checked out the Device Manager for any problematic drivers? If not, you might want to uninstall and reinstall your graphic drivers using DDU, and make sure to blow out any dust from your fans.