Best way to kill resource stealing apps and widgets

[mcurole]

I have had my X7 for a few months now. Tried a few Roms and versions of XBMC and am currently using Quickshot v2 overclocked 1700cpu 720 ram and Beyond XBMC 3.3 controlled by the logitech K400. I have noticed my X7 very laggy when i first cold boot it. After the downloads and updates are complete it seems to run pretty smooth. It looks like some of my apps and widgets are updating and stealing resources as I am trying to get into XBMC. XBMC might run fine for a half hour watching 720p streaming content (i.e. Dexter on Simply Movies) then start to freeze for a while. I have uninstalled a few apps and the weather widget that I notice are running when i check system/apps/running. I am assuming most of you, like me, run other apps besides XBMC. Could these updating apps and widgets be continuously or periodically stealing resources and causing XBMC to stutter either on videos or with the mouse? Is there a way to stop all other apps and widgets from running or downloading when XBMC is running? I would also like to ask what you guys are using as an app killer that doesnt steal more resources than it saves. BTW i am on 2.4 ghz wireless N and ookla speedtest.net reports 25+ all the time, so I dont think that is the problem. Thanks. Great Forum.

[peety]

App

You can try SystemCleanup in play store. Its free. Although like most. It nags at startup. What I like about it. It shows apps that run on start. You can disable the auto run in those apps. Similar to freezing like with TB. But, app still will run if you need it.
Does not seem to be resource hog. You will need root. No, Im not the dev or related to him..lol Good luck.

[Lauris6rape]

Greenify paid version. Device uses only 12% of RAM after i hibernated some stuff. And you get one click widget to hibernate everything you added to list. Just like Cleaner master, but it really works.

[pjclark1]

Disable auto-updates.

[Pluto]

Disable auto-updates.

that one definitely

I make use of root and:

• Update busybox just in case.
• Install xposed framework with boot manager (xposed gel settings if using google now launcher)
• NoBloat for getting rid of apps/services i do not need.
• Soft OC and governor changes

I reckon the NAND is very slow generally in all boxes and i fear is a reason for performance drops. The resource usage is not really a problem, it is the time it takes to use them that delays performance.
I dont know if a fast SD Card or USB drive would benefit anything but i guess moving stuff there would work way better then the built-in NAND.