Final Cut Pro renders constantly, regardless of background rendering setting

Do you see it rendering when you open the background tasks window?

If background render is off, this of course should not happen. But perhaps there are other tasks going on?

As usual, when the application misbehaves, try deleting its preferences.

d To delete preferences, hold down command and option while starting the application and click Delete Settings. Reopen the library you were working on and see how it goes.

Just to clarify, it is perfectly normal to see those dots in these circumstances. If they were to disappear, this would indicate that that section had been rendered. With background render off, they should just stay there and be safely ignored.

Dots like this

Are you seeing the dots appearing as you makes chances and then disappearing when tender starts?

There will be some background activity during analysis.