Question Entire new PC slows down to a crawl for (maybe?) no reason - or damaged cpu?

[RagnaSE]

The problem:
The PC slows down whenever i open a program or whenever (from what it feels) the CPU is being addressed. The mouse movement becomes choppy and slow .. as if DPI was turned way down and any executed program becomes choppy.

The system:
motherboard: Gigabyte Aorus b550 elite v2.0
cpu: Ryzen 5700x
GPU: Nvidia RTX 3070 founders edition
RAM: 2x 8gb corsair something sticks (i dont know, they are those "default Ram sticks")
PSU: Seasonic Prime TX-750 titanium
storage drives, especially c: Kioxia 512 m.2 NVME on PCIe 3.0 as far as i know
CPU cooler: Scyte Fuma 2

I dont think any other stuff in the system is relevant for that problem.

I had installed a fresh copy of Windows 10 on it, updated it all .. and then updated it to Windows 11 via the Windows update prompt. Why did i install Windows 10 first? because the installation media by Microsoft would not install Windows 11 outright and claimed "incompatibilities".

To elaborate:
The problem with the slow down started on Windows 10 already. I have browsed a few posts (primarily on Microsoft and Reddit) and many people claimed that it was either driver related (they are all fresh and new) .. or related to secure boot or fTPM in the BIOS.
While people said that i should DISABLE fTPM, it made no difference for me .. so i kept it enabled as per the "default" settings. I also had to disable legacy compatibility of the UEFI and BIOS (csm or so?). When i did that .. the PC ran well ... for about a day.

Today, Windows prompted me to update to Windows 11 .. and because the whole system had once again slowed down and it was meant to be Windows 11 anyway .. i updated it to Windows 11. Installation went well .. but the problem persists.

to draw you a picture:

Furmark ran with 4 fps .. and i doubt it was a GPU fault, because the GPU runs perfectly fine on my own pc
Cinebench ran a 10 minutes cycle and managed to draw 2 squares .. certainly not the performance of a 5700x cpu
Media player HC cannot run a video

What else have i tried?
- i tried a full DDU and reinstall of Nvidia game ready drivers .. just to be sure
- i removed any bloatware that i can think of .. and that i am allowed to remove
- i tried to switch XMP on (3200) and off (2400 i think)
- i tried enabling CSM on and off
- i tried fTMP on and off (cant do that anymore with Windows 11, because it is required)
- i suspected RAM problems, swapped them around, tried them in single channel
- reseated the GPU, used a normal mount as well as a vertical mount with a Thermaltake riser cable

I suspected maybe severe temperature throttling .. checked with GPU-z / CPU-z .. no throttling, the cooler sits well and keeps the CPU at an idle 35 and around 60 under load.

So .. any ideas what it could be? As i said .. after switching some BIOS settings around yesterday .. it ran perfectly fine for a day.

If it is the CPU, time is kind of of the essence because i have a return window in case it is broken (2 weeks) .. i kind of suspect the CPU .. because the PC breaks whenever i put a load on the CPU.
Or it is software related .. and i borked something in the BIOS.

This is not the first PC i built (more like the 4th). I grew up with PCs and this is the first time a newly build PC acts up like that.


edit:
I should add .. i have NOT updated the BIOS (although that seems like an obvious fix maybe) .. mainly because i am afraid of touching a BIOS due to all the horror stories about people bricking their motherboard.

It currently runs on the "FF" bios (i think 2023) .. the one that Gigabyte published after some CPU burnings.
The most up to date bios is like 3 generations newer. If suggested, i think i would try to update it .. because the only other alternative is to take it to the PC repair people here in the city .. and if i bricked the motherboard, i guess they can fix it anyway.

edit2:
I just ran another Cinebench 2024 benchmark .. and it finished with 713 points. It is not very high, but i run the PC on "silent" mode, it is not overclocked but rather set to "efficient". According to google .. a score of 700-800 is expected for that type of CPU.
So maybe the CPU is not broken? .. that leaves a software problem...

 

[Ralston18]

Could be some app or utility trying to update, backup, or simply "phone home".

And possibly taking over or not yeilding system resources when finished.

Could be buggy or corrupted.

Launching at startup via Task Manager or later triggered via Task Scheduler.

= = = =

Look in Task Manager, Resource Monitor, Performance Monitor, and Process Explorer.

Use all four tools but only one tool at a time.

After booting the system, immediately open the tool window and watch.

The graphical views are likely to be the most informative.

Get a sense of what all is running on the system.

Leave the window open and viewable.

Once the system is stable (nothing really changing) do something that normally slows the system's performance.

Watch for what changes: Starts, stops, resource changes, etc..

The objective being to discover potential culprit(s).

May take a bit of trial and error to work out the method and details. Key is to be observant and make a direct cause & effect discovery.

Take your time. Make no immediate changes. Post what you discover or even just wonder about.

 

[RagnaSE]

Tried some more. And it is a bit odd that once i get overmyself to post for help .. things get better.

So, i just ran the Cinebench GPU benchmark (that i did not even knew existed) While the PC held up well during the multicore and singlecore benchmarks .. it immedietly slowed down when i put a load on the GPU; i also received less than 100 points on a 3070, which must be too little.

Upon opening the side glass, i could already feel the scorching GPU. Too hot to the touch .. yet GPU z still shows 56 C only, with a bit under 70 in the hotspot?

Either way .. i removed the card from its vertical mount (its the NZXT H510i case .. it certainly was chocking a bit against the glass .. about 5mm between fans and glass was left). I also noticed that the riser cable was not plugged in fully? The right side of it was half out.

So i am now wondering how the PC started up at all, let alone show a picture.

I just mounted the GPU in a normal way again, made sure it was plugged in tightly .. booted up .. and no slowdown at all .. at the moment.



I am still not sure about the mounting of the card being the culprit .. because yesterday it ran fine. However, i have moved the case around a bit today .. and i suspect the riser cable must have slipped out. The little plastic tag that prevents GPUs to slip out was laying in the case .. so nothing was preventing it.


From how it looks, i think one can consider this case as solved. Bit ironic that i worked for at least 1 hour before i wrote it up here .. and then kind of solved it within 10 minutes of posting.

edit:
ran the GPU benchmark again .. and now it shows 9300 or so points, which seems to be normal for the gpu.

 

[DaleH]

Run task manager and performance monitor.