[SOLVED] Freezing in games for up to 1 minute, ocassional slow boot, HDD problem?

[keksoboohan]

Hey guys! So i've been having some problems for quite a while now with my PC.It's an old PC because i can't afford a new one at the moment.First of all here are the specs:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83GHz
4.00GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 399MHz
2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 (Gigabyte)
465GB Western Digital WDC

So i'm not really good at these tech stuff so you gotta bear with me while i try to explain what is going on.The problem started about 4-5 months ago, the boot on the PC was terribly slow, i tried Windows 10 but it didn't work very good so i had to revert back to Windows 7.The boot can sometimes be very slow,sometimes is OK, it varies. In newer games like Wolcen it even froze on the cinematic screen and i had to wait for like a minute, i got into game and it froze again for a minute maybe more, i was able to play for 10-20 seconds before it froze again, launching task manager to end the process also took a while.Sometimes although rarely this also happens in CSGO, random freezes. The first thing i did months ago was run memtest to check if my RAM is faulty, but after running for 10+ hours it detected no problems whatsoever. I tried checking my HDD with a program (can't remember the name,it showed sectors) and all of them were green, so no problem? It's really weird. The HDD is really old, like 6-7 years maybe. I think it's the HDD because when i was playing Witcher 3 and the game was freezing a lot, i remember plugging my sata cable on the HDD off and then putting it back in and after that i could play Witcher 3 fine for some time.I tried another Sata cable aswell but same problems. ALSO, this happened twice,on boot my PC ran a random chkdsk, have no idea why.I tried crystaldiskinfo and these are the results:

https://imgur.com/a/WCqeSoi

View: https://imgur.com/a/WCqeSoi


I honestly have no idea what could be causing the problem.A friend of mine gonna come with an external HDD with Windows installed so we can test it, but i wanted to get your opinion, does this point to a maybe faulty HDD? I also checked the temperatures but they seem fine.

Sorry if i was being unclear, like i said i don't know much about these stuff and tried my best.Thanks a lot!

 

[mdd1963]

It's entirely possible that, depending on your amount of RAM installed (older systems typically have much less than 16 GB, and 4 GB was painfully slow in my testing, even with Windows 7). the OS must access the drive more often during play, which certainly would result in stutters/hitches in play.

Your system might work fine for casual surfing and Office, but, for gaming...I fear you are 5 years beyond upgrade time.

 

[keksoboohan]

It's entirely possible that, depending on your amount of RAM installed (older systems typically have much less than 16 GB, and 4 GB was painfully slow in my testing, even with Windows 7). the OS must access the drive more often during play, which certainly would result in stutters/hitches in play.

Your system might work fine for casual surfing and Office, but, for gaming...I fear you are 5 years beyond upgrade time.

I mean i was playing games like Witcher 3, Fifa 19 and others fine, some on medium some on low, but it was fine.The thing is this started happening from time to time in the last 5-6 months,so something is failing,not sure what tho.

 

[Ketchup79]

I bet it's the hard drive, but let's be sure.
Download Western Digital Data Lifeguard.
https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?lang=en

Let it to a short scan and a long scan on your drive. Tell us what the results are.

 

[keksoboohan]

I bet it's the hard drive, but let's be sure.
Download Western Digital Data Lifeguard.
https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?lang=en

Let it to a short scan and a long scan on your drive. Tell us what the results are.

I ran the tests and they all passed, but here's an update:

So today my friend came over with an external HDD with Win 10 fresh installation on it. I unplugged my HDD and connected the external through USB.Installed Wolcen on it and there were no freezes, there was some stuttering but it's an external HDD so that is to be expected.
After a while i removed the external HDD and plugged in mine HDD. Launched Wolcen, it was fine for a moment and then the freezes started happening again, like every minute i get like 30-40 sec freeze. Anyway i don't know why the results on the testings programs are fine. I'm gonna use the external HDD for a while and do some further tests in some games, but it seems like the problem is with my HDD. Probably gonna get a SSD in January.
Any thoughts? Thanks!

 

[Ketchup79]

Absolutely get an SSD. You will love it!