i7-6700k is slowing to a crawl

[bo_bxb]

My i7-6700k is slowing to a crawl for hours at a time. Sometimes it happens immediately upon startup and sometimes it takes a few hours but then it lasts for hours at a time. It's causing huge fps drops, making opening programs and performing any kind task in them incredibly slow, and even causing things like opening the start menu or just right clicking the desktop to take several seconds.

I'm using windows 10
i7-6700k
16gb ram
samsung 850 ssd

Here is a benchmark of the pc running normally:
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/4198928

Here is one while experiencing the problem:
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/4206621


Temps are all in normal range. I have uninstalled unused programs, disabled unnecessary startup programs, run virus scans on multiple programs and ccleaner, and system restored windows to before the problem started. My last resort is a fresh windows install but I was hoping someone here might be able to help before I do that.

Edit: CPU usage never goes above 50% in task manager. Idles below 10% and goes up to 30% while gaming.

Thanks

 

[Rakanyshu]

check windows power settings and bios power settings to make sure nothing is set to eco, low power settings or anything of the sorts, instead put it on performance or maximun performance something like that.

 

[Supahos]

Three things come to mind 1) virus 2) disk failing that 850 Evo doing that badly is a Red flag 3) CPU overheating and slowing down

 

[James Mason]

What CPU cooler do you have on it?

 

[bo_bxb]

Rakanyshu - Power mode is set to high performance.

Supahos - I've run malwarebytes, avast, and ccleaner with nothing detected. The 850 Evo performs fine when the problem is not occurring. CPU is staying below 50c during load.

James - Using a Cryorig H7

 

[mdd1963]

does task manager/(sort by )processes/cpu give any hint of a resource hogging process suddenly running during your stutter times? or does task manager/processes/(sort by) disk show a flurry of activity?

Getting hung up even opining start menu is not a healthy sign, perhaps your EVO is going south?

Does Samsung Magician show any errors on your 850 EVO?

 

[rgd1101]

running out a space on the ssd? scheduled scanning for the hdd?

 

[bo_bxb]

does task manager/(sort by )processes/cpu give any hint of a resource hogging process suddenly running during your stutter times? or does task manager/processes/(sort by) disk show a flurry of activity?

Getting hung up even opining start menu is not a healthy sign, perhaps your EVO is going south?

Does Samsung Magician show any errors on your 850 EVO?

The only process that I can notice an increase to cpu usage during these flare ups is WMI Provider Host which can go up to about 5% cpu usage. Disk usage stays extremely low. Samsung Magician shows no errors with the drive in 'Good' condition, reading at 550 and writing at 500 MB/s. I will test again once the problem starts back up.

Thanks to all who are trying to help, it's greatly appreciated.

 

[bo_bxb]

UPDATE:

I did a fresh Windows install and same thing is happening. Extremely low benchmarks all around leading me to believe this is either CPU, SSD, or MOBO. A few have suggested SSD failure but would that make everything slow down as much as it has. Even the windows install and reboots during were extremely slow and Samsung Magician is showing the drive in good health, reading and writing at normal speeds.

Can anyone offer any insight as to what it may be before I start contacting manufacturers?

New Userbenchmark immediately after fresh windows 10 install:
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/4250403

 

[Karadjgne]

Have you done a full motherboard drivers update? With windows creator, there's been issues with out of date drivers. It's bad enough that MSI released updated LAN and Audio drivers for my Z77 board, which hadn't seen anything new since support stopped in October of 2013. It was also a prior issue with nvidia drivers, having major fps drops in games due to incompatibilities. Make sure everything is upto date, from drivers to bios. With a fresh install of windows, any and all mobo drivers were deleted, so you are running on windows generic drivers, which are good enough to boot, but that's it.

 

[Ecky]

Yes HDD failure can cause this exact thing.

 

[Mez123]

Honestly, processor would be the last thing to grade in terms of speed out of CPU, SSD, or MOBO. The H7 is a pretty decent cooler, so no problems on the CPU side. The MOBO and SSD should be the prime suspects. You could try running an SSD benchmark and see how it stacks up with other 850 Evos. I don't really see how the motherboard could slow down performance, seeing as it was running fine before, don't think it's a manufacturing defect. On the software side, Malwarebytes does not detect some malicious files, same with Avast. Ccleaner basically just purges cache/temp files on the computer which wouldn't make a major difference. Try using other AV/AM such as HitmanPro, Sophos Home, SuperANTISpyware, and TDSSKiller. Rootkits are known to bog down computer speed and can stay hidden without any obvious signs of it being present. Otherwise get procexp to monitor processes and how they affect system usage.

 

[mdd1963]

OP already formatted/reinstalled, which should rule out malware; at this point, I'd try a conventional hard drive I had laying around just to rid the 850 as a possibility...; if failures/extreme sluggishness persist, you are then running out of suspects...

 

[bo_bxb]

Update:

I installed Windows to an old SSD I took from my last PC and everything has worked perfectly for almost a week now. Thank you to all who suggested hard drive failure, it appears you were correct. Currently waiting on Samsung to reply to warranty ticket. Sorry this was posted in the CPU forum but thanks again to everyone who helped.

Just for visibility, every SMART scan I ran showed no issues with the drive so I guess those cannot be trusted 100%.

 

[bo_bxb]

Another Update:

After a month of everything performing perfectly, it just started happening again. Exact same problem as before, everything slowing down to a crawl. This is still using the old SSD I installed.

Benchmarks:
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/4503715

Does anyone have any ideas as to what could be causing this?

 

[Rakanyshu]

Another Update:

After a month of everything performing perfectly, it just started happening again. Exact same problem as before, everything slowing down to a crawl. This is still using the old SSD I installed.

Benchmarks:
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/4503715

Does anyone have any ideas as to what could be causing this?

"Very high background CPU (96%). High background CPU reduces benchmark accuracy. Find active processes with Windows task manager"

You have something chewing up all cpu resources, could be a virus open task manager and check out what processes you have running watch out specially for the ones (probably just 1) using a lot of cpu %.

 

[bo_bxb]

"Very high background CPU (96%). High background CPU reduces benchmark accuracy. Find active processes with Windows task manager"

You have something chewing up all cpu resources, could be a virus open task manager and check out what processes you have running watch out specially for the ones (probably just 1) using a lot of cpu %.

Sorry that was immediately after a restart. Here is a new one with cpu usage at 5% but same problem.
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/4504055

The problem occurred after a fresh windows install on the old SSD as well so I don't think it's software/virus, and I doubt that both of my SSD's are failing in the exact same way this close together.

 

[bo_bxb]

My bios is showing the cpu at 0.80 GHz while this is going on. Again, the problem comes and goes for hours at a time.

http://imgur.com/a/SsXcM

Also, my case fan controller shorted about 8 months ago. Saw a flash and smelled burning. A few of the ports on it no longer work but everything else in the pc worked fine up until about 2 months ago. Could that have anything to do with this?

 

[jpe1701]

This sounds like a similar problem to one I had. A sensor in my motherboard was bad and throttling my CPU to .8ghz. Everything lagged. I had to RMA the board. The sensor was called the bd prochet sensor if you want to look it up.

 

[mdd1963]

While monitoring task manager/performance, run a simple Defender scan; if CPU ramps up to near it's normal 4.2 GHz or so, then nothing is throttling, set to too low, power saving, etc...

See if you can get an screenshot/window shot of task manager/processes (sorted from most usage, top to bottom) when problem is occurring.

Check TDSSKiller for rootkits....

A quick pass with JRT...

A full scan with Hitman Pro...

If this is malware, then a Linux Mint17.3 or 18 Linux LiveCD run from USB should run quite responsively.

Might also try a Kaspersky rescue disc, scan SSD from outside of Windows....

I'd even consider swapping out the BIOS battery, going to defaults, etc....; a batter normally gives issues retaining date, but, ..at least you'd have a $2-3 spare....

Another option...from within WIndows, run portable version of UltraVirusKiller (UVK Portable), and download it. The from DL location, right click, run as admin, and select "Process Manager", then "kill all processes", which will terminate all non-essential processes....; see if processor usage drops to relatively normal 1-2% at that point...


http://www.carifred.com/uvk/

 

[bo_bxb]

This sounds like a similar problem to one I had. A sensor in my motherboard was bad and throttling my CPU to .8ghz. Everything lagged. I had to RMA the board. The sensor was called the bd prochet sensor if you want to look it up.

I looked into this and so far it seems to have worked! I found another thread with someone experiencing the same problems and MSI's official response to them was to disable "Intel Adaptive Thermal Monitor" in bios. I guess it is a problem with that sensor so now I'm trying to decide if it's worth it to RMA the board or just run it as is. Thank you so much for this and to everyone else who has helped me. This has been way too stressful for me.

 

[Rakanyshu]

This sounds like a similar problem to one I had. A sensor in my motherboard was bad and throttling my CPU to .8ghz. Everything lagged. I had to RMA the board. The sensor was called the bd prochet sensor if you want to look it up.

I looked into this and so far it seems to have worked! I found another thread with someone experiencing the same problems and MSI's official response to them was to disable "Intel Adaptive Thermal Monitor" in bios. I guess it is a problem with that sensor so now I'm trying to decide if it's worth it to RMA the board or just run it as is. Thank you so much for this and to everyone else who has helped me. This has been way too stressful for me.

Glad to see you have a solution, good luck on that.

 

[jpe1701]

This sounds like a similar problem to one I had. A sensor in my motherboard was bad and throttling my CPU to .8ghz. Everything lagged. I had to RMA the board. The sensor was called the bd prochet sensor if you want to look it up.

I looked into this and so far it seems to have worked! I found another thread with someone experiencing the same problems and MSI's official response to them was to disable "Intel Adaptive Thermal Monitor" in bios. I guess it is a problem with that sensor so now I'm trying to decide if it's worth it to RMA the board or just run it as is. Thank you so much for this and to everyone else who has helped me. This has been way too stressful for me.

You're welcome. Glad to help.