Question Laptop lagging on everything - recent problem

[uggh]

I'm trying to help my son with his computer. He has:

Acer Predator Helios 300 PH315-51G0
CPU - Intel(R) Core(TM0) i7-870H CPU 2.20GHz
Motherboard - Intel® HM370
RAM - 16 GB DDR4-SDRAM
Graphics Card - NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060
Power Supply - LAPTOP AC
adapter power 180 W
AC adapter frequency 50/60 Hz
AC adapter input voltage 100 - 240 V
SSD Total storage capacity *1.13 TB
Storage media *HDD+SSD
Number of HDDs installed1
HDD capacity1 TB
HDD interfaceSATA
HDD speed5400 RPM
SSD capacity128 GB
SSD interfaceSATA III
Windows 10 Home
64bit

This problem started in the last 2 weeks and was originally noticeable on old steam games recently reinstalled, but now it seems to have moved on to other programs after fix attempts. It is now lagging on VR, all steam games, and some microsoft programs. I'm starting to think he has a dying hard drive.

I'll list what he's done as best I can.

We tested it without mouse or any usb items plugged in. He has reinstalled Steam, all of his games, and verified all of the files. He has updated Nvidia and optimized all of his games, he ran defrag (this was hanging and I don't know if it ever finished), and chkdsk. Chkdsk /f found errors to repair 3 times in a row which made me wonder if it had an imminent hard drive failure, I'm also not sure if he ever got a clear one and will have to ask tomorrow as he is overseas, but I wanted to get this post started.

He ran clcleaner, updated directX and reinstalled nvidia drivers, he updated the laptop drivers from website including audio. This is a new problem over the last couple of weeks.. On games, audio is lagging behind game play, game objectives updating or loading new things causes a massive lag spike, it will drop from 300fps to 4fps for 15 seconds before resuming. I expect I left out some information, but I'll try to get any info needed.

Thank you

 

[turtletarget111]

It sounds like there is a strong chance your son's hard drive is beginning to fail. What I would recommend you try is first, ensure that the laptop is plugged into the wall and is receiving power when running games. Laptops will throttle heavily when on battery. I'm confident this will not completely resolve the problem, so what you should try next is reinstall a game but this time, ensure it is installed on the SSD, not the hard drive. If the lag goes away (while still plugged into the wall) then it's pretty clear that the hard drive is to blame.
If you are willing, you could also completely reinstall Windows. There is a chance Chkdsk is failing because of an error within the OS. If your son has his important data backed up, you could reinstall Windows, reinstall Steam, and then install a game to see if this resolves your issue.
If all else fails, then you need to replace the hard drive. It sounds like all it was used for was storing games, which means it likely has no valuable data on it. If it does, copy it to an external drive, USB stick, whatever you need to do to get it backed up. Ensure you have copies of the data stored off the laptop. Then, you will need to replace the hard drive. This is pretty straight forward on most laptops, but I have linked two videos below for your reference. They are not your exact model, but they should be similar enough to perform the repair:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdwSzRLftFE

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qCWh4UyfQU


As far as what to replace it with, I would strongly recommend you replace the 1TB hard drive with a sata SSD of equal or greater capacity. Not only are SSD's faster and more durable than hard drives (especially because laptops are moved around a lot) but they are more power efficient and make no noise. Here's an excellent option:

Amazon.com

Hopefully this resolves your issue, take care.

 

[uggh]

Thank you so much. I really appreciate this and I'll try to report back the results.

 

[uggh]

It sounds like there is a strong chance your son's hard drive is beginning to fail. What I would recommend you try is first, ensure that the laptop is plugged into the wall and is receiving power when running games. Laptops will throttle heavily when on battery. I'm confident this will not completely resolve the problem, so what you should try next is reinstall a game but this time, ensure it is installed on the SSD, not the hard drive. If the lag goes away (while still plugged into the wall) then it's pretty clear that the hard drive is to blame.
If you are willing, you could also completely reinstall Windows. There is a chance Chkdsk is failing because of an error within the OS. If your son has his important data backed up, you could reinstall Windows, reinstall Steam, and then install a game to see if this resolves your issue.
If all else fails, then you need to replace the hard drive. It sounds like all it was used for was storing games, which means it likely has no valuable data on it. If it does, copy it to an external drive, USB stick, whatever you need to do to get it backed up. Ensure you have copies of the data stored off the laptop. Then, you will need to replace the hard drive. This is pretty straight forward on most laptops, but I have linked two videos below for your reference. They are not your exact model, but they should be similar enough to perform the repair:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdwSzRLftFE

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qCWh4UyfQU


As far as what to replace it with, I would strongly recommend you replace the 1TB hard drive with a sata SSD of equal or greater capacity. Not only are SSD's faster and more durable than hard drives (especially because laptops are moved around a lot) but they are more power efficient and make no noise. Here's an excellent option:

Amazon.com

Hopefully this resolves your issue, take care.

Hi, I wanted to let you know that the computer worked perfectly with the programs loaded on the SSD, so we will be replacing his main hard drive. Thank you for the troubleshooting tips and clear instructions.

 

[turtletarget111]

It's my pleasure. Glad I could assist you.