[SOLVED] Major system slowdowns since yesterday, might be my SSD?

[Kzarq]

Hey all kind of a newbie with this so bear with me here. Since last night, I think I've ran into a major problem and it might be my SSD. When i attempt to update games on my C drive or seemingly write any data to it, my entire system will slow to a crawl. The first time this happened was last night while trying to save a game. The save failed and my whole system lagged completely. My PC boots into windows fine but just in the past hour programs have been loading and opening slowly, my desktop has crashed and theres frequent hanging with programs also crashing. Transferring even basic photos seems to take longer than before aswell.

At first I thought my issue was with my RAM so I bought 2 new sticks to replace my aging ones... this didn't really help it. Now I'm wondering if this is my SSD C drive. So far what I've done to help it is:

• Ran sfc /scannow
• Deleted files to make space, optimized my drive
• AHCI is on and the drive is connected properly

The strangest about this thing is that Samsung Magician says that drive health is good and their is no failures listed under S.M.A.R.T. Additionally CHKDSK reported no errors. Does anyone have any ideas what I could do to find out what's going on? Does this sound OS related or disk related?

 

[Lutfij]

We could use some more info from your end. Please include the specs to your system, not to mention the make and model of your PSU and it's age. BIOS version for your motherboard at this moment of time? It'd help you and us to state what you see in Task Manager when the system slows to a crawl. If you're working with Windows 10, what version(not edition) of the OS are you on?

 

[Kzarq]

We could use some more info from your end. Please include the specs to your system, not to mention the make and model of your PSU and it's age. BIOS version for your motherboard at this moment of time? It'd help you and us to state what you see in Task Manager when the system slows to a crawl. If you're working with Windows 10, what version(not edition) of the OS are you on?

Here are my specs:
Intel i7-9700k, I dont OC
GeForce RTX 3070
MSI Z390 gaming pro. Recently updated it to a build from 31 December 2020.
PSU is a corsair RM850x and it's only 2 or 3 years old.
Latest version of Windows 10 21H2

Whenever I try to open my task manager during slowdowns it takes a long time and usually isn't responsive so it's hard to say if something specific is causing it. At first I thought it was the game but now I'm noticing just using my PC to browse or use programs it's slow and kinda hangs here and there.

 

[Lutfij]

Be patient and see what sort of disk, memory and CPU usage you see when the slowdown happens. BIOS version?

GeForce RTX 3070
+
PSU is a corsair RM850x and it's only 2 or 3 years old.
That's another point of concern/worry.

 

[Kzarq]

Be patient and see what sort of disk, memory and CPU usage you see when the slowdown happens. BIOS version?

GeForce RTX 3070
+
PSU is a corsair RM850x and it's only 2 or 3 years old.
That's another point of concern/worry.

My BIOS version says "American Megathreads Inc. 1.D0, 31-Dec-20" SMBIOS version is 2.8.

As far as my power supply, I haven't been dealing with random shutdowns or crashing. Haven't been hearing any strange noises either. Could my PSU be causing this aswell?

 

[Lutfij]

You certainly have something on with your system, that's what we're trying to get to the bottom of.

You sure you've mentioned the right motherboard make and model?
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/mpg-z390-gaming-pro-carbon/support
^ there's no D0...not even a Beta version is listed with that version.

 

[Kzarq]

You certainly have something on with your system, that's what we're trying to get to the bottom of.

You sure you've mentioned the right motherboard make and model?
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/mpg-z390-gaming-pro-carbon/support
^ there's no D0...not even a Beta version is listed with that version.

Oh sorry made a mistake, I have the Z390 Gaming Plus. When I updated it I did version 7B51v1D. I reset my CMOS though so now I think the version has changed. What i put in my response is what it shows me in the system information.

 

[Lutfij]

The last BIOS pending an update is 1E. Leave that for now...though it might very well lead you to reinstalling your OS. Speaking of OS, where did you source the installer for your OS?

 

[Kzarq]

The last BIOS pending an update is 1E. Leave that for now...though it might very well lead you to reinstalling your OS. Speaking of OS, where did you source the installer for your OS?

Originally I don't even remember though I have a genuine copy of course. I've had a bad time with it honestly, had to force an update some months ago because my version of windows blue screened everytime it updated. Right now, I'm considering reinstalling windows on an existing M.2 I have plugged in.

 

[Lutfij]

Seems very likely that your OS is corrupt...the source of all your woes. Recreate your bootable installer using Windows Media Creation Tools and reinstall your OS.

 

[Kzarq]

Seems very likely that your OS is corrupt...the source of all your woes. Recreate your bootable installer using Windows Media Creation Tools and reinstall your OS.

I will be doing this. I'll let you know how it goes. Thank you!

 

[Kzarq]

So good news! Yesterday i reinstalled Windows on my M.2 NVMe device and it works great now. No slowdowns and can write data properly with much faster boot times thank you for the help! I had to remove my old C drive SSD and had to set UEFI mode on my M.2. A physical inspection of my old ssd showed a slightly damaged corner so it may have taken some sort of physical damage at some point causing those issues.

 

[Lutfij]

Glad to hear your endeavor ended well!