Question PC accessing drives very slowly randomly. It makes it hang and freeze.

Aug 21, 2022
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0
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My computer has a primary SSD and a secondary HDD.
It started hanging when trying to access my secondary HDD where windows is not installed. I've had problems where HDDs have died before, so I tried replacing it (twice), so a failing HDD is pretty much out of the question. RAID and CHKDSK all said my HDDs were fine.
So I tried replacing my PSU in case it was faulty and maybe not supplying enough energy for the disks to spin properly, but it didn't work either.
And now, I've somehow managed to detect my PC failing to access the main SSD. I used a bootable Ubuntu USB and the responses were slow too, so it's probably not Windows failing. The way I detected the particular way the access time was slow was using the "benchmark partition" from the gnome disks utility: when it goes normally, it accesses the drive up to 100 times to check writing and reading speed and all data points are close to each other. However, when accessing my drives, even the new ones, it randomly drops to zero speed for unknown reasons and it stops performing the benchmark for a while.
Is it possible for my CPU to be failing? Or is it the motherboard? I've tried replacing the cables and swapped the position of the drives to check if that's the cause of the issue but to no avail.
Pictures of the benchmarks using hdtunepro:
SSD
View: https://i.stack.imgur.com/tUmnT.jpg

HDD
View: https://i.stack.imgur.com/uZfuk.png

Computer specs:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 3100 3.6GHz
Motherboard: B450M PRO-VDH MAX (MS-7A38)
GPU: AMD RX 5500 XT 8GB
SSD: Kingston 500 GB
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB
PSU: Cooler Master MasterWatt 650 EU
 
My computer has a primary SSD and a secondary HDD.
It started hanging when trying to access my secondary HDD where windows is not installed. I've had problems where HDDs have died before, so I tried replacing it (twice), so a failing HDD is pretty much out of the question. RAID and CHKDSK all said my HDDs were fine.
So I tried replacing my PSU in case it was faulty and maybe not supplying enough energy for the disks to spin properly, but it didn't work either.
And now, I've somehow managed to detect my PC failing to access the main SSD. I used a bootable Ubuntu USB and the responses were slow too, so it's probably not Windows failing. The way I detected the particular way the access time was slow was using the "benchmark partition" from the gnome disks utility: when it goes normally, it accesses the drive up to 100 times to check writing and reading speed and all data points are close to each other. However, when accessing my drives, even the new ones, it randomly drops to zero speed for unknown reasons and it stops performing the benchmark for a while.
Is it possible for my CPU to be failing? Or is it the motherboard? I've tried replacing the cables and swapped the position of the drives to check if that's the cause of the issue but to no avail.
Pictures of the benchmarks using hdtunepro:
SSD
View: https://i.stack.imgur.com/tUmnT.jpg

HDD
View: https://i.stack.imgur.com/uZfuk.png

Computer specs:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 3100 3.6GHz
Motherboard: B450M PRO-VDH MAX (MS-7A38)
GPU: AMD RX 5500 XT 8GB
SSD: Kingston 500 GB
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB
PSU: Cooler Master MasterWatt 650 EU
Guess.

How hot is stuff getting?
 
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Aug 21, 2022
17
0
10
That looks ok.

Just to take a look download this.
UBM

Reboot.
Wait a few mins.
Run UBM with the browser closed.
Post a LINK to the results page.

Here it is. https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/54759376

I tested my memory a few days ago using the default windows tool and it reported no issues. I haven't tried memtest86 yet, but it might be the source of the problem according to UBM. Also, it looks like it didn't even check the second HDD because it was cached even though I rebooted the PC.
 
Here it is. https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/54759376

I tested my memory a few days ago using the default windows tool and it reported no issues. I haven't tried memtest86 yet, but it might be the source of the problem according to UBM. Also, it looks like it didn't even check the second HDD because it was cached even though I rebooted the PC.
Enable xmp in the bios for the ram speed.

Rerun UBM.
 
Aug 21, 2022
17
0
10
Here are the results. The test didn't catch the SSD this time because the test is too short and it happens randomly, but the memory is faster after enabling XMP (thanks!). I also ran memtest86 and it passed with 0 errors.

EDIT: ran hd tune pro again to confirm, and yes, they're still failing. Both drives are.
 
Aug 21, 2022
17
0
10
That's looking pretty good.
What sort of problems are you seeing?

First of all, thanks for your help!

As to the problems... exactly the same as before. When accessing the HDD or SSD, the PC will take very long and even freeze (seemingly) at random. When confronted with a longer test, like loading a game, installing a program, transfering files or a longer benchmark, it is visible that something is not right when the PC is accessing said drives. For example, games won't load, things won't get deleted until a very large amount of time passes, files will get transferred at very low speeds...

As I stated in the post, I replaced my HDD twice and even the PSU. I even tried Ubuntu and had the same issues.

This is the last test of the SSD, which wasn't failing at the beginning, I only noticed the HDD failing at first.
 
First of all, thanks for your help!

As to the problems... exactly the same as before. When accessing the HDD or SSD, the PC will take very long and even freeze (seemingly) at random. When confronted with a longer test, like loading a game, installing a program, transfering files or a longer benchmark, it is visible that something is not right when the PC is accessing said drives. For example, games won't load, things won't get deleted until a very large amount of time passes, files will get transferred at very low speeds...

As I stated in the post, I replaced my HDD twice and even the PSU. I even tried Ubuntu and had the same issues.

This is the last test of the SSD, which wasn't failing at the beginning, I only noticed the HDD failing at first.
Show a screenshot from crystal disk info for both disk.
 
Aug 21, 2022
17
0
10
My only stick time with either app is just to run them both and make sure they functioned error free so a log would not be of much value to me.

Does sfc /scannow show an error?
It did, but it corrected it, and checking the log it seems only .lnk files were fixed. Now the computer is completely frozen after more tests, so I don't know what's happening.
 

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