Question PC regularly freezes. Current Disc Queue Length spikes when this happens.

[ElliotGreen]

A few months ago, I bought a refurbished Dell OptiPlex 7040 SFF. I installed Windows 10 on a Kingston SSD. There are 8 GB of RAM.

The computer freezes about once every five minutes. At this time I can usually still use the mouse, and sometimes I can switch between programs with alt tab. But I cannot type or do any operations. After 15 to 20 seconds, I can operate the computer normally again.

Performance Monitor showed that the Current Disc Queue Length spikes when these freezes occur. It drops again when I am able to move again.

I don't notice any pattern in terms of the programs I am using, although the problem may be slightly worse when I have more things open. However, it still occurs when I have few programs open.

I have tried to use Resource Monitor to look at which processes are accessing the disk at these times, but I have not noticed a pattern.

Do you have any ideas for troubleshooting this? Your replies are much appreciated.

More:

1) I updated the bios already.

2) I don't think I am mixing and matching rams.

3) I'm using Windows 10 Home version 1803.

4) My SSD is this: Kingston Technology A400 SSD 480GB Serial ATA III
https://www.kingston.com/EN/ssd/consumer/sa400s37

 

[Lutfij]

You should be on 1809, if you've used Windows Media Creation Tools to create you bootable installer. Your previous thread was deleted since it was a duplicate of this one, albeit missing some info. Might want to get back with the rams you've got on the system.

 

[ElliotGreen]

Hi.
I've checked and I have a single channel of RAM, 8 GB. DDR4.

The CPU is Intel Core i5 6600.

 

[ElliotGreen]

I ran UserBenchmark and got some interesting results. It does look like my drive is having problems.

My performance is at the bottom 1% of people using the Kingston A400 480GB.

UPDATE: When I closed my Chrome windows, the disk's performance went up to 34%, but this is still in the bottom 4% of people using this particular Kingston drive.

 

[ElliotGreen]

You should be on 1809, [...] Might want to get back with the rams you've got on the system.

The problem is getting worse. I've updated to Win 10 1809. Hasn't helped.

 

[ElliotGreen]

I think I may have found my solution. I needed a Kingston SSD firmware update.

I found out about it by watching this video:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnbcFeBy5KY


I used this software from Kingston, which installed the firmware update for me:
https://www.kingston.com/en/support/technical/ssdmanager

The author of the YouTube video said he could not install the firmware update when the disk was the system drive. However, I was able to do that.

I basically just ran the program, click to install the firmware update, and then rebooted my computer.

Hopefully that fixes it, but I'll let you know if it doesn't.