[SOLVED] PC slowed drastically down

[Disconnect_132]

Hello dear Community,
since 2 days I have the problem that my PC slowed drastically down. Its not like i need to wait 20 minutes for google chrome, but its already an significant amount of maybe 5 seconds. 2 days earlier my PC worked perfectly fine as usual. I didn't download a file since then and didn't edit system files. It just happend from one minute to the other. Applications like Steam takes 2 min to open most of the time, sometimes even failing to open and they crash. I have run my antivirus (Norton Security Premium) and made basic scans like sfc/scannow in cmd. Problem is that even this took like 1 hour because the scan was so slow. Both my C: and D: drives have more then 100 GB free space, CoreTemp shows me that the cores are running all between 35 and 40 °C. I have no idea what causes the problem and I can't think of a solution, but maybe you guys have more knowledge about this. Every single scan showed my that there are no corrupted files or anything like it. One thing I noticed that from time to time my task manager shows me the process "system interrupts" which takes 33.3% of CPU usage. Hoping you can give me some clues!
I performed a benchmark test, dont know if it can give you any additional information i overlooked, but there might be some problem with the ssd's:

UserBenchmarks: Game 85%, Desk 86%, Work 76%
CPU: Intel Core i9-9900K - 87.8%
GPU: Nvidia RTX 2080 - 92.6%
SSD: Samsung 960 Evo NVMe PCIe M.2 250GB - 30.2%
SSD: Patriot Burst 480GB - 28.7%
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws V DDR4 3200 C16 2x8GB - 92.6%
MBD: Asus PRIME Z370-A II

 

[kanewolf]

Hello dear Community,
since 2 days I have the problem that my PC slowed drastically down. Its not like i need to wait 20 minutes for google chrome, but its already an significant amount of maybe 5 seconds. 2 days earlier my PC worked perfectly fine as usual. I didn't download a file since then and didn't edit system files. It just happend from one minute to the other. Applications like Steam takes 2 min to open most of the time, sometimes even failing to open and they crash. I have run my antivirus (Norton Security Premium) and made basic scans like sfc/scannow in cmd. Problem is that even this took like 1 hour because the scan was so slow. Both my C: and D: drives have more then 100 GB free space, CoreTemp shows me that the cores are running all between 35 and 40 °C. I have no idea what causes the problem and I can't think of a solution, but maybe you guys have more knowledge about this. Every single scan showed my that there are no corrupted files or anything like it. One thing I noticed that from time to time my task manager shows me the process "system interrupts" which takes 33.3% of CPU usage. Hoping you can give me some clues!
I performed a benchmark test, dont know if it can give you any additional information i overlooked, but there might be some problem with the ssd's:

UserBenchmarks: Game 85%, Desk 86%, Work 76%
CPU: Intel Core i9-9900K - 87.8%
GPU: Nvidia RTX 2080 - 92.6%
SSD: Samsung 960 Evo NVMe PCIe M.2 250GB - 30.2%
SSD: Patriot Burst 480GB - 28.7%
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws V DDR4 3200 C16 2x8GB - 92.6%
MBD: Asus PRIME Z370-A II

Your CPU is not reaching maximum clock speed.
I don't know what would cause your Samsung SSD to perform like that.

 

[Phaaze88]

1)Cpu isn't turbo boosting at all.
Suspect cpu thermal throttling or VRM power throttling... or maybe you picked up some kind of malware/virus.
You did say it was working fine before, so I'm ok to assume it was boosting normally then.

2)Gpu also appears to be struggling with something. It's score isn't even within 10% of the average that I would consider normal.
Suspect thermal throttling, or malware/virus eating resources.

3)Something's definitely up with the SSD.
Running too hot, or virus/malware.
What does Samsung Magician say about its condition?

4)Patriot Burst. Wow, same deal as above, I guess?


I think your PC may have caught something nasty.
For all of the above to suddenly be suffering high thermals when it was all fine before, would be a bit of a stretch...

 

[Disconnect_132]

Ok, i turned on the magician and these are the results:

The Samsung SSD:
Drive Health Good (9.5TB written)
Temperature 37°C (normal)
144GB Free
Sequential Read: 193 mb/s
" Write: 135 mb/s
Random Read: 9521
Random Write: 5126

Patriot Burst:
no data about health and temperature
Sequential Read: 351 mb/s
" Write: 213 mb/s
Random Read: 3173
Random Write: 1708

I dont know if my antivirus isnt working properly but i made a complete system scan and it didn't find any malware. Is there another way to check this. (I got the autoprotection from Norton always on so it would have deleted something dangerous instantly as usual). The temperature of my pc seems quite low in my opinion, really dont know what could cause this problem. Theres still this system interrupts process taking now sometimes 80% cpu usage. Funny thing is that Norton Security doesnt seem to notice that, it keeps saying me that the system usage ist around 10%.

 

[Phaaze88]

Some AVs only check for... well, viruses. Some malicious apps can easily slip by them unnoticed.
Give Adwcleaner(by Malwarebytes) at try: https://www.malwarebytes.com/adwcleaner/

Norton doesn't appear to be that good, or so I've heard, but that's all I've got there - just hearsay.

 

[Disconnect_132]

The tool quarantined some files which my Norton couldn't find. The "lag-spikes" decreased, but it's still way slower than before and some programs like games or other applications still crash. The benchmark tells me that there's still a proble, even suspects that my ssd's arent connected properly?

UserBenchmarks: Game 88%, Desk 87%, Work 82%
CPU: Intel Core i9-9900K - 88.4%
GPU: Nvidia RTX 2080 - 95.5%
SSD: Samsung 960 Evo NVMe PCIe M.2 250GB - 34.1%
SSD: Patriot Burst 480GB - 24.2%
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws V DDR4 3200 C16 2x8GB - 90.8%
MBD: Asus PRIME Z370-A II

 

[Phaaze88]

Maybe not connected properly, but perhaps running at a slower PCIe link speed.
You can check PCIe speed with Gpu-Z.

 

[Disconnect_132]

Now I'm getting on an unexplored territory. Gpu-Z says something about PCIe x16 3.0 @ x 16 2.0. Hopefully it says something for you because i dont know what these numbers mean. Posting a reply because i discovered something odd: When i hear to music or to some videos the sound ist sometimes crackling. You know like this type of noise when there's some dust in the port. But thats not it. I changed my headphones, cable and turned on the speakers, it was all the same. Maybe it has to do something with it? Drivers are all up to date, already checked. Never had a problem with my pc which lasted so long after so many attempts to get rid of it. Maybe i should replace the ssd's with new ones? But referring to the benchmark test every part is getting worse grades than before.

 

[Phaaze88]

Is there a "?" next to the bus speed? Click it and run the render test. You should then see it change to PCIe 3.0.


The current behavior may be in relation to the malware that got cleaned up. I'd suggest doing the following:
Windows Search, enter Command Prompt, right-click and select Run as administrator, and then select Yes.
Type DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth (note the space before each "/"), and then press Enter.
After you see a message that says "The operation completed successfully," type sfc/scannow (note the space between "sfc" and "/") and press Enter.
After you see a message that says, "Verification 100% complete," type exit.

Try reinstalling your mobo drivers. Heads up - the Chipset has more than one: Management Engine Interface and Intel Chipset Driver.
Magician already tells you if it's drivers are up to date or not.

Are you using an older sound card by any chance? I had crackling and crashing issues with an older Asus Xonar, that I eventually gave up on and resorted to the gpu's audio device.
I suspect the older device's drivers weren't compatible with Win10 anymore. I haven't had any problems since.

 

[Disconnect_132]

I'm already using my gpu's audio device, so the soundcard shouldn't be the problem. I have run the render test on gpu-z and its now showing 3.0, thats done. Also did these steps in the cmd window, it completed both the dism and the sfc scan successfully, but found nothing. Reinstalling now the drivers altough they seem to be up to date. This is a really weird case, is it? Even when I'm typing in this moment the letters appear with some delay, it's so sad.

 

[Disconnect_132]

Firstly I want to thank you that you're helping me so much, I really appreciate that. I reinstalled the Management Engine Interface, the other one i could find on the website. I decided to download the audio drivers as well and it helped, no more crackling so thats done. The reinstallation of the one Driver seems to help as well, it's not that laggy anymore (only if i get a "lag-spike"). But still i got this odd "system interrupts" process in my task manager, taking 50% or more cpu usage almost all the time. You know something about this?

Quickly done a benchmark again, overall boot drive performance is better, but single ssd's as well as cpu and gpu arent performing that well, what could have happend??

UserBenchmarks: Game 88%, Desk 88%, Work 82%
CPU: Intel Core i9-9900K - 87.6%
GPU: Nvidia RTX 2080 - 96.8%
SSD: Samsung 960 Evo NVMe PCIe M.2 250GB - 47.7%
SSD: Patriot Burst 480GB - 23.6%
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws V DDR4 3200 C16 2x8GB - 91.7%
MBD: Asus PRIME Z370-A II

 

[Phaaze88]

That is not something I'm familiar with. It also appears in my Task Manager, but nothing near 50% on my end - more like 0.1%.
Looks like it's a Windows thing: When I right-click > Go to details, it appears with all the other system processes.

I'll try hailing someone who's more familiar with Windows. @Colif

 

[Disconnect_132]

Thank you! Is it possible that that's the problem why cpu,gpu and ssd performance dropped? Or is there something else i need to check? The benchmark still isn't near to the old status where everything was above 100 percentile. I'll try to find some old benchmark, maybe I saved it somewhere.

 

[Phaaze88]

I mean, it was fine before, then all of a sudden it wasn't... I thought of a number of possible causes, such as malware, heat, and Windows.
The first 2 are usually easy to deal with. Windows - I'm no expert there.
The only other thing I could think of is something's wrong with the motherboard, since literally everything is connected though it.

So yeah, Windows or the motherboard...🤔

 

[kanewolf]

I mean, it was fine before, then all of a sudden it wasn't... I thought of a number of possible causes, such as malware, heat, and Windows.
The first 2 are usually easy to deal with. Windows - I'm no expert there.
The only other thing I could think of is something's wrong with the motherboard, since literally everything is connected though it.

So yeah, Windows or the motherboard...🤔

Get a portable Linux USB and boot. See if the basic performance, like typing, and CPU loading is normal.

 

[Disconnect_132]

I never did something like this before, so I have some questions if I understood it right, because different websites are showing me different methods.

1. I install an .iso on a USB drive
2. After that i try to reboot, booting from the USB drive
3. If that doesn't work I have to reformat it

Is that everything I need to consider while doing this? Never done this before so I'm not sure.

 

[Disconnect_132]

Ok, I figuered out something new. The problem with the crackling sound i mentioned before isn't produced by my headphones. I checked them on another pc and they work fine. Sound drivers are all up to date, but other headphones have still this crackling in the audio. I tried it on all USB ports i have, everywhere the same issue. Another new thing is that sometimes the audio slows down for some seconds, as if the video is played at 0.5 speed, but thats not the case. I don't know if this is a clue for you but I thought it could give you some information.

 

[Phaaze88]

Ok, I figuered out something new. The problem with the crackling sound i mentioned before isn't produced by my headphones. I checked them on another pc and they work fine. Sound drivers are all up to date, but other headphones have still this crackling in the audio. I tried it on all USB ports i have, everywhere the same issue. Another new thing is that sometimes the audio slows down for some seconds, as if the video is played at 0.5 speed, but thats not the case. I don't know if this is a clue for you but I thought it could give you some information.

I suspect multiple sound drivers are active, but aren't getting along.
Device Manager > Sound, video and game controllers.
If your headphones are plugged into the mobo audio port:
-Run Display Driver Uninstaller, select the Nvidia driver to be removed, and click Clean and Restart.
-As you proceed to install the latest recommended driver, in Custom settings, uncheck Nvidia HD Audio, and install the driver.
-If there are any other audio drivers besides the Realtek one your mobo uses, right-click > Uninstall device.

If your headphones are plugged into the monitor instead, you can go about this the other way and right click > uninstall the other audio devices and leave the Nvidia HD audio intact.

Aside from those, I'm not sure.

 

[kanewolf]

I never did something like this before, so I have some questions if I understood it right, because different websites are showing me different methods.

1. I install an .iso on a USB drive
2. After that i try to reboot, booting from the USB drive
3. If that doesn't work I have to reformat it

Is that everything I need to consider while doing this? Never done this before so I'm not sure.

This page has a reasonable tutorial for getting a portable Linux running -- https://www.tecmint.com/install-linux-os-on-usb-drive/
There are probably YouTube tutorials also.

IF Linux works normally, you may have to bite the bullet and do a clean Windows 10 install to clear up your performance problems.