Question Sudden drop in performance and intermittent freezes.

[Griffint]

Hi all, over the past week or so my PCs performance has taken a dive and I have no idea why. CPU consumption less than 15% and RAM use less than 50%. Freezes on everything on and off but recovers in a couple of minutes. Disk registering at 100% consistently even if no programs are running, I've tried to establish why this is happening but have noticed heavy disk use in the past when there were no issues so not sure its related. I've updated drivers, run cleaning software and antivirus, and offloaded all the files I can (using less than 900GB of 2TB) but no luck. Need the PC for work so any advice massively appreciated!

Edit:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six-Core Processor

GPU: Zotac NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070

PSU: 650W Corsair RM 650x(bought new but now around 4 years old) –

RAM: Vulcan 8GB DDR4 3000 (x2)

Motherboard: Gigabyte B450M DS3H

(All above components 5 years old)

Disk Drive: BarraCuda ST2000DM006-2DM164 1.82TB (0.9TB Used)

(Disk Drive could be as old as 8 years)



PC had been used heavily for gaming for 2-3 years but primarily graphical work for the past 3 years (Adobe Suite + modelling and rendering software)

Windows 10, 64 bit (22H2), tried to upgrade to Windows 11 but system doesn’t support TPM 2.0 or Secure Boot (Legacy BIOS and version seems to pre-date UEFI so cant force an update)

Minimal Startup programs enabled (Adobe Cloud, Razer Synapse the only relatively heavy ones), can’t see any stand out delayed programs on Task Scheduler.

Disk spikes to 100% when running pretty much any software. E.g. If I’m running Adobe Software: Adobe, Nortons and System are the top processes.

PC cleaned and secured but no luck.

Checked the event log, if freezing and non-responding programs come under critical errors then there was nothing I could see. I’ll add I have noticed sometimes one monitor will freeze and the other is useable and at other times both will freeze.



Hope that gives a bit more insight

 

[Ralston18]

Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

Include PSU: make, model, wattage, age, condition (original to build, new, refurbished, used)?l Heavy use for gaming, video editing, or even bit-mining?

Disk drive(s): make, model, capacity, how full?

Look in Reliability History and Event Viewer. Either tool or both may be capturing some error codes, warnings, or even informational events just before or at the time of the freezes. Or at the time of recovery.

Check Task Manager > Startup and Task Scheduler for any apps being launched at startup or perhaps later based on some trigger.

Watch Resource Monitor to discover what may be happening when disk use goes to 100%.

Another tool is Process Explorer (Microsoft, free):

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer

= = = =

Power down, unplug, open the case.

Clean out dust and debris.

Verify by sight and feel that all connections, cards, RAM, jumpers, and case connections are fully and firmly in place.

 

[Griffint]

Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

Include PSU: make, model, wattage, age, condition (original to build, new, refurbished, used)?l Heavy use for gaming, video editing, or even bit-mining?

Disk drive(s): make, model, capacity, how full?

Look in Reliability History and Event Viewer. Either tool or both may be capturing some error codes, warnings, or even informational events just before or at the time of the freezes. Or at the time of recovery.

Check Task Manager > Startup and Task Scheduler for any apps being launched at startup or perhaps later based on some trigger.

Watch Resource Monitor to discover what may be happening when disk use goes to 100%.

Another tool is Process Explorer (Microsoft, free):

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer

= = = =

Power down, unplug, open the case.

Clean out dust and debris.

Verify by sight and feel that all connections, cards, RAM, jumpers, and case connections are fully and firmly in place.

Edit:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six-Core Processor

GPU: Zotac NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070

PSU: 650W Corsair RM 650x(bought new but now around 4 years old) –

RAM: Vulcan 8GB DDR4 3000 (x2)

Motherboard: Gigabyte B450M DS3H

(All above components 5 years old)

Disk Drive: BarraCuda ST2000DM006-2DM164 1.82TB (0.9TB Used)

(Disk Drive could be as old as 8 years)



PC had been used heavily for gaming for 2-3 years but primarily graphical work for the past 3 years (Adobe Suite + modelling and rendering software)

Windows 10, 64 bit (22H2), tried to upgrade to Windows 11 but system doesn’t support TPM 2.0 or Secure Boot (Legacy BIOS and version seems to pre-date UEFI so cant force an update)

Minimal Startup programs enabled (Adobe Cloud, Razer Synapse the only relatively heavy ones), can’t see any stand out delayed programs on Task Scheduler.

Disk spikes to 100% when running pretty much any software. E.g. If I’m running Adobe Software: Adobe, Nortons and System are the top processes.

PC cleaned and secured but no luck.

Checked the event log, if freezing and non-responding programs come under critical errors then there was nothing I could see. I’ll add I have noticed sometimes one monitor will freeze and the other is useable and at other times both will freeze.



Hope that gives a bit more insight.

 

[Ralston18]

This:

"PSU: 650W Corsair RM 650x(bought new but now around 4 years old) – "

Plus heavy gaming and video editing make the PSU quite suspect.

Remember PSUs provide three different voltages (3.3, 5, and 12) to varying system components. Even the smallest power glitch can cause problems.

Do you have a multi-meter and know how to use it? Or know someone who does?

FYI:

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-manually-test-a-power-supply-with-a-multimeter-2626158

Not a full test because the PSU is not under load. However, any voltages out of tolerance make the PSU even more suspect.

Any means to obtain another PSU to swap in for testing purposes? Remember use only the PSU cables that come with the PSU being installed. Do not use other PSU cables.

All important data backed up - correct?

 

[Griffint]

This:

"PSU: 650W Corsair RM 650x(bought new but now around 4 years old) – "

Plus heavy gaming and video editing make the PSU quite suspect.

Remember PSUs provide three different voltages (3.3, 5, and 12) to varying system components. Even the smallest power glitch can cause problems.

Do you have a multi-meter and know how to use it? Or know someone who does?

FYI:

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-manually-test-a-power-supply-with-a-multimeter-2626158

Not a full test because the PSU is not under load. However, any voltages out of tolerance make the PSU even more suspect.

Any means to obtain another PSU to swap in for testing purposes? Remember use only the PSU cables that come with the PSU being installed. Do not use other PSU cables.

All important data backed up - correct?

Can back everything up if I need to. Yep got a multimeter so can give it a go. All cables original. Should have a couple of psu’s around but don’t know whether the power supply will be high enough, will have a look. Can psu’s be changed out without impacting the system (given that the power supply is high enough)?

 

[Ralston18]

"Can back everything up if I need to. "

You need to. Always. Beforehand. Regularly. Verify that the backups are recoverable and readable.

= = = =

The PSU's can be swapped out. However, the test PSU should always be a known working PSU of at least the same wattage and quality.

All power off and unplugged: not hot swappable.

Not a job to rush and carefully double check all connections.

 

[Griffint]

"Can back everything up if I need to. "

You need to. Always. Beforehand. Regularly. Verify that the backups are recoverable and readable.

= = = =

The PSU's can be swapped out. However, the test PSU should always be a known working PSU of at least the same wattage and quality.

All power off and unplugged: not hot swappable.

Not a job to rush and carefully double check all connections.

Will do, thanks for the help!

 

[geofelt]

What might have changed since all was well?
Perhaps a bad software update.
Malware?
Can you use system restore to reset back to when all was ok?

 

[Griffint]

What might have changed since all was well?
Perhaps a bad software update.
Malware?
Can you use system restore to reset back to when all was ok?

It’s been slowing for a while but actually began to impact my work over the last week or so because it’s started freezing. I’ve run checks for malware multiple times and reinstalled the main programmes I use (the only ones I’d likely have updated in the last month). Can’t remember doing a recent software update but will check. Thanks!