Question Task Manager says System is taking up all of my Disk, saving files causes it to freeze / or take forever

[deceitful]

Hi! My computer has been slow for a few months now. For me, when I'm on a browser or a game I don't have any issues. It's opening things that seems to make it just stall forever.

For example, if I go to save an image from the web onto my computer,

right click -> save image as?

It will open the window to name and set the save location of the file, but the window will just freeze half the time, sitting there without any words, just blank. Sometimes I have to restart my entire browser just to fix it.

For gaming, it takes a while for the main game I play to open up (League of Legends) and on loading it takes an enormous amount of time. While the game itself runs fine with no lag when I'm in. I feel like half the time when the computer is slow, if I look in task manager, it will tell me System & Antimalware Service Executable are running to a high degree. What could be causing these issues? How to fix them?

 

[rgd1101]

full system spec?
malware scan the system?

 

[deceitful]

full system spec?
malware scan the system?

Sorry for the delayed reply,

Here are my full specs:

https://imgur.com/FhI3AF7

View: https://i.imgur.com/FhI3AF7.png

https://imgur.com/MH1KvMK

View: https://i.imgur.com/MH1KvMK.png


https://pastebin.com/raw/fkssJ1z0

On the virus scan, almost all of them are just game cracks and a couple game editors that I usually tell my antimalware to ignore. I don't think those are the issue because they are used by dozens of others with no complaints. However the only issue I see new is the Adware.Linkury couple that are in SYSWOW64 and APPDATA, but I doubt those 2 adware's are the root issue of all this lag. I just cleared them nonetheless. Anything else I can do to help anyone or you identify the problem?

 

[wpgwpg]

Need details about your hard drive. How much space used, how much free? Is it partitioned? Do you have Windows on a hard drive or an SSD?

 

[deceitful]

Need details about your hard drive. How much space used, how much free? Is it partitioned? Do you have Windows on a hard drive or an SSD?

144 GB Free on my hard drive out of 913 GB. I partitioned it once, it didn't do much. and Windows is just on a hard drive, no SSD,

 

[Colif]

what model Dell is it?

does the program that shows spec details show what brand hdd they use?
just make it easier as some hdd makers have their own hdd testing software.
you can run speccy and it will show hdd makers details

HD Sentinel is more generic and can be used on any hdd - https://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_sentinel_trial.php

Brand specific test software
Samsung - https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/product/consumer/magician/
WD - https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?p=3&lang=en
Seagate - https://www.seagate.com/au/en/support/downloads/seatools/seatools-win-master/

it could be the hdd that is cause of slow down as the PC could be about 5 years old now. hdd (especially boot drives) don't last forever.

 

[wpgwpg]

OK, so you mean task manager is showing your hard drive is 100% busy, not that something is taking up all your hard drive space. Look in Task Manager to see what the culprit is. Click the Processes tab, then click DISK in the column headings. The tasks keeping the drive busiest will be listed at the top of the column.

 

[deceitful]

what model Dell is it?

does the program that shows spec details show what brand hdd they use?
just make it easier as some hdd makers have their own hdd testing software.
you can run speccy and it will show hdd makers details

HD Sentinel is more generic and can be used on any hdd - https://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_sentinel_trial.php

Brand specific test software
Samsung - https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/product/consumer/magician/
WD - https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?p=3&lang=en
Seagate - https://www.seagate.com/au/en/support/downloads/seatools/seatools-win-master/

it could be the hdd that is cause of slow down as the PC could be about 5 years old now. hdd (especially boot drives) don't last forever.

I got the paid version of HD Sentinel, ran every test available and they all said the HDD was fine, by HD Sentinel standards anyway
The main screen also says it is 100% fine

https://imgur.com/njfy98g

View: https://i.imgur.com/njfy98g.png


The HDD is old, this computer is from 2015.
The only information I can give you from Speccy is:

https://imgur.com/dDbULsI

View: https://i.imgur.com/dDbULsI.png

 

[deceitful]

OK, so you mean task manager is showing your hard drive is 100% busy, not that something is taking up all your hard drive space. Look in Task Manager to see what the culprit is. Click the Processes tab, then click DISK in the column headings. The tasks keeping the drive busiest will be listed at the top of the column.

It'll honestly be anything that I'm running at the time, If its a browser that's stuck on a hangup, it'll be the browser at 100%, bright red just frozen and lagging.
If it's a game, same thing.
It does this for pretty much for a ton of things and programs and things I try on the PC. It's like just processing in general on the computer can cause it to just lag and freeze

 

[Colif]

4 years power on time. my 5 year old Seagate only has 2 years ontime, but then its storage and the ssd only shows 3 more days. My pc is not on all the time.

its estimated life span is just that, its healthy now but its always wise to replace drives you use as boot after 5 years or so. They can last longer as storage though. In my last PC I had 2 boot drives in the same time as one storage kept working. less stress for storage.

have you run defrag recently? it should run when PC is idle but if you never have, it could be reason. I actually use this instead - https://www.ccleaner.com/defraggler (you don't need ccleaner if its offered)

 

[deceitful]

4 years power on time. my 5 year old Seagate only has 2 years ontime, but then its storage and the ssd only shows 3 more days. My pc is not on all the time.

its estimated life span is just that, its healthy now but its always wise to replace drives you use as boot after 5 years or so. They can last longer as storage though. In my last PC I had 2 boot drives in the same time as one storage kept working. less stress for storage.

have you run defrag recently? it should run when PC is idle but if you never have, it could be reason. I actually use this instead - https://www.ccleaner.com/defraggler (you don't need ccleaner if its offered)

Sorry for the delayed reply. I've been a bit busy with everything going on strangely.
Anyways, yeah, I ran a defrag when you posted this and the issue remains. There's just random program hangups, sometimes it not even making task manager say its taking 100% of disk or memory, sometimes its a program just hangs up. Is the age of the system the problem? Is there anything else I can do? If I had to upgrade by purchasing new parts, what would that be to make this better? And would a clean system wipe fix this at all? I'm just looking for all my options and not trying to hone in on one specifically.

 

[wpgwpg]

I'd get an SSD and put Windows on it. You haven't said whether you have a laptop or desktop, but if you have a desktop, you should be able to add the SSD for Windows and keep the HDD for data. If it's a laptop you'll need to get a 1 TB SSD to replace the HDD.

 

[deceitful]

I'd get an SSD and put Windows on it. You haven't said whether you have a laptop or desktop, but if you have a desktop, you should be able to add the SSD for Windows and keep the HDD for data. If it's a laptop you'll need to get a 1 TB SSD to replace the HDD.

Ok, you said I should use it to replace the HDD. So, If I get a 1 TB SSD, I should just not use the HDD at all? Reinstall Windows completely on my SSD?
Would there be any benefit to keeping things on my HDD and have Windows and a few more CPU intensive programs run on the SDD?
I have a lot of files, and while I can back them up, the process would be timely. However, I do want to do whatever is most efficient.

 

[deceitful]

Just looking for an answer here to make a decision on the SSD.
Would it be fine to get the SSD and then run Windows on it, and keep my files on my HDD and use that as storage?

 

[USAFRet]

Just looking for an answer here to make a decision on the SSD.
Would it be fine to get the SSD and then run Windows on it, and keep my files on my HDD and use that as storage?

Having all on an SSD is no problem, assuming it is large enough.

All depends on your space needs.
How much are you using currently?
For what use?
Desktop or laptop?

 

[Colif]

Main reason I have 2 drives as bare minimum is because windows isn't perfect. Sometimes it can die and require a clean install and if you only have 1 drive, recovery time after wiping all your data is much longer than if you have all your library folders + steam libraries already on another hdd. I have operated the same way for as long as i remember.

It is likely easier now with cloud servers and ability to store lots of info on USB as well. I am less concerned about certain folders now i have them all over the place. For a long time losing my music folder and wasting weeks rebuilding it was a major concern.