What's dying first?

[Victoria_2]

Hello! I hope this is in the right section.

I've been noticing my pc is acting weird the past week or two. It's been slower than usual, more likely to lag when I'm gaming, and trying to figure those issues out gave me another one! I'll explain.

I got a hand-me-down pc in 2011, and upgrade the parts as needed. The only things that haven't changed since that year are my hard drive, ram, and my case. I'm aware that my pc is due for an upgrade altogether, but I don't currently have the money to do that, so I'm hoping I can swap out whatever the issue is to buy myself some time until I can afford a full-on upgrade. The only hardware I, myself, have installed was two CPU fans over the course of four years, when they died and needed replacing. That's pretty much as far as my current hardware knowledge goes, for the moment. I am interested in learning more.

Two days ago, my friend and I were playing World of Warcraft together, as is normal. I've been getting a lot more lag on there recently, and I have chalked it up to my internet connection (it's strong, but I do live right up against an expansive state forest) and the fact that I've been in areas where there's heavy traffic. It's been getting a lot worse lately, though, and I've been hanging on loading screens a lot, where I have to end the process and re-log. On this night, I was playing and experiencing a TON of lag. Abnormally high. I had Chrome open, as I usually do, with a few tabs. None of them were playing video or sound, if that matters. I also was chatting on Skype, but just typing back and forth. Every time my friend on Skype typed me something, the lag would get worse, until finally I just logged out of WoW in frustration. My friend recommended that I run chkdsk over night, to try and rule out a hard drive issue. He's aware most of my hardware is older, and said some of my recent symptoms sounded like my HDD was slowly dying.

At one point when I had to use task manager to end Warcraft process, it said my CPU usage was like, 2%, but my Physical Memory Usage was 95%. I'm not sure if that makes any difference or reveals anything, but to me that seemed oddly imbalanced. It's nothing I've ever seen, and I do have a ton of experience with computers. (Just, obviously, not when it comes to hardware)

He had told me to run chkdsk by right clicking my C drive, Properties, Tools, and then Error something. So I went to right click C and Windows Explorer froze on me, but only that window. I opened up Task Manager and ended it. My taskbar disappeared, as is normal, and usually it's quick to refresh itself and things are ok. Well, it didn't. Everything disappeared except my mouse pointer and my desktop background. I tried moving the mouse around because I keep my taskbar on autohide, but it didn't reappear. I couldn't do anything at all. Task Manager was still open, so I didn't wanna Ctrl-Alt-Dlt again. Eventually I ended up having to manually shut off my pc by holding the power button down until it turned off. I then let it sit for a few minutes before trying to restart. That's when I encountered a new issue.

I don't normally turn my computer off. If on the off chance the power shuts off and the generator isn't cooperating, or I need to restart for Windows Updates, whatever. At night, I simply turn the screen off and go to sleep. I was told many years ago that this is actually better for the pc, and it's a helluva lot more convenient for me. lol. My pc has always had this issue of taking at least 10-15 minutes to completely start up after I turn it on. My msconfig list is pretty short, it's just always kind of been like that. Anyway, it didn't boot up when I turned it back on. It hung. It was on, but it didn't "turn over" (like when you start a car and it turns over? same thing). I shut it off again and unplugged it for a few minutes, as sometimes that helps. Turned on and tried it a few more times until it behaved itself. I had the option to Start Windows Normally and I took it. It went straight into chkdsk. Chkdsk seemed ok, then got stuck on "Deleted invalid filename ? (9) in directory 0". I googled the issue on my tablet, couldn't find an exact match. It hung long enough that I figured it was in a loop and shut it off again.

Once again, it took a few more tries to get it to boot. The last time that happened to me, my processor died, so hoping it's not that! Finally, when it booted, it gave me two new options. Start Windows, or run Startup Repair. I clicked Start Windows, and it looped me back to that menu. Clicked it again, same thing. I was like, okay, I guess we're running the repair! By this time it was late at night, so I let it repair over night. This morning I woke up and it was at my Windows sign in screen, i logged in, everything looked legit! My friend messaged me asking for an update and he said I needed to get chkdsk to get to the end so we can figure that out. So I told my pc to restart after scheduling chkdsk. It didn't restart, it was on-but-not-on again.

Eventually, after much frustration and way too much time spent trying to boot it, I got chkdsk to run all the way through and was able to use my PC tonight, seemingly with no issues. However, my friends and boyfriend are still convinced I'm on borrowed time, and need to figure this out fast.

My spex:
AMD Phenom II x4 955 Processor
Micro-star international 760gm Mobo
2 sticks DDR3 ram, totaling 8gb
ATI Radeon HD 5770 graphics
Windows 7 64b Home Premium

If anything else is needed, please let me know! I'll do my best to reply quickly. Thank you!

 

[nooneisback]

Aproximate part lifetime (shortest to longest):
Fan
HDD
SSD (depends on the manufacturer)
*from here on, these parts have a lifetime of over 12 years*
PSU
RAM
CPU/Mobo
GPU

Also, part performance degradates over time and this is easily noticable on the HDD and the PSU (a Gold PSU will be comarable to Bronze after 5 years)
A CPU also becomes very slow after a long time.

You made a terrible mistake by never turning your PC off. Constant electricity flow destroys components. This isn't really noticable on an SSD, but your HDD is probably half dead by now. HDD's performance degradate because of moving parts and this is what's causing the slow boots. RAM is probably not the issue.

 

[uguv]

You made a terrible mistake by never turning your PC off. Constant electricity flow destroys components. This isn't really noticable on an SSD, but your HDD is probably half dead by now. HDD's performance degradate because of moving parts and this is what's causing the slow boots. RAM is probably not the issue.

I'd be willing to bet you put a lot more stress on the HDD powering down and powering up your PC every day instead of leaving it on. I never power off my PCs at home unless I'm going on vacation and I never ever power off any of my PCs at work. I can't remember the last time I've had a hardware failure and my workstation at work is 6 years old.

That being said, for the OP I'd suggest your hard drive is probably starting to fail. I'd also run a malware scan just to be safe. What processes were using all of your RAM when you saw it at 95%?

Finally, if your windows explorer doesn't automatically start up, you can start it using task manager. Click File -> New Task (Run...) and type in explorer.exe and click ok.

 

[Ecky]

Aproximate part lifetime (shortest to longest):
Fan
HDD
SSD (depends on the manufacturer)
*from here on, these parts have a lifetime of over 12 years*
PSU
RAM
CPU/Mobo
GPU

Also, part performance degradates over time and this is easily noticable on the HDD and the PSU (a Gold PSU will be comarable to Bronze after 5 years)
A CPU also becomes very slow after a long time.

You made a terrible mistake by never turning your PC off. Constant electricity flow destroys components. This isn't really noticable on an SSD, but your HDD is probably half dead by now. HDD's performance degradate because of moving parts and this is what's causing the slow boots. RAM is probably not the issue.

Unfortunately, some of this is incorrect. Hardware performance does not degrade over time. A hypothetical 100 year old CPU that's not making any errors in calculations (i.e. not broken), will do those calculations just as quickly as the day it was manufactured. Computer parts are digital, and as such, either work, or don't. Any slowdowns that happen are due to software.

OP, you may have a failing hard drive (which could cause some of the errors you've seen) or you may simply have corrupted software. The first thing I would try to do is wipe your hard drive and reinstall Windows. If you continue to have problems, we can narrow it down from there, but let's get your software in order first. Most supposed CPU failures are actually motherboard or power supply failures.

EDIT: I'd also probably change the order of part reliability a bit, based on my 22 years experience working with PC parts.

Shortest to longest:

Fan
HDD
Offbrand / Inexpensive RAM
Offbrand / Inexpensive SSD
Offbrand / Inexpensive PSU
GPU
Good RAM
Motherboard
Good PSU
CPU

I've seen plenty of cheap powersupplies and RAM sticks fail after only a few months, whereas quality units can last years or decades. High-end GPUs seem to last at least 4-6 years, but failures after that point are not uncommon. Motherboards it's hit-or-miss; a single bad capacitor can ruin an otherwise great board that would have lasted many more years. CPUs very rarely die; most of the chips built in the 1980's are still perfectly functioning, but have no motherboards or power supplies that can work with them.

 

[Neur0nauT]

Your slow downs could be caused by Microsoft "Update Tuesday"

Microsoft roll-out updates on the first tuesday of each month for Windows. Lately this has caused issues for people running Windows 7 as it will eat up a load of RAM while it goes through the update scanning and install process. This will also slow your system down during this process, although I'd be surprised with 8GB, if this is the case.

Another reason for your RAM being eaten up could be a possible memory leak with an application running in the background, or some update process stalling. Or it could be Malware bloating your system. Download and install MalwareBytes and scan your system to see if anything is found.

I't might be an idea to consider the Windows 10 upgrade, and you will probably find that you don't have to suffer through the Windows 7 update woes any longer.

 

[Victoria_2]

I'd be willing to bet you put a lot more stress on the HDD powering down and powering up your PC every day instead of leaving it on. I never power off my PCs at home unless I'm going on vacation and I never ever power off any of my PCs at work. I can't remember the last time I've had a hardware failure and my workstation at work is 6 years old.

That being said, for the OP I'd suggest your hard drive is probably starting to fail. I'd also run a malware scan just to be safe. What processes were using all of your RAM when you saw it at 95%?

Yeah, that is where I got my habit of never turning it off from, I had been told that by a few reputable sources growing up, and it stuck. As long as I have it plugged into a good surge protector, it can even weather a storm and be okay. We have a back-up generator here, anyhow.

I ran MalwareBytes, and I also have Norton. Neither have picked up anything. I run them regularly just to be safe.

Interesting! I was always under the impression that good hardware lasts, but perhaps if it's outdated enough, issues can arise that people on heavier duty systems wouldn't notice. Also explains why I've replaced the fans so often! lol.

I'm not sure I can wipe all my data at this time, I don't have anywhere to back it up to just yet. If the consensus was hdd failure, then my boyfriend wanted me to find a way to transfer what I've got into a new system, or just dual hard drive (that's a thing now? I'm so behind the times!). This rig, for whatever reason, can't burn disks, and my external is nearly full (it's only 500gb anyway). I use the external mostly for media. It has my music, some videos, and a ton of old pictures. I'd really rather not lose a lot of my programs, there are a few I'm not sure I could get back easily, if at all.

I've been putting off a Windows 10 upgrade. It's been bugging me, though. LOL. It's sheer laziness on my part, I'm not yet ready to change systems. I was considering that may help some of my issues, though. Perhaps I'll do that this weekend and see what happens.

I guess I'm on the hunt for a new hdd! Thanks for the replies, I'll keep a watch on the thread in case anyone else has any ideas. I may just have to bite the bullet and look for a new system outright, just to be safe.

 

[uguv]

How big is your internal hard drive?

 

[Ecky]

Again, I don't think you have any hardware failure. Your PC was probably running an update in the background, which was why it was running slow, and you force powered it off, which corrupted your Windows installation.

 

[Victoria_2]

Uguv: My internal is 1tb, external is 500gb. I'd say roughly 80% of both are used. I'm trying to back up what I can to google drive and what'll fit on my external. If I had a cd burner, I'd prolly be set. lol. It feels like it's kinda imminent, so I'm trying to save as much as I can just in case I can't get anything off it once I switch or it goes, whatever comes first.

Ecky: I'm not sure that's it. My updates have been going through fine. This has been going on a while, I just don't notice because my pc is never off, really. Any other time I've had to restart for windows updates, it occasionally won't boot. It just seems like it's getting worse the past few, and the slowness has been steadily getting more annoying. I've tried to game while installing windows updates, I learned the hard way not to do it. LOL. I set it to download/install them over night when it needs to. Simply because it's never fast, and the entire system lags, so it's best it run when I'm not doing anything. XD I've run scans and checks a few times, I'm sure if it were that, it would've come up somewhere along the line. It's pretty hard to miss windows updates while they download or install, and it usually sticks to my schedule just fine.

Update:: Scared myself today! No sooner did I reply to all of you than we had a mini storm. Lasted less than an hour. The power blipped on and off so fast I didn't even notice, and the generator caught it, but not fast enough. I came up to check on my pc and it was on, so I left it go. Turns out, it wasn't on, it was "on" but not turning over. It stayed like that for many hours before I came up for the evening and noticed. We had company all day today, so I was distracted, I should've checked it better earlier. It took multiple attempts, but finally after I left it unplugged for a full fifteen minutes did it cooperate and actually boot up. My wifi range extender was acting weird, too, I had to turn that off and on again. I was freaking out a little! Something about this whole thing feels like I'm getting close to the arc in the crescendo.

 

[nooneisback]

CPU performance DOES degrade over time and the cause of it is internal heat to which silicium is very sensible. Try running a benchmark with a firstly released Pentium 4 or something like that and a never used one. You'll notice a difference of about 25% less performance. You can argue that it's because of the casing breaking appart, but try replacng everything you can and you'll see no difference.

 

[Ecky]

CPU performance DOES degrade over time and the cause of it is internal heat to which silicium is very sensible. Try running a benchmark with a firstly released Pentium 4 or something like that and a never used one. You'll notice a difference of about 25% less performance. You can argue that it's because of the casing breaking appart, but try replacng everything you can and you'll see no difference.

This is complete nonsense.

 

[nooneisback]

Why do you think that OC is consdered as dangerous? Higher voltages mean more heat and that is why an overclokced CPU's lifespan is lower. However, this is only true under normal OC of up to 2 GHz and at anything higher the voltage becomes the problem. It's just too high and it slowly destroys the chip.

 

[Ecky]

nooneisback, I have an Opteron 165 on my desk from 2005 that has been running consistently overclocked by 50% since then. It benchmarks identically to the day it was produced.

You're right that voltage and temperature degrade CPUs over time. What happens when they degrade is they become unstable; they don't calculate more slowly. At some point, you either need to back off your clockspeed, or increase voltage (thus speeding up the degradation) or you'll start getting BSODs.

CPUs are digital devices. At a given clockspeed, they will perform the same until the end of time.

 

[nooneisback]

Yep, but the overall performance still does degrade in the way you mentioned. Unless the clock and the voltage are set to a constant value, the BIOS/UEFI will lower both clock and voltage resulting in a degradation in the maximum performance.

 

[Ecky]

Yep, but the overall performance still does degrade in the way you mentioned. Unless the clock and the voltage are set to a constant value, the BIOS/UEFI will lower both clock and voltage resulting in a degradation in the maximum performance.

No, BIOS/UEFI do not automatically lower clockspeed and voltage. This is false.