Question Why is my PC struggling?

[Toby3000]

Specs:

• CPU: Intel i5-10600K (no overclock)
• GPU: RTX 3060 12GB (no overclock)
• RAM: Corsair 16GB (2133 MHz, dual-channel)
• PSU: Seasonic 650W
• Storage: Two SSDs, one HDD

My PC is struggling with games and even simple tasks on Windows; it sometimes stutters or lags.

For example, I tried playing Hogwarts Legacy on high settings, but I can barely get a stable 60 FPS. I've seen plenty of YouTube videos of people getting well over 100 FPS with the same graphics card.

I also tried playing Planetside 2, a very CPU-intensive game, and I can barely get 70 FPS even on very low settings.

Here's what I've done and checked so far:

1. Performed a clean install of Windows 10/11.
2. Bought a brand-new H510M motherboard and installed the latest drivers.
3. Bought a used ASUS Z490 motherboard and installed the latest drivers.
4. Bought a brand-new 650W Seasonic PSU.
5. Ran a full MemTest; all results were OK.
6. Performed a disk health check; all results were good.
7. Checked system temperatures; all are very good.
8. Installed all necessary drivers.
9. Ran Cinebench tests for both the CPU and GPU; results were normal.
10. Turned off Bluetooth and switched to different mouse and keyboard hardware.

I'm at the end of my troubleshooting options. Could my system have been hacked? What else should I try?

 

[palladin9479]

So my SATA Mode is in: Intel RST Premium Mode. Is this correct?

That could be a big problem if you don't have the Intel RST drivers. Set it to AHCI and see if it engages SATA III speeds instead of SATA I.

 

[Toby3000]

So you downloaded the latest standalone driver for your Card, restarted into safemode and ran DDU, restarted to windows and installed the latest driver, and now you have worse performance?

I did not run it in Safe mode, maybe i should have done that.

 

[helper800]

I did not run it in Safe mode, maybe i should have done that.

You need to read through the forum post I linked and follow it step by step to ensure you are doing it correctly, otherwise what's the point?

 

[palladin9479]

I did not run it in Safe mode, maybe i should have done that.

Just run DDU to remove existing, then restart into normal mode. Install latest from nvidia that supports your card. Restart again.

Having said that, your issue is in your SSD behaving like a HDD.

 

[helper800]

Doesn't matter, even DDR2 800 is fast enough. I've installed Win 10 on an old set of HW with DDR2-800 and it was fine.

It certainly does matter if their drives are nearly full. This can cause system wide hangs because of such slow read and write speeds from the storage. Their RAM could also be bad causing windows corruption that can explain what has been described.

 

[drivinfast247]

That could be a big problem if you don't have the Intel RST drivers. Set it to AHCI and see if it engages SATA III speeds instead of SATA I.

Which would explain the abysmal read and write speeds.

 

[Toby3000]

That could be a big problem if you don't have the Intel RST drivers. Set it to AHCI and see if it engages SATA III speeds instead of SATA I.

Well this actually killed the OS. I will have to reinstall Windows now. Wich is fine, I was Planing on doing that anyways.

 

[helper800]

Well this actually killed the OS. I will have to reinstall Windows now. Wich is fine, I was Planing on doing that anyways.

What exactly happened when you changed the settings mentioned? How did this "kill" the OS?

 

[Bob.B]

Just run DDU to remove existing, then restart into normal mode. Install latest from nvidia that supports your card. Restart again.

Having said that, your issue is in your SSD behaving like a HDD.

The OS disk perf shown in ubm may be because of the amount of background stuff running.

 

[Bob.B]

Well this actually killed the OS. I will have to reinstall Windows now. Wich is fine, I was Planing on doing that anyways.

What happens if set it back to rst?

 

[Toby3000]

What exactly happened when you changed the settings mentioned? How did this "kill" the OS?

The PC attempted to load into the operating system, but after a while, I encountered a blue screen indicating that something was wrong with the computer.

 

[helper800]

The PC attempted to load into the operating system, but after a while, I encountered a blue screen indicating that something was wrong with the computer.

Before you reinstall windows make sure you have backups of any data on the OS drive you intend to use.

 

[palladin9479]

For others observing, the smoking gun is the disk read / write speeds. 150MB/s is SATA 1 speeds from the old HDD days. The random read is even worse at sub 30MB/s.

That is going to cause the Desktop UI to feel extremely slow and unresponsive, almost like using a spinning HDD.

 

[palladin9479]

Before you reinstall windows make sure you have backups of any data on the OS drive you intend to use.

He has reinstalled many times recently as mentioned in this thread.

 

[palladin9479]

The PC attempted to load into the operating system, but after a while, I encountered a blue screen indicating that something was wrong with the computer.

That's windows going nuts because the storage subsystem changed underneath it. It booted using legacy MBR but then exploded with kernel fault when it couldn't find the system disk due to no AHCI driver loaded.

 

[palladin9479]

It certainly does matter if their drives are nearly full. This can cause system wide hangs because of such slow read and write speeds from the storage. Their RAM could also be bad causing windows corruption that can explain what has been described.

Now that I got a moment. No it doesn't matter on any platform that you could install windows 10 on.

My PC is struggling with games and even simple tasks on Windows; it sometimes stutters or lags.

Most jumped straight into the video game stuff without noticing the important part, that Windows Desktop / DWM itself was having problems. WDM is not a high bandwidth application needing blazing fast memory to run, it's a desktop GUI manager that can run on a single stick of PC2-6400 memory. That is 6.4 GB/s, something that only PCIe 4 NVME's have reached, over and order of magnitude faster then the fastest SATA III SSD's.

Instead of trying to wrangle more FPS for a video game, focus on why the Windows UI (DWM) is acting sluggish in the first place. Once that's solved we can then evaluate why games are underperforming as those involve a dance between CPU, GPU and memory.

From what I can tell, his SSD is either stuck in legacy compatibility mode (SATA 1), or it's extremely worn out and about to die. Ensuring basic AHCI functionality will fix the first problem, otherwise the SSD needs replaced ASAP. Thankfully SSD's are super cheap.

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Inch-Internal-MZ-76E1T0B-AM/dp/B0781Z7Y3S?th=1

The 250GB model is under $70 but I believe that's too small. My preference is at least 1TB but the OP might be short on cash or there could be pricing concerns in their location.

 

[helper800]

Now that I got a moment. No it doesn't matter on any platform that you could install windows 10 on.

My own experience tells me otherwise. Will have to agree to disagree.

 

[helper800]

He has reinstalled many times recently as mentioned in this thread.

I have read this entire thread. This does not mean they don't have data they may or may not want to save.