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Question Why is my PC struggling?

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Toby3000

Toby3000

Dec 6, 2024
25
1
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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?
 
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Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

PSU: Seasonic 650W
Seasonic is the brand of the unit while 650W is the advertised wattage of the unit. What is the model of the unit? How old is the unit?

1| Where did you source the installers for the OSes?
2| What board were you on prior? Speaking of the new board, what BIOS version are you on?
3| Did you reinstall the OS in offline mode after migrating to a Z490 motherboard? Speaking of, model of Asus Z490 motherboard?
4| What PSU were you on prior?

RAM: Corsair 16GB (2133 MHz, dual-channel)
You're leaving performance on the table. Ideally you should be on a Z series motherboard with DDR4-3200MHz~DDR4-3600MHz.

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.
Do they have the same system as you? Also, that game was known to be a resource hog, people resorted to getting 32GB's of ram, this is just one example.

What resolution and refresh rate are you taxing the build with?
 
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Have you looked at the Task Manager processes to see if a particular process is hogging resources.
While you are there, check in the performance section to see what your hardware is doing and percentage usage etc. Cpu, gpu and ram.
 
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Lutfij said:
Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

PSU: Seasonic 650W
Seasonic is the brand of the unit while 650W is the advertised wattage of the unit. What is the model of the unit? How old is the unit?

1| Where did you source the installers for the OSes?
2| What board were you on prior? Speaking of the new board, what BIOS version are you on?
3| Did you reinstall the OS in offline mode after migrating to a Z490 motherboard? Speaking of, model of Asus Z490 motherboard?
4| What PSU were you on prior?

RAM: Corsair 16GB (2133 MHz, dual-channel)
You're leaving performance on the table. Ideally you should be on a Z series motherboard with DDR4-3200MHz~DDR4-3600MHz.

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.
Do they have the same system as you? Also, that game was known to be a resource hog, people resorted to getting 32GB's of ram, this is just one example.

What resolution and refresh rate are you taxing the build with?
Click to expand...
Where did you source the installers for the OSes? What does that mean? Are you referring to the drivers? I got everything from official sites.


The PSU is a BC-650W, and it’s brand new. The previous one was a Corsair 450W PSU. My motherboard is an ASUS TUF Gaming Z490-Plus. It’s used but was well taken care of. Before that, I used a brand-new Gigabyte H510M H V2. I’ve reinstalled Windows multiple times, even switching between Windows 10 and Windows 11. My monitor is a 144Hz model from ASUS.

I play all Games on 1080p

​

 
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KingLoki said:
Have you looked at the Task Manager processes to see if a particular process is hogging resources.
While you are there, check in the performance section to see what your hardware is doing and percentage usage etc. Cpu, gpu and ram.
Click to expand...
Yes, I monitored all the programs running, but I can’t find anything out of the ordinary.
 
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SkyNetRising said:
Were those screenshots in idle or with game running?

If in idle, then you may have some kind of cryptomalware infection in your pc
( GPU usage is 45%, in idle it should be 0% ).
Click to expand...
I had multiple Chrome tabs open, with live streams running in the background. Usually, when idle, the usage is not that high.
 
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Toby3000 said:
My motherboard is an ASUS TUF Gaming Z490-Plus.
Click to expand...
I'd concentrate on the Z490 board, because it has VRM heatsinks, unlike the H510M, but since you're not overclocking your RAM or CPU, it shouldn't make any significant difference.

Toby3000 said:
Where did you source the installers for the OSes? What does that mean? Are you referring to the drivers? I got everything from official sites.
Click to expand...
I think the question was intended to determine the source of your Windows ISO file and the method used to create a bootable USB memory stick. Microsoft recommend using their "Media Creation Tool" to download an ISO from their web site and burn it to a USB stick. Other people like me use a small program called Rufus to burn the image to USB (because you can tweak some Windows 11 setup options in Rufus).

Either way, you need to download the Windows ISO from a reputable "official" source (e.g. Microsoft's servers) to ensure a clean, malware free installation. Windows ISOs downloaded from less reputable sources might be infected with malware, e.g. crypto currency miners, which steal clock cycles and slow down your PC.

Toby3000 said:
My PC is struggling with games and even simple tasks on Windows; it sometimes stutters or lags.
Click to expand...
Stuttering in games seems to be a common problem, but I'm not a gamer, so the only thing I can think of is to see if your CPU or your GPU are "bottlenecking" during an intensive game. If you download and run a program like CPUID's HWMonitor, you can check to see how hard your CPU and GPU are working. If neither of them are running at over 90%, the problem is unlikely to be bottlenecking.

I saw a tweak on a forum recently that sorted out stuttering, but I cannot remember where I saw it. I'll dig out the bookmark off another PC if I can find it. There's probably nothing fundamentally wrong with your hardware, but you may need a change to an obscure Windows setting to fix the problem.
 
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Misgar said:
I'd concentrate on the Z490 board, because it has VRM heatsinks, unlike the H510M, but since you're not overclocking your RAM or CPU, it shouldn't make any significant difference.


I think the question was intended to determine the source of your Windows ISO file and the method used to create a bootable USB memory stick. Microsoft recommend using their "Media Creation Tool" to download an ISO from their web site and burn it to a USB stick. Other people like me use a small program called Rufus to burn the image to USB (because you can tweak some Windows 11 setup options in Rufus).

Either way, you need to download the Windows ISO from a reputable "official" source (e.g. Microsoft's servers) to ensure a clean, malware free installation. Windows ISOs downloaded from less reputable sources might be infected with malware, e.g. crypto currency miners, which steal clock cycles and slow down your PC.


Stuttering in games seems to be a common problem, but I'm not a gamer, so the only thing I can think of is to see if your CPU or your GPU are "bottlenecking" during an intensive game. If you download and run a program like CPUID's HWMonitor, you can check to see how hard your CPU and GPU are working. If neither of them are running at over 90%, the problem is unlikely to be bottlenecking.

I saw a tweak on a forum recently that sorted out stuttering, but I cannot remember where I saw it. I'll dig out the bookmark off another PC if I can find it. There's probably nothing fundamentally wrong with your hardware, but you may need a change to an obscure Windows setting to fix the problem.
Click to expand...
Oh
Misgar said:
I'd concentrate on the Z490 board, because it has VRM heatsinks, unlike the H510M, but since you're not overclocking your RAM or CPU, it shouldn't make any significant difference.


I think the question was intended to determine the source of your Windows ISO file and the method used to create a bootable USB memory stick. Microsoft recommend using their "Media Creation Tool" to download an ISO from their web site and burn it to a USB stick. Other people like me use a small program called Rufus to burn the image to USB (because you can tweak some Windows 11 setup options in Rufus).

Either way, you need to download the Windows ISO from a reputable "official" source (e.g. Microsoft's servers) to ensure a clean, malware free installation. Windows ISOs downloaded from less reputable sources might be infected with malware, e.g. crypto currency miners, which steal clock cycles and slow down your PC.


Stuttering in games seems to be a common problem, but I'm not a gamer, so the only thing I can think of is to see if your CPU or your GPU are "bottlenecking" during an intensive game. If you download and run a program like CPUID's HWMonitor, you can check to see how hard your CPU and GPU are working. If neither of them are running at over 90%, the problem is unlikely to be bottlenecking.

I saw a tweak on a forum recently that sorted out stuttering, but I cannot remember where I saw it. I'll dig out the bookmark off another PC if I can find it. There's probably nothing fundamentally wrong with your hardware, but you may need a change to an obscure Windows setting to fix the problem.
Click to expand...
Oh, I see. Yes, I used the Windows Media Creation Tool to install Windows. In the game Hogwarts Legacy, my CPU and GPU usage do not exceed 60%, which is weird in itself because of the low FPS I get in that game.
 
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Misgar said:
I've searched 6 computers for that stuttering link and still not found it. Must try a few more systems. I know I saved a bookmark somewhere.
Click to expand...

It's not hardware related, what you have is more then sufficient to navigate windows without causing performance issues. It's either some software behaving badly and stealing resources, or it's a driver not installed or working badly.

I'm assuming you did install the OS into a SSD and not a HDD? Just need to check the basic things like that.
 
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palladin9479 said:
It's not hardware related, what you have is more then sufficient to navigate windows without causing performance issues. It's either some software behaving badly and stealing resources, or it's a driver not installed or working badly.

I'm assuming you did install the OS into a SSD and not a HDD? Just need to check the basic things like that
Click to expand...


"Yes, I installed the OS on my SSD. The thing is, though, I've reinstalled Windows a couple of times now, even went back to Windows 10 to see if that makes any difference. Also, doesn't Windows install all the drivers it needs? This problem has been going on for a couple of months, ever since I bought the new CPU and motherboard. My old motherboard actually had similar problems, the only difference was that two of my RAM slots were broken, after i cleand it.
 
Last edited:
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Toby3000 said:
"Yes, I installed the OS on my SSD. The thing is, though, I've reinstalled Windows a couple of times now, even went back to Windows 10 to see if that makes any difference. Also, doesn't Windows install all the drivers it needs? This problem has been going on for a couple of months, ever since I bought the new CPU and motherboard. My old motherboard actually had similar problems, the only difference was that two of my RAM slots were broken, after i cleand it.
Click to expand...
See if you can run this if you can post a link to the results page.

 
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