Window's 10 File Explorer "Waiting on it"

[Jeff21]

I have an issue (file explorer not working, waiting on it WTF screen!) now whenever i see that "waiting on it" screen i get a horrible cringe, I have tried many things and NOTHING has helped, a restart fixes it for a while but the.. IT'S BACK!. so far Toms'sHardware has helped me with a boot loot on my old laptop that ended up being dust in the cooler and many things on that laptop, now i have a new pc and this is my first problem so far and i trust tom'shardware, so after the fail with microsoft support i came here. this happend once before a restart fixed it, a month later it happend again i tried a restart it was fine then the next morning it happend again restart fixed 1 hour later it happend, iknow it's not the biggest of things but now i can't get to any of my files WAIT i lied i can if i enter it into the search bar but still i want it working right

 

[Colif]

So are you getting a progress bar like the other thread I referred you from (see here) or what is happening?

try doing a clean boot and see if it changes anything - this will tell you if its windows or a start up program. If its fixed, slowly re add programs until you find the cause.

 

[Jeff21]

Just tried indexing nothing changed yet would a restart help?

 

[Jeff21]

This could be perfectly normal but after restart C: usage was at 100% for a few min and then stable, then was up and down for a few mins then stable at 0-3%

 

[Colif]

Activity after a restart is normal as it has to load everything fresh - when windows normally closes it saves half the programs opened to hdd and other half to ram so when its restarted its already got half the info loaded, it makes startups faster. If you have a hdd the restarts will take a little longer to start as it has to load all the drivers again.

do you have an ssd or hdd? try running the free version of hdtune on hdd and see what its health is like

check windows update and see if you have any (not many this month so far)

open task manager, look on performance tab
down bottom is link saying open resource monitor
run this on screen while you use PC and see what is causing slow down
over view page shows all parts of PC but it might be the HDD tab that shows what is slowing you down

 

[Jeff21]

I just remembered that the only times this happend was after a gaming session,
I am about to start gaming and will report back with more detail if the issue is still there after gaming after indexing

 

[Jeff21]

So far things are looking good and will update later after another gaming session.
Just to say another cause of this could be that when my pc was new tend to open and close file explore fast but i don't think this is the cause.
Thanks for the help so far

 

[Colif]

do you have a hdd or an ssd?
If you have a hdd, hold win key + E
this opens file explorer
click on this pc in the left column to show hard drives in right colum
right click on C drive and choose properties from menu
click tools tab and choose optimise & defrag drives
click on C & choose analyse or optimise

if you have an ssd, defrag won't run as ssd use a different automatic process

Is this a laptop or desktop? can you give me specs? One possible cause is old drivers, they can slow down file access.

 

[Jeff21]

I Have a 2TB WD RED (I think it's a red) 7200rpm and a 32gb samsung SSD 5gbs

 

[Jeff21]

in RAID 0

 

[Jeff21]

they optimise them selfs weekly

 

[Jeff21]

and are 0% fragmented

 

[Jeff21]

just noticed that the little arrow next to "this pc" disappears and reappears randomly, again this could be normal as well.

 

[Colif]

wait, you have the 2 drives in raid?

can you show me a screen shot of disc management?

how much free space on C drive?

 

[Jeff21]

Ok full specs are:

Dell XPS 8910
Intel core i7 6700 3.4 - 4.0GHz
GTX 1060 (this was a upgrade form a GTX 750ti)
16Gbs DDR4
Drives were up there

 

[Jeff21]

PSU 520w

 

[Jeff21]

I did not set them up, I think they are in raid
how do you add a screen shot?

 

[Colif]

is that raid 0 or is it running the 32gb as a cache drive using Intel Rapid Storage Technology as 32gb isn't big enough to run anything other than a cache off.

once again need to see shot of disc management
(right click this PC on desktop
choose manage
in next screen, on left column, choose disk management
expand middle column to show all drives
upload screen shot to image sharing site and share link here)

 

[Jeff21]

ok

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3rnd-XS7ALWWjJ2TjBIZjBETXc

 

[Jeff21]

this might be of help to
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3rnd-XS7ALWX0xFbmlKNjVpYWs

 

[Colif]

so C is on ssd, which is only 32gb in size... even if its raided, its max size is 64gb.

and if thats the internal drive, why is it showing as an elements drive which is a wd external hdd - WD Red would make more sense

I see why its so slow. It should be set up so 2tb drive is C and the ssd is used as a cache.. what were dell thinking??

 

[Jeff21]

here is Intel Rapid Storage Technology

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3rnd-XS7ALWX0xFbmlKNjVpYWs

 

[Jeff21]

ignore that elements drive, that is my external drive. I definitely have a 2TB internal drive as well, check the Intel Rapid Storage Technology screen shot.

 

[Colif]

disk management is the most useful to see what drives you have and whats going on

right click this PC on desktop
choose manage
in next window, on left column, choose disk management
expand middle column to show all drives
upload screen shot to image sharing site and share link here

I want to see what we do to fix it. Did you ask them to install a 32gb ssd or was it standard? problem with dell models is its not easy to find the parts. I can find plenty of 8910 with much bigger ssd in them.

2TB 7200 rpm Hard Drive + 32GB M.2 SSD Cache

found it.. they should have known how to set it up though...

 

[Jeff21]

this is the Intel Rapid Storage Technology, that other one was a fail
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3rnd-XS7ALWOWgtbGVLMFUzRW8