Laptop suddenly sluggish, WinUpdate failures. 800MHz all the time.

Hi there.

So, my Toshiba Satellite S50B, in an instant, suddenly became so very slow.

Here's what happened: I removed the battery and then replaced it. I mean, shortly afterwards I put it into hibernate, but that wouldn't cause all of this, would it?

I tried:

"powercfg -h off" in cmd
Registry edit for "Processor performance core parking min cores" and fiddled with that
Played with minimum and maximum processor states
Thinks the BIOS is configured correctly. There isn't much to configure, honestly. There is a turbo* feature which is enabled. No C1E or SpeedStep
Played with ThrottleStop (though maybe incorrectly)
Tried clean boot. Issue persists when everything is disabled or stopped
Scanned for malware using Malwarebytes, SuperAntiSpyware, ADWCleaner, HitmanPro
Had to system restore (rstrui) in safe mode because it wouldn't in normal mode. Sadly, no change
Updated battery and network adapters

Additionally, I was experiencing Windows Update issues in the midst of all this. Lots of being stuck in the "Getting Windows Ready" screen. The dealing with the "Updates couln't be completed" screen. I followed this troubleshooter: Manual reset of windows update components. The update progress bar seems to consistently break even after this and multiple restarts.

Oh, and there was an internet router restart in there, including "ipconfig /flushdns" (but that's apparently not even related, as I'm writing this post).

So, I'm like 14 hours total (or something) into trying to resolve this for myself, with all the frozen system update screens included. There seems to be two separate issues, or maybe they're connected. It's the "throttling" that's been driving me up the wall though. (I don't know if that's the correct terminology.) The CPU doesn't "work," the fan never has to "try," programs-- heck, even windows explorer is laggy when scrolling through file folders. It's ridiculous!

The next step is to try the bootable Kaspersky Rescue USB, but I'm pretty convinced the culprit isn't from infection. The fact I had to system restore in safe mode has me most concerned, you know? Like I've never had to do that before, yet it kept failing.

Anyways, I appreciate any help you all might be able to give me. I'm no computer expert, and I try to cover all the bases before requesting help, so I've definitely missed something in this puzzle.

Thanks for reading--

It's a Toshiba S50B, i7-4510U, Intel integrated w/ R7 M260 GPU. She's an old girl, but the power button still works.

So, I did a reinstall of Windows because I was going nuts with the update screens. It would literally hang in them for 30 minutes plus each time I booted or restart, and well... I was having the hopeful feeling like it would remedy the issue, too, in the process. Well, it didn't. It even seems like the computer is slower than before. (And by reinstall, I mean I deleted the partitions in the install menu and then went about it that way.)

There's this: Uploadfiles.io - whatsupwiththis.mp4 -- I apologize for the large size. It's a video of my start up screen. The circles that float around kind of glitch out and return after a while. (I tried to edit the file to make it smaller and everything, but turns out the laptop can't even handle video processing.)

What is your current window build? 1803 Windows Home

I believe I added the task manager images right. They should be there under attachments.

How much free space do you now have on C: ? 882GB

Guesswork: your PC became slow while it was downloading the feature update.
For how long before you saw any upgrade-related messages was it slow?

It became slow after taking it out of hibernation; though, it may have been caused by the unplugging of the battery. I, honestly, don't know. I just got back from the store (around 20 minutes later), went to go use it and it was like this. I did note it had the glitched out loading screen then too, which is why I wanted to record it. Again, sorry for the large size of that video -- don't feel compelled to download it if you don't trust it. I just picked a hosting site at random.

Please also post details of your disk(s). You mean sizes and all that? It's a 1TB Toshiba MQ01ABD100

With the log files, I was able to find these ones:

cbs, DDACLSys, setupact, setuperr, & setupapi.dev. They're in attachments too.

I should note that after the reinstall, all Windows updates installed correctly and without too much insanity. I also did update drivers through device manager, Intel auto installer, Realtek update, and a couple updates I had laying around for rainy days like this - namely, the right AMD graphics version and that. I was crossing my fingers the whole time things would sort themselves out...

Thanks for your input in trying to troubleshoot this with me.

If I may summarize, Windows update is no longer an issue; the gutless behavior is ever rampant.


edit: I just noticed I messed up on the processes tab. I did sort by anything. If you need a different image of that, let me know.

@oldquack
Hi,

As I can see on your title (800MHz all the time) and your CPU screenshot, processor seems to be locked perhaps by BIOS security, because something went wrong on battery replacement or using an improper battery/AC power. Anyway, issue seems to come from BIOS.

Thank you both, @dalchina and @HeM, for your help. I've been wanting to post for awhile, but was quite paranoid about being on the Internet before getting a few ducks in a row...

I did end up taking the computer to the shop, and like magic the problem went away. He did say he reinstalled Windows for me, but what he did that was different from what I did is quite a mystery. It was running quite well for a while, and that was a relief; however, now after installing all the same programs I had before, it takes about a minute and some to actually boot up. Like the Windows screen will pop up fine, then the little circles come back (like in that video I uploaded), and it'll stay like so for an additional 50 seconds or so. It's beyond me why this kind of thing would happen. You always hear about how Windows 8 was bad, but I've never had this much difficulty with it...

Should I open a different thread to ask for assistance with this new issue? I tried running a disk defrag prior to boot and that greatly helped the processes load after making it to the desktop-- golly, why would Windows need to load for 50 seconds just to get to the welcome screen though?

Also, now that I'm a little more comfortable with being on the Internet again, I'll go and take a look through those programs that were recommended: HD Tune, Crystal Diskinfo, and that Kyhi's boot utility. I'll bet there might be something handy, and there's always much to learn.

"Have you tried to remove power adapter and battery, then push the start button for a few seconds, then put first battery (or keep it removed) and then power adapter back?" Yes. I actually did try that a couple times. Thanks for the suggestion.

"1. Boot to Safe Mode.
Is your PC slow then?" Yes, it was still slow even after booting into Safe Mode. I really wish I knew what the tech did that worked so well. It's frustrating not being to just do these kinds of things myself.

edit:

Something I just remembered looking into was installing programs in Safe Mode instead of in a normal boot. It was stated that that action could avoid running into conflicts along the way. I might just end up trying that because I'm worried that this prolonged boot loading phenomenon is hard on the system. And being that it seems just installing the programs regularly has created this issue. I don't know. It's worth a shot, I think.