Why is my PC getting unresponsive & slow it was never like this before

Rammstein420 · 25 Feb 2022

It hasalso been stalling a lot while I use the internet (it never used todo these things I'm a retro gamer the most I put my rig through ishaving a bunch of tabs open and 2 active tabs open one usually aYouTube video and the other something I'm reading or whatever, butthe most state of the art game I play is probably 'Total War RomeRemastered' some are from the 90s lol. Sometimes it freezes for 7-20seconds sometimes the mouse moves so slow I have to wait for thenonsense to stop before I can actually use it same with thekeyboard.) And while I don't have the fastest internet connection itis almost (or was almost) always fine for me my download speed was19-30 Mbps my upload speed never got above 10 Mbps but that is notrelevant to my use really.
My COMPUTER'S SPECIFICATIONS:

Operating System: Windows 10 64x Home
Build: 19041vb_release.191206-1406
I have a Motherboard
Manufacturer Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd.
Model B85M-HD3
with an Intel Core i5 4440 CPU @ 3.10GHz
Cores 4
Threads 4
it has 16GB of DDR3 Dual Channel RAM,
it's GPU is an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780,
Its Solid State Drive is a: SanDisk SSD PLUS 240 GB (SSD) (whichwas replaced because it broke a week before its 5-year warranty wasup :) that was a few years ago. The backup drive (standard hhd brokeafter the warranty was up but I couldn't care less never used it).
I also have an ethernet connection connected from my router to myRealtek PCIe Gbe Family Controller (Not sure what router I useoff-hand but Spectrum is my ISP).
I would be very appreciative if anyone had any advice as to whatthe hardware/software problem is although the PC was custom made onDecember 2014 (not the SSD that was replaced under warranty or theMotherboard that also was replaced under warranty but it could veryeasily be those that are the culprit anyway.
Thank you for taking the time to read about my problem, if youneed any more information please just ask.

dalchina · 25 Feb 2022

Hi, very basic thoughts:
a. how much resource use is there when it's slow?
-> task manager- post a screenshot.

After booting up and waiting for, say, 3 mins, check task manager. Expect CPU & disk usage to be below 5% and 0, for example. What do you see?

b. How much free space do you have on C: ?

c. Some people find that their disk transfer rate is very limited- e.g. 10MB/s = 100% disk usage when this happens.

d. Is Windows Update repeatedly failing and reattempting the same update?
Check your Update History.

e. When did you last check your disk(s)? Hard Disk Sentinel- excellent- also valid for SSDs.

f. History (normally not given by posters) - when was your PC last behaving 'normally'? What changed that might have led to this?

Megahertz · 25 Feb 2022

I think that dalchina covered everything.

Start with the basic
Open a CMD window as administrator and type:
chkdsk c: /f
It will say your disk is in use and ask if you want to schedule to next start = yes
Restart
Pay attention on the results, specially bad blocks, bad clusters, bad sectors etc

Back to Windows, open a CMD window as administrator and type:
sfc /scannow

If it finds any corrupted files, fixing or not, reboot and run again

joeandmarg0 · 25 Feb 2022

What is the PSU power rating? The gtx 780 can draw upto 250W and is also 10 years old.
Another feature is that whilst claimed to be DirectX 12 compatible,this is problematic ,especially with modern feature hungry games.
Suggest you check in Reliability History for related faults,also the Display Adapter in Device Manager and in---dxdiag---for the driver details and note them down so you can download,only from the maker's site, either the same driver or newer.
Then uninstall the existing driver and install the new one.
If you are a serious gamer,perhaps consider a newer build.Your current one uses components from around 2013 and modern games are heavy users of ram and power.