My PC suddenly became unrealistically slow

[Arctagon]

Not that long ago I upgraded my operating system to Windows 10, and it's been working smoothly and been fast with its boot up time and general operation. Until now. I'm not going to say that Windows 10 is the culprit, because I honestly don't know, which is why I'm posting here hoping to figure out what's causing this.

It started earlier this week when it suddenly became incredibly slow. After shutting it down a couple of times it seemed to be back to normal again. And now it has relapsed. It usually took around 20-30 seconds, if even that, from powering on the computer to reaching the desktop, ready to go. Now it takes, I don't know, 10-15 minutes. When right-clicking anywhere on the desktop, it can take minutes for the menu to even spawn. Oddly enough, using the browser works okay, for some amount of seconds, until it ceases to respond for a little while. It makes me wonder if it's explorer.exe where the problem lies, but it's hard to tell.

In essence, just about every little action can take up to several minutes to do. And it happened suddenly.

Hardware:

• PSU: Corsair VX 550W
• Motherboard: MSI H55M-E33
• CPU: Intel Core i5-750
• GPU: Gigabyte Radeon HD 7870 OC
• Memory: Kingston ValueR. DDR3 1333MHz 4GB, CL9
• HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA2

If more information is needed, let me know.

[Nuckels]

Could we get a screenshot of your temps? Just download hwmonitor its free of any bloatware.

[Arctagon]

I wasn't aware temperature could make a computer slower. High CPU temps is something I had issues with during summer 2014, which prompted me to buy a new CPU cooler. Back then it caused my computer to shut down to prevent overheating rather than making it slower.

At any rate, I think I already have hwmonitor because of that, so will try to get a screenshot up as fast as the computer allows me.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

How is your RAM usage looking?

[Karon]

I wasn't aware temperature could make a computer slower. High CPU temps is something I had issues with during summer 2014, which prompted me to buy a new CPU cooler. Back then it caused my computer to shut down to prevent overheating rather than making it slower.

At any rate, I think I already have hwmonitor because of that, so will try to get a screenshot up as fast as the computer allows me.

If the pc is too slow, we will forgive you to take a photo with your smartphone and upload that one^^

If the CPU gets too hot, it will throttle itself down. while it can make the pc slower, I doubt that the CPU reaches such high temperatures during boot. you should also check your hard drives for any signs. you can use software like CrystalDiskInfo for that.

And check your RAM usage (just open the task manager and look if it is at 100%)

[Arctagon]

If the pc is too slow, we will forgive you to take a photo with your smartphone and upload that one^^

I guess. I've already taken a screenshot, but am currently stuck on Imgur. If it takes too long, I guess I can just snap a picture with my phone.

RAM usage is currently at 45% with Firefox and VLC taking the most of the apps I'm currently running.

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I'm fairly certain these temperatures are normal:

Screenshot

[Arctagon]

I don't think so. Not more than usual. The computer isn't being more noisy than usual, either.

[DarkBlade6]

Its your HDD.

[Unholyground]

Do you have pets and have you ever opened your pc up to clean it?

[Deleted]

Its your HDD.

Im also thinking it has something to do with your HDD.

If starting windows up used to take 10 seconds and now its 10 minutes... I would also suggest the HDD.

How is it during gaming?

[Atticusw]

It's most likely your HDD. System files being in bad sectors will slow your computer considerably, if not cripple it entirely. Schedule a disk check next time you're able to boot and let it run. It'll take a couple of hours but it should reallocate the files in bad sectors and mark said sectors as unusable.

Further advice: prepare to buy a new hard drive. These problems only get worse with time. I recommend a SSD for your OS; no mechanical parts = fewer events of random failures.
Also, download hard disk sentinel and keep it running in your tray. It'll log whatever errors the disk might be having, you can also run diagnostics with it.

[Ssateneth]

most windows 10 problems are because you did an inplace upgrade from windows 7 / 8 / 8.1. its recommended to install windows 10 fresh. most recent windows 10 install media will accept a windows 7 / 8 / 8.1 key.

[Arctagon]

Do you have pets and have you ever opened your pc up to clean it?

Kind of and yes.

You don't think so? Try running the monitor while doing things on the PC that put some kind of load on it.

I have been trying to start WoW up, but it spends so much time trying to log in that it eventually just disconnects itself. So far, the CPU temperatures haven't pushed past 46 °C, though.

It's most likely your HDD. System files being in bad sectors will slow your computer considerably, if not cripple it entirely. Schedule a disk check next time you're able to boot and let it run. It'll take a couple of hours but it should reallocate the files in bad sectors and mark said sectors as unusable.

The only thing I find odd is how abrupt the change was. It was literally between two start ups, and it even went back to normal speed for a while before it became slow again.

Further advice: prepare to buy a new hard drive. These problems only get worse with time. I recommend a SSD for your OS; no mechanical parts = fewer events of random failures.

Yes, I was planning on upgrading the system the upcoming summer.


I downloaded CCleaner and used it to delete all unnecessary temporary files and fix 1500 registry issues. This didn't really impact the speed any noticable amount, so next I will try to boot up the computer in safe mode and see if there's any applications or processes that start up automatically that cause this issue.

[Evildeffy]

@Arctagon:

Download Hiren's BootCD .. burn it on a CD/DVD or use it with USB Booting.
After that run the following:

Dos Programs -> Hard Disk Tools -> ViVard -> Select the HDD(s) by hovering over them with the red marker and press enter.
Following that you go down and to surface check... NOTE: DO NOT USE SURFACE CHECK WITH REMAP!!

This will take between 2 and 5 hours depending on size of drive and speed... make sure to test all HDDs you have.
When it's done make a picture per HDD you have and upload it here.

It doesn't tell us everything but a surface check is often enough to see if there are problems.

[sirarthas]

Probably a dying HDD, had 2 of them do the same to me just before the died, managed to get the info out lucky me.

[Arctagon]

A good while ago, while I was still running Windows 7, the computer stopped booting up automatically. I had to push F11 during boot up and select the hard drive manually as boot up device in order to be able to boot up the computer. When I upgraded to Windows 10, the boot up issue seemed to have disappeared, but after a while it returned. At least partly. Sometimes I would have to manually select boot up device, and sometimes I wouldn't. I noticed now that it's only when I don't that the computer becomes unbearably slow, because now when I did manually select boot up device it seems to be running as smoothly as normal.

@Arctagon:

[…]

Do you still want me to do this given the paragraph I wrote above?

[Evildeffy]

A good while ago, while I was still running Windows 7, the computer stopped booting up automatically. I had to push F11 during boot up and select the hard drive manually as boot up device in order to be able to boot up the computer. When I upgraded to Windows 10, the boot up issue seemed to have disappeared, but after a while it returned. At least partly. Sometimes I would have to manually select boot up device, and sometimes I wouldn't. I noticed now that it's only when I don't that the computer becomes unbearably slow, because now when I did manually select boot up device it seems to be running as smoothly as normal.

Do you still want me to do this given the paragraph I wrote above?

Yes, given the nature of your faults I think that would be wise regardless.

[Arctagon]

Yeah, I decided to do it regardless, as the computer started to run slower and slower gradually despite the smooth start. Working on it as we speak.

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What exactly is it that you want me to download? The closest I can find is this, and that's a collection of multitudes of files and not just one: http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd

[Evildeffy]

Hiren's BootCD 15.2

Unzip the ISO, burn it or make it USB bootable.. and do as stated before.

[Arctagon]

Does the CD/DVD need to be empty?