Computer suddenly honorificly slow for seemingly no reason

[Meladath]

Title should be horrifically.. damn auto correct.

Hey guys.

So I turned my PC on today as usual, logged in to find it logged into the metro start screen... not the desktop like I set it to as soon as I installed windows 8.1 for the first time.

So naturally, I went to the desktop. Only to find literally nothing had loaded. My wallpaper was there, but no desktop icons (yes I have a few sadly.. not totally clean), no problems in the quick tray, nothing running.

Strange... pressed ctrl+shift+esc to load up task manager... nothing.... Ok..... Click start button... nothing... At this point I figure its a weird crash, reboot with the switch on my case.

Exact same thing happened next boot. I think my brain melted (I rarely have problems with computers) So I went downstairs made a coffee came back up, and found that MSI afterburner as well as google drive, OneDrive and qbittorrent had loaded... but nothing else (I have maybe 25 programs that start on startup)

I checked MSI after burners and it looks like only 1 core of my CPU is being used at any one time, but it switches randomly... very strange behaviour.

My computer is beyond horrifically slow, I managed to open Intel SSD toolbo after waiting 10 minutes for it to not crash windows explorer and it said it was in perfect health. Haven't managed to open anything else so far... any ideas?

 

[tinytomlogan]

Ram, heat, virus/malware

 

[Meladath]

Thanks for the fast reply. I didn't think about RAM, I haven't tried taking sticks out yet (I run 4 sticks of 4GB patriot RAM). Will give it a shot in a sec and run memtest after that... I guess I thought my RAM was fine since I have had it now for over a year and it works fine, afaik RAM tends to break fast or not at all... although if it is RAM then its an easy fix I guess... lets hope <3

I run panda antivirus and I am pretty careful so I doubt its a virus/PUP but I will ofc scan in case, shit happens. Once I can load up malwarebytes that is... D:

 

[tinytomlogan]

Task manager mate - mem test wont do anything - I actually mean in case something is gobbling it all up

 

[Meladath]

Oh right.. nah everything seems really underutilised.. RAM is at like 2gb used, DISK I/O is at like 0-5% even on my SSD, CPU usage seems locked at 34%... according to MSI AB its 100% on a single core for a bit before switching.

I thought t was my SSD to start with ofc, given disk I/O is usually the problem for laggy computers but right now I am baffled lol

 

[Davva2004]

System restore to a previous date.

 

[Meladath]

Hey guys, thanks for the replies. I have been playing around most of today and figured its either my SSD or the windows install (booting from a fresh windows install on one of my other drives, and booting from my GF's SSD is fine). Right now I am trying a last ditch effort, a restore from AOMEI backupper. If it doesn't work after this then the SSD must be fucked.

According to intel SSD toolbox its S.M.A.R.T says the uncorrectable error count has risen from just over 1 million (checked this morning just before I wrote the first post) to just over 13 million as of a few hours ago. It says this is fine and doesn't flag as a caution, but doing 12x what its done in 3 years in half a day seems pretty suspicious to me. CHKDSK didn't find anything bad though so idk... I guess I shall see after this full partition restore finished in 30 minutes.

 

[YouWhat]

in a command prompt (run as admin) type in following

sfc /scannow

it will check the windows files against a known hash of them and fix the ones that are broken if it can.

For things like this, it should be one of the first things to try out after eliminating the obvious hardware faults.

 

[SPS]

How full is the SSD?

 

[jasonlylevene]

Ah, the inexplicable OS crash.

Many drive makers offer Acronis backup for free, which I can recommend as effective. EaseUS is also decent, for free. I'm personally never at a point where I don't have a backup of my OS, and I've practiced, many times, restoring the OS. I also insist on a separate OS install, bootable from a menu (usually the UEFI menu in my case) for overclocking and comparison.

At least you've identified the main problem.

I've had heated arguments on other boards about the durability measure of SSD drives. Many insist it's a non-issue, but I disagree. The long running durability tests indicate drives can have read errors but still function well. The observation that write usage has dramatically increased may be associated with Windows attempting to repair itself.

I far prefer the Memtest which boots from USB or DVD instead of the Windows version. As to RAM failing, I have an anecdote which would be applicable if your RAM were the culprit. My previous machine wouldn't boot after years of reliable operation. What I found, after much investigation, is that gunk had accumulated (a damp lint) on the RAM sticks (these were without heat shields). It was just conductive enough to foul the RAM. After a cleanup, the RAM continues to operate flawlessly for years. I live where 72F is Winter, and humidity is rarely lower than a sauna.

 

[Meladath]

Hey guys, sorry for not replying. Seems the AOMEI backupper run worked. I booted into windows and its been working since.

@YouWhat thanks, I tried this originally though and it didn't find anything up.

@SPS my SSD usually sits around 95GB, with 15GB free. I try to keep 20% free at all times.

I tried every stick of RAM individually, same problems. I restored my BIOS to default so it wasn't my overclocking.

I am awfully confused since the backup I restored was only made the night before the problem, so in theory should be almost identical, yet this works fine.

I put in an RMA request yesterday when I was sure it was screwed, haven't gotten a reply yet but I might send it back anyway, even though S.M.A.R.T says the uncorrectable errors aren't a cause for concern, my PC still boots up slow (well, in like 30 seconds, but slower than it used to). I don't know much about S.M.A.R.T. but something tells me 14 million uncorrectable errors isn't good.

 

[tinytomlogan]

Had you tried CCleaner?

 

[Thelosouvlakia]

run msconfig see if the other cores of your rig are disabled by windows. Go to the second tab and click on advanced options. Both ram availability and core availability should be mentioned there

 

[Meladath]

I used Parted Magic to do a secure erase of the disk (after instruction from Intel over the phone, fun tip Intel customer service doesn't appear to suck like most other companies yah!). Currently reinstalling windows and I will see how it goes.

@TTL I would have mate but if I tried booting into it, it was so slow it would take 30 minutes just to load up task manager

@Thelosouvlakia I did this when the problem first occurred a few days ago, it had ample (2/16gb used) RAM free and all cores were activated, it would just switch between 100% usage on different cores.

I think the problem was the SSD was wracking up loads of S.M.A.R.T errors causing a single core to max out trying to correct it, basically hogging the entire system until it was done, doing thing over and over again basically meant my PC couldn't do anything.