PC / Windows has become very slow

[Charly]

Hello

I bought my son a pc in November 2020. HE leaves out in the sticks so he bring his pC to my place to update everything (and play multiplayer games).

On my sons PC everything seems to take an age to load. Its about a year and 4 months old (and it has been like this for a while, through several windows updates ... although still on windows 10).

I have a similar PC and it boots in less than a minute, whereas my sons takes 2-3 minutes, and is initially unresponsive on boot up.

The icons also take a few seconds to populate after logging in, whereas mine is instant. Then windows can be very unresponsive at times when goung through menus and settings.

I thought it might be the hard drive. But when installing big steam games, it seems to go reasonably fast. Most games seem to function reasonably well when we are playing together.

Any ideas? I was just going to buy a new drive, but I dont want to waste £150-200 if the problem lies elsewhere. Maybe windows needs a completely fresh install. I am not really an expert, but I cant think what else can make everything slow, and for it to be most noticable in windowns, and certainly the ridiculous boot times.

Cheers in advance.


These are my sons setup:

(I have the Ryzen 5 5600X and 2TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA 120 2.5" SSD, (up to 560MB/sR | 540MB/sW)... the rest of our specs are the same... I bought mine about 2 weeks later and spend an extra 50 quid or so to round it up to £1200. I remember at the time my system slightly outperformed his, but not by anything great.

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Six Core CPU (3.6GHz-4.2GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard	ASUS® ROG STRIX X570-I GAMING (DDR4, USB 3.2, Wi-Fi) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)	16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3000MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card	6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1660 - HDMI, DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1st Storage Drive	2TB PCS 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (520MB/R, 470MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive	NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply	CORSAIR 350W VS SERIES™ VS-350 POWER SUPPLY

 

[SpyderTracks]

We'll need to know what monitor he's playing on.

Could you also post the full specs?

 

[B4zookaw]

Maybe windows needs a completely fresh install.

This. You could spend hours/days trying to identify the root cause of a slow boot, but if you're able to easily backup any important data, a fresh install of Windows is probably the quickest resolution. And if after a fresh install of Windows 10 you're still seeing issues, you can then focus on it being a hardware or hardware related config issue.

 

[Salmon Fisher]

Do you have any anti virus software installed perchance??

 

[Martinr36]

Also that's quite a slow drive and looks as though it's the only one, how much free space is on it.

Definitely need to see the full spec

 

[Charly]

Case	FRACTAL DESIGN NODE 304 Mini ITX Case
Processor (CPU)	AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Six Core CPU (3.6GHz-4.2GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard	ASUS® ROG STRIX X570-I GAMING (DDR4, USB 3.2, Wi-Fi) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)	16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3000MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card	6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1660 - HDMI, DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1st Storage Drive	2TB PCS 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (520MB/R, 470MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive	NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply	CORSAIR 350W VS SERIES™ VS-350 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable	1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling	STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste	STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card	ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless Network Card	GIGABIT LAN PORT + Wi-Fi (Wi-Fi excluded on A320I-K)
USB/Thunderbolt Options	MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System	Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KK3-00002]
Operating System Language	United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media	Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Supplied on USB Drive
Office Software	FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus	NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser	Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty	3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery	STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time	Standard Build - Approximately 13 to 15 working days
Welcome Book	PCSpecialist Welcome Book - United Kingdom & Republic of Ireland

 

[Charly]

We'll need to know what monitor he's playing on.

Could you also post the full specs?

Out of interest, howw can the monitor affect this?

ASUS VZ249HE 24 Inch (23.8 Inch) Monitor, FHD (1920x1080)​

 

[Charly]

Do you have any anti virus software installed perchance??

Yes, Avira, and it seemed to make the problem worse. Lot of 100% disk activity after booting up. So I removed it. The problem remains, but perhaps not as bad.


PS... appreciate the help, everybody.

 

[Martinr36]

So games and OS all on the one drive(that's an instant recipe for a slow system), how full is it, also what are temperatures like, need to check them with HWmonitor

 

[Charly]

Also that's quite a slow drive and looks as though it's the only one, how much free space is on it.

Definitely need to see the full spec

About 450gigs

 

[Charly]

So games and OS all on the one drive(that's an instant recipe for a slow system), how full is it, also what are temperatures like, need to check them with HWmonitor

The drive is 3/4 full... 450/2tb space

My pc has a single 2gb drive setup and is superquick. I am not looking for a top level performace, but I would not expect super long boot times and laggy performace immediately after bootup (Lot of 100% disk usage). There is clearly something not right, as it did not do this when we first got it.

Perhaps if the drive is the problem I will buy two drives as replacement

Also most of his games seem to function normally once loaded (although I just got him CIV6, and that takes about 5 minutes to load... I cannot compare to my system though as far as I am concerned CIv4 is the only Civ). Saying that, he is telling me a lot of his games seem to take longer to load.

I will try and get the temps tomorrow

 

[SpyderTracks]

The drive is 3/4 full... 450/2tb space

My pc has a single 2gb drive setup and is superquick. I am not looking for a top level performace, but I would not expect super long boot times and laggy performace immediately after bootup (Lot of 100% disk usage). There is clearly something not right, as it did not do this when we first got it.

Perhaps if the drive is the problem I will buy two drives as replacement

Also most of his games seem to function normally once loaded (although I just got him CIV6, and that takes about 5 minutes to load... I cannot compare to my system though as far as I am concerned CIv4 is the only Civ). Saying that, he is telling me a lot of his games seem to take longer to load.

I will try and get the temps tomorrow

Avira is bad these days, along with a pretty full c drive.

I would do a clean winodws install

 

[Charly]

Thanks mate. Is there a specific ratio for SSD for leaving empty?

I also just got him Warhammer TW3, and it took over 20 minutes to load the intro campaign. Seems to play ok once loaded though.

 

[Salmon Fisher]

Yes, Avira, and it seemed to make the problem worse. Lot of 100% disk activity after booting up. So I removed it. The problem remains, but perhaps not as bad.


PS... appreciate the help, everybody.

Did you use the proper removal tool? Relying on windows to do it is not sufficient.

 

[Charly]

OK...I did a full reinstall...

It booted in about 10 seconds (which is what I would expect).

So what could the priblem be and how do I avoid?

If I get a second drive for games, is a usb 3 drive any good (as I am a bit lazy)?

If I buy an extra intetnal, do the cables tend to come with?

 

[SpyderTracks]

OK...I did a full reinstall...

It booted in about 10 seconds (which is what I would expect).

So what could the priblem be and how do I avoid?

If I get a second drive for games, is a usb 3 drive any good (as I am a bit lazy)?

If I buy an extra intetnal, do the cables tend to come with?

Likely Avira, it's nothing more than malware these days. You don't need any 3rd Party AV, windows defender is one of the best tools and doesn't cause any slow down.

You can't use an external drive as a games drive, performance would be awful, you need an internal drive, fast as possible, NVME would be the best. Cables are all in your welcome pack.

 

[Charly]

NVME... no idea how to plug that intomy motherboard. Cant see a slot.

 

[sck451]

The Strix X570-I has two M.2 slots capable of taking NVMe drives. One is on the back of the motherboard (hard to access); the other is on the front, under a heatsink directly above the PCIe slot (where the graphics card is). Any M.2 NVMe drive (up to PCIe gen 4 speeds) will work in either of the slots.

 

[Charly]

The graphics card block the outer one. If the heat sink is blocking the inner one, what happens to the heat sink?

Everything is blocked by something else... I think I need to dismantle half of the system ( an exageration maybe) to get to that slot (the heat sink is blocked by a fan... and I cant see how to detatch the heat sink. Its all a bit tight in there

I might just buy a bog standard sata drive. I know there is a big performance difference, but its not for a power gaming system. Its his first PC.

Also, those stick memory cards look a bit flimsy . I bought a mini pc because I have to transport it by multiple trains between my house and my sons. I am not sure its going to survive multiple bumps, and I wont get a chance to test it the other end. My son is only a kid, so its not something he will be able to fix either.

I have learnt something new though... I was not aware of those types of drives.

 

[Charly]

Likely Avira, it's nothing more than malware these days. You don't need any 3rd Party AV, windows defender is one of the best tools and doesn't cause any slow down.

I have Avira on my pC. Not experienced any slowdown with it. Perhaps i will uninstall it though. I was aware of the other crap that comes with it though... I think I managed to get rid of most of it. I am sure it used to be well thought of back in the day. I guess I installed it out of habit. The thing of it is, he has no internet connection anyway

Good to hear about windows defender
<edit>


Got another question then re the NVMe memory

What configeration would you have?

Would you still have a drive for windows and a drive for games?