FFS - How can I fix my slow PC?

[Jose_49]

Sup everyone!

 

I have a laptop Dell XPS 7590 - 32GB DDR4, Intel NVMe 512GB (SSDPEMKF512G8 NV), Intel Core i7 9750H. After a while, my PC begins to present serious slowdowns that shouldn't happen based on the daily programs that I use.

 

 

The PC locks down (mouse becomes unresponsive, and can't type)  :

- From time to time, while browsing the web, writing some code, or working with a simple Excel file (No complex formulas, 3 - 4 sheets)

- Every time there's a new hour (Say, from 8:59 AM it became 9:00 AM)

 

 

Here's what I've tried:

- Check in both both Process Monitor and Task Manager for CPU, GPU, and SSD usage.  None of them show a spike. In fact, they remain below the 9%.

- Ran sfc /scannow (No integrity violations found)

- Ran CHKDSK (no issues found)

- Ran CCleaner.

- DIsabled most startups program

- Ran MalwareBytes (Did find a couple of trojans a while back, and a crypto miner, but haven't fought back).

- I've ran all Windows Update and checked with Dell to keep my drivers up to date.

 

 

Here's what I noticed:

- If I format my PC, the computer is blazing fast again.

- I believe there's a program that is locking up my PC but I don't know which or how it is doing it.

 

 

Programs that I frequently use:

- VS Code (Programming)

- Excel

- Outlook

- Spotify

- Postman

- Groove Music

- Foxit Reader

- One Note

- Firefox

- Edge

- Vivaldi

- Docker with ~2 containers running

- ClickMonitor DDC

- Grammarly (These can be the culprit sometimes, but I only enable it from time to time)

- Power Toys

- Dropbox

- Slack

 

Programs that I use from time to time.

- Premiere

- OBS

 

Other notes:

- The PC is 2 years and 10 months old.

- I repasted it around 2 years and 5 months and applied some thermal pads to it (When I used to game more frequent).

- I haven't repasted in all this time.

- It hasn't been cleaned in a while.... Probably should check out its dust levels...

 

 

Do you people have any ideas?

 

 

 

 

[Matthew S.]

Have you checked your thermals when it starts slowing down? Might be getting thermal throttled.

[Jose_49]

On 21/10/2022 at 10:30, Matthew S. said:

Have you checked your thermals when it starts slowing down? Might be getting thermal throttled.

Thanks Mathew 🤗. I haven't to be honest. I'm going to be checking them next. Probably it's a thing with either thermal paste or dust...

 

In fact, I have a hunch now that it may be dust as I just purchased a can of compressed air and ran it through some small openings and vents (I can't open it fully right now as I don't have the equipment and won't be back home until Nov. 5) and it is running better!

 

I'll be checking the temps and post back in a couple of weeks.

 

Thanks

 

 

[spikey_richie]

Check the power profile. Dell like to ship with multiple profiles, try Ultra instead of Balanced.

 

Also, install Dell SupportAssist and check for a BIOS update.

[Som]

put a limit on dropbox upload speed and see if it changes anything

[Jose_49]

On 21/10/2022 at 12:39, spikey_richie said:

Check the power profile. Dell like to ship with multiple profiles, try Ultra instead of Balanced.

 

Also, install Dell SupportAssist and check for a BIOS update.

Thanks ;). I've seen that the power settings only has balanced.

On 21/10/2022 at 15:34, Som said:

put a limit on dropbox upload speed and see if it changes anything

I'll put a 100 KB/s upload limit. I doubt that it will change anything, but let's see how it goes.

[Jose_49]

BTW, @spikey_richie, just found out through SupportAssist that a new Bios Update came out on the 12th! Thanks for the tip!

 

I've been also monitoring the CPU temps and everything seems normal (Under 70 °C)

[Ve7878]

Interesting that you mention it happens at the start of a new hour. Have you checked in the task scheduler, maybe there is something set to run every hour?

[Steven P. Administrators]

On my system I had the same thing happen to me after a long period of stability.  I think Qbittorrent 4.4.5 was the culprit, because after painstakingly navigating to taskbar and right clicking to open task manager on Windows 10 (ctrl + alt + del  would not work) and only after closing the qbittorrent.exe process did my PC return to normal. 

 

I am convinced it is a memory leak problem after the program became idle for a prolonged period of time. Which reminds me that I have to roll back to 4.4.2 (what I upgraded from).

 

If it happens again, try to patiently to navigate the mouse cursor to the taskbar > right click > select Task manager and end the process on a program that you suspect.

 

Yesterday Quake Champions hung as well (process said "Not responding" it does that sometimes when exiting the game?!) but I was able to ctrl + alt + del into task manager to end it.

[spaceelf]

While it's most likely not the issue, can you monitor the temps on the SSD?  I'm relatively sure crystaldiskinfo would do it.

 

Might also check if it needs a firmware update.

 

Some of them throttle pretty hard with heavy usage or high heat.

[+Warwagon MVC]

What I would like to know, is what the heck is using 23GB of ram. Go to details in the task manager and arrange by ram usage. My guess is time goes on maybe you are getting up to 90% ram usage which would definitely slow a computer down.

 

I just saw you have docker and 2 containers. That's probably it but may want to check anyway. Do you ever get to 90% ram usage?

[+mram Subscriber²]

Seconded on the Docker containers.  What exactly is being run there?

 

None of your other running software should be an issue.

 

Turn off your docker containers and/or disable them and see if the issue improves.

[+Good Bot, Bad Bot Subscriber¹]

On 21/10/2022 at 06:39, spikey_richie said:

Check the power profile. Dell like to ship with multiple profiles, try Ultra instead of Balanced.

 

Also, install Dell SupportAssist and check for a BIOS update.

Do not install Dell SupportAssist. WTF? You can search for updates on the Dell support site by serial number and manually download any BIOS update and install as needed.

 

Does your PC actually run slow or just locking up periodically? I am surprised no one as commented on the PC locking up on the hour every hour. That is very bizarre but is clue. RAM usage is high so check the processes tab to see what is using so much memory. You should be on the process tab when when hit the top of hour and see if anyhting is spiking just before.

 

I would disable everything in startup and just do browsing and office type stuff and see if have any lockups and if not probably a hardware issue.

 

Quote

- Ran MalwareBytes (Did find a couple of trojans a while back, and a crypto miner, but haven't fought back).

What do you mean have not fought back?

Edited October 21, 2022 by Good Bot, Bad Bot

[Jose_49]

On 21/10/2022 at 20:07, thedead said:

While it's most likely not the issue, can you monitor the temps on the SSD?  I'm relatively sure crystaldiskinfo would do it.

 

Might also check if it needs a firmware update.

 

Some of them throttle pretty hard with heavy usage or high heat.

34°C  in OpenHardwareMonitor.

 

I don't think the SSD has been the culprit.

The PC improved after I blew it with some can of compressed air. I haven't felt any hiccups so far. I will post back if I find anything unusual.

[Jose_49]

On 21/10/2022 at 20:55, Warwagon said:

What I would like to know, is what the heck is using 23GB of ram. Go to details in the task manager and arrange by ram usage. My guess is time goes on maybe you are getting up to 90% ram usage which would definitely slow a computer down.

 

I just saw you have docker and 2 containers. That's probably it but may want to check anyway. Do you ever get to 90% ram usage?

Thanks for the feedback!

Nah, the Docker containers are pretty inoffensive: Postgres and  PG Admin. I think the high RAM usage was because of Windows holding some old programs into memory. I hadn't restarted the PC in several days (note that the problem has been present after several restarts). After rebooting I got back to 15.2 GB (Around 49%).

[Jose_49]

On 21/10/2022 at 21:39, Good Bot, Bad Bot said:

Do not install Dell SupportAssist. WTF? You can search for updates on the Dell support site by serial number and manually download any BIOS update and install as needed.

 

Does your PC actually run slow or just locking up periodically? I am surprised no one as commented on the PC locking up on the hour every hour. That is very bizarre but is clue. RAM usage is high so check the processes tab to see what is using so much memory. You should be on the process tab when when hit the top of hour and see if anyhting is spiking just before.

 

I would disable everything in startup and just do browsing and office type stuff and see if have any lockups and if not probably a hardware issue.

It locks down periodically. I runs fine most of the time, but there are times which becomes unbearable and unjustifiable while doing simple tasks like writing in Neowin that the CPU should crunch through it pretty easily.

 

I don't know if there's a Windows Service that is firing up periodically that can be the culprit

 

Quote

What do you mean have not fought back?

 

Jesus. Please disregard that

[Jose_49]

 
Well, guys, I have to say, after I've blown the PC with some can of compressed air, it's running 10x better. I haven't seen any hiccups happening every hour, and the PC is way colder. I don't know why I didn't think about monitoring the temperatures...
 
Apparently, that's been the problem! I will post back if I run into any more issues.
 
Once I get home in 2 weeks, I'll get the run screws and perform a complete clean.
 
Thank you very much for everything 🤗

[Jose_49]

Hi everyone! As promised, I just got back home and finally opened the laptop.

I found some dirt (I think it was even worse before I sprayed the compressed air) and saw the paste almost dry up.

I cleaned it and reapplied some Thermal Paste, which looks good 😎.

I'm also sprinkling some Throttlestop to lower the voltage and have it run even smoother.

[DPyro]

Might want to swap utorrent for qbittorent. utorrent is known to include adware/ads.

[Jose_49]

On 06/11/2022 at 11:57, DPyro said:

Might want to swap utorrent for qbittorent. utorrent is known to include adware/ads.

I'm using version 2.2.1. So far so good!

[Tidosho]

I have a similar issue with an older Latitude E6230. It will slow RIGHT down, to the point a 486 would be a speed demon, and be a pain in the arse for ages. I notice in Event Viewer occasionally that the error, "The system CPU is being throttled by system firmware" pops up when the issue occurs. The system slows down, and the SSD hits 50 degrees C. My SSD is the Crucial BX500 that doesn't have cache. I originally thought it may be the SSD, as with no cache it uses system memory, and behaves like a shingled HDD. But, changing SSD, eventually it does it again.

Going into the BIOS/UEFI and disabling SpeedStep, brings it back. Until it does it again. Re-enabling SS, brings it back. It's too intermittent to directly pin down, but I feel it's a bug with Windows and SpeedStep in this older system.

I'm replacing it soon so am not wasting time and effort on it.

My newer Dell 17 G3 3779 gaming laptop with 8th Gen i7 and nVidia GTX1050 GPU has some weird issues too. It power cycles three times on a cold start. It won't restart or turn off by software, it sits on a blank screen, and has to be powered off manually. It goes really slow on USB transfers. I have never had a definitive answer from Dell Support. It's a modern cheapo plastic single board pile of junk.

Modern Dells, and most new single-board plastic-case laptops are crap. My old heavyweight Precision M6600 17" has none of these issues, and that's a fossil! It has a metal chassis, full modularity, and could stop a tank!

[+Warwagon MVC]

On 06/11/2022 at 15:59, Tidosho said:

and could stop a tank!

Challenge Accepted!🤣

[PaulATMOS]

On 22/10/2022 at 00:42, Steven P. said:

On my system I had the same thing happen to me after a long period of stability.  I think Qbittorrent 4.4.5 was the culprit, because after painstakingly navigating to taskbar and right clicking to open task manager on Windows 10 (ctrl + alt + del  would not work) and only after closing the qbittorrent.exe process did my PC return to normal. 

 

I am convinced it is a memory leak problem after the program became idle for a prolonged period of time. Which reminds me that I have to roll back to 4.4.2 (what I upgraded from).

 

If it happens again, try to patiently to navigate the mouse cursor to the taskbar > right click > select Task manager and end the process on a program that you suspect.

 

Yesterday Quake Champions hung as well (process said "Not responding" it does that sometimes when exiting the game?!) but I was able to ctrl + alt + del into task manager to end it.

You’re using qBitTorrent to download Linux distros, right?

[Jose_49]

On 06/11/2022 at 17:59, Tidosho said:

I have a similar issue with an older Latitude E6230. It will slow RIGHT down, to the point a 486 would be a speed demon, and be a pain in the arse for ages. I notice in Event Viewer occasionally that the error, "The system CPU is being throttled by system firmware" pops up when the issue occurs. The system slows down, and the SSD hits 50 degrees C. My SSD is the Crucial BX500 that doesn't have cache. I originally thought it may be the SSD, as with no cache it uses system memory, and behaves like a shingled HDD. But, changing SSD, eventually it does it again.

Going into the BIOS/UEFI and disabling SpeedStep, brings it back. Until it does it again. Re-enabling SS, brings it back. It's too intermittent to directly pin down, but I feel it's a bug with Windows and SpeedStep in this older system.

I'm replacing it soon so am not wasting time and effort on it.

My newer Dell 17 G3 3779 gaming laptop with 8th Gen i7 and nVidia GTX1050 GPU has some weird issues too. It power cycles three times on a cold start. It won't restart or turn off by software, it sits on a blank screen, and has to be powered off manually. It goes really slow on USB transfers. I have never had a definitive answer from Dell Support. It's a modern cheapo plastic single board pile of junk.

Modern Dells, and most new single-board plastic-case laptops are crap. My old heavyweight Precision M6600 17" has none of these issues, and that's a fossil! It has a metal chassis, full modularity, and could stop a tank!

Interesting.

 

hahahah love the stop a tank part.

[Tidosho]

On 07/11/2022 at 04:16, Warwagon said:

Challenge Accepted!🤣

I'll ship it to Ukraine, they can use it to trash some Russian tanks! 😝