Unknown issue with PC driving me mad.

Fadelity

Fadelity

Fadelity

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Joined
23 Jun 2009
Posts
22
Hi. So for a while now, couple months or so my PC has had a slow-down issue where it will severely lag in performance. It doesnt do this all the time infact I went for a week without it happening (During which i played quite a lot of Far Cry 5 unimpeded) before it starting again randomly yesterday. At first I felt the PC was acting suspiciously like there was something going on in the background but its progressivly gotten worse and now I cant play any games or browse the web without severe frustration.

Symptoms:
The mouse curser (and sometimes the task bar) will flicker.
CPU & GPU usage on idle will jump from 1% to 10% and 20% respectively.
Actions will either go unactioned or take 10+ seconds to catch up with me.

Have tried:
Virus scans including Tron Script.
Reinstalling Drivers.
Updating Bios.
Loading into Offline Safemode.
Reinstalling Windows.
Re-seating and re-pasting CPU.
Swapping Graphics card for my old spare.
Monitoring temperatures (CPU and GPU are within norms).

Fixes:
At first I noticed that when it froze and I clicked Ctrl Alt Del it would work again for a short while.
I then noticed just clicking Ctrl would unfreeze the pc if only for a second before it happened again (In task manager performance tab the GPU usage will drop from 20% to 1ish% when I click Ctrl but only for a moment).
At first leaving the PC turned off for a couple hourse fixed it for a while (No longer works).

Mystery:
Why the hell would keyboard input (clicking Ctrl) in any way fix the issue even if only for a couple of seconds??

Since the above methods havent resolved the issues I am swinging towards it being a problem with the CPU possibly showing signs of fatigue? (Althought temps are fine 40-50c). My PC is generally on 247 and has been so for a few years. At first turning the PC off for a couple hours at a time would fix it and allow me to play games but after leaving it off all night the issues started immedately after being turned on today.

Currently I am using the PC to watch videos only which it can manage but I have to frequently click or spam the Ctrl key to get the PC to catch up with me (unfreeze, close things I have clicked the X on etc).

PC:
Built it myself in 2017.
CPU- Ryzon 5 1600
Ram- 16GB DDR3
Mobo- Asus PRIME B350-PLUS

Any suggestions or input on resolving this would be appreciated. Thanks.
 
What is the memory and SSD? Pretty sure it can't be DDR3.

Have you tried using anything like latencymon? There was another tool for faulting drivers, but I can't remember the name, perhaps someone else will.

What USB devices do you have?
 
Hard page faults can mean that you don't have enough RAM, but I don't know if that's enough page faults to indicate a problem. I do know that Chrome munches memory like crazy so don't leave it open when you're gaming if you have lots of (like 20+) tabs, especially stuff like gmail, google maps and YouTube.

What's the drivers tab look like?

Windows photos has had problems with choking CPUs in the past, you might want to google "Windows photos high CPU usage" and see if there's anything relevant to you.

Is BitDefender fully up to date?

You're using LAN to connect to the Internet I assume?

Are those peripherals wired or wireless?

Edit, towards the bottom:https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...pu-usage/c10f9660-4f03-48b3-8f68-7ec4245d754d
 
Without going to in depth yet, do you have any programs installed in the HDD's? It sounds like they are waking up which takes a few seconds and will cause the system to hang whilst it waits.

You can check it out by making the drives never switch off in power options. I'm not on my PC ATM so can't do a step by step but I do remember it's in the advance power plan options.
 
Are you running the Ram at its full speed? R5 1600 memory controller is rated for Ram up to 2667 Mhz, above that it may not like it.

I suspect the board though. Asus Prime boards are 'Cheap & cheerful' I've looked at a photo of this board & the heatsink cooler for the VRM's isn't that good. I would think if the VRM's are not getting enough airflow, they would overheat & effect the overall performance of the PC.
 
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