Why does my slow PC work fine when I unplug a few HDDs?

Lee James · 15 Jun 2022 at 14:33

Can anyone explain what's happening here?

Half the time my PC works fine, the other half it randomly slows right down so nothing works. It also sometimes boots real slow, reaching a black screen with non-moving cursor. I sometimes also get "CPU over temperature" error at boot, even when things don't seem hot.

The strange thing is that if I start unplugging HDDs, the PC starts working again, guaranteed. It doesn't seem to be any one drive causing the slowness, just seems to be when I have all 6 SATA ports connected to HDDs.

I should mention that Safe Mode ALWAYS works fine. Oh and my PC is 12 years old now. Could there be incompatibility with my modern HDDs?

Haz123 · 15 Jun 2022 at 22:41

Ok no replies to this so I am not going to leave you hanging so I will give you some things to look into.

1- PC is old and you are getting cpu temp warning. Simply removing the cpu heatsink and reapplying new thermal paste could fix this.

2- Unplugging the HDDs fixing your issues is real odd but there are some reasons this could be happening. You do not mention specs of PC but in the past the SATA bus was ran through the chipset , Northbridge, Southbridge I cant remember exactly which it was. This chip could be dying or overheating if it had a small annoying fan that was ment to be cooling it. Does your mobo have any small fans or heatsinks that are not working or have come loose?

3- Its old , cpu or mobo could just be on its way out. Nothing lasts forever. PSU is also old so may be faulty.

4- You mention modern HDDs , have you added some new ones recently ? These particular items have not changed much in past 20 years but there may be an issue with them and the old chipset working well with them.

Really not an area I am expert in but I hope it helped a bit.

Rroff · 15 Jun 2022 at 22:49

Look in Event Viewer - it is likely one or more HDDs is having problems and Windows tends to get rather slow waiting on certain delayed HDD access - which should show up in Event Viewer.

luttis · 15 Jun 2022 at 23:36

no anti-virus trying to do automatic scans of those HDDs? On a low spec pc both would give u high cpu and really sluggish pc. I ran into the issue once before where a laptop with hdd was so bad it took almost a day to run updates after initially being super slow with multiple anti virus programs. Anything using cpu/hdd in taskmanager?

Lee James · 15 Jun 2022 at 23:59

So helpful, thanks guys. Very helpful, Haz. To answer your question, yes, I seem to add a new HDD every couple of years when I run out of room!

I don't use any active antivirus so it's not that. CPU useage is always low, so it's not that.

There are no small, non-working fans on the mobo that I can see. But I will definitely try removing and re-sealing the CPU heatsink! Great idea Haz!

I looked in the Windows Event viewer and, following a tutorial, I searched for "wininit" under Windows Logs > Application, but there is nothing there. However, there ARE a lot of critical Kernel-Power errors from recently, so this surely must be related to the problem?

lsg1r · 17 Jun 2022 at 00:18

A full hard drive in my experience can slow down windows/application performance, even if it's not the main os drive, so if you're 'that full' of storage it might be lack of space on the drives causing the issue (should keep around 20% empty).

Are the drives you remove before seeing improved performance 'full' while the remaining ones have space left?

Lee James · 17 Jun 2022 at 11:43

Thanks lsg1r,

Some of my partitions are quite full, and I'll keep that in mind, though it doesn't really seem to be any particular drives that are causing the problem. It seems to be more about the number of drives, rather than specific ones.

Hook · 24 Jun 2022 at 22:54

Lee James said:
Thanks lsg1r,

Some of my partitions are quite full, and I'll keep that in mind, though it doesn't really seem to be any particular drives that are causing the problem. It seems to be more about the number of drives, rather than specific ones.

Running out of power? What PSU do you have?

Lee James · 25 Jun 2022 at 17:55

Hook said:
Running out of power? What PSU do you have?

Corsair VX450W

By the way, I don't know if it could be related, but my sound output jack has been faulty for a while - I always have to waggle the cable to get a signal. Happens whether I plug in the speaker or headphones, so I'm guessing it's the mobo port and not cables?

Mr Oxide · 25 Jun 2022 at 18:19

Lee James said:
Corsair VX450W

By the way, I don't know if it could be related, but my sound output jack has been faulty for a while - I always have to waggle the cable to get a signal. Happens whether I plug in the speaker or headphones, so I'm guessing it's the mobo port and not cables?

Cables can and do fail. If you have to waggle then it is likely a dry solder joint regarding this on the port.

Hook · 25 Jun 2022 at 20:03

Lee James said:
Corsair VX450W

By the way, I don't know if it could be related, but my sound output jack has been faulty for a while - I always have to waggle the cable to get a signal. Happens whether I plug in the speaker or headphones, so I'm guessing it's the mobo port and not cables?

So around 60W for 6 HDD, what cpu and gpu?

t31os · 26 Jun 2022 at 02:03

Lee James said:
Corsair VX450W

By the way, I don't know if it could be related, but my sound output jack has been faulty for a while - I always have to waggle the cable to get a signal. Happens whether I plug in the speaker or headphones, so I'm guessing it's the mobo port and not cables?

If you've been plugging and unplugging lots it will only take so much before the connections start to weaken or loosen up, it's not the most robust part of a motherboard. If you need to the option to change audio devices over one output, the ideal solution (and cheap enough) is to use an audio switch (two devices into one output) to avoid knackering the port through regular plugging/unplugging.

Lee James · 26 Jun 2022 at 22:00

Hook said:
So around 60W for 6 HDD, what cpu and gpu?

Intel Quad Core i7 860
Sapphire ATI Radeon 4670 HD 750Mhz
Do you think I could be underpowered?

t31os said:
If you've been plugging and unplugging lots it will only take so much before the connections start to weaken or loosen up, it's not the most robust part of a motherboard. If you need to the option to change audio devices over one output, the ideal solution (and cheap enough) is to use an audio switch (two devices into one output) to avoid knackering the port through regular plugging/unplugging.

Thanks! I change between speakers/headphones all the time, so LOTS of plugging/unplugging. I will definitely invest in an audio switch, especially for my next PC which will have to be soon as I can't stand this slowness any more!

Mr Mcgoo · 27 Jun 2022 at 01:05

Your system at 100% use would be around 200-225watts. if by some miracle your able to load all hdd's at the same time as 100% cpu and gpu load including maxing ram. maybe 300watts. You should be fine with that psu. is the psu as old as the system?

Lee James · 27 Jun 2022 at 12:41

Mr Mcgoo said:
Your system at 100% use would be around 200-225watts. if by some miracle your able to load all hdd's at the same time as 100% cpu and gpu load including maxing ram. maybe 300watts. You should be fine with that psu.

Thanks so much for this info! So I'm not under-powered. Must be some other power error I guess.

Mr Mcgoo said:
is the psu as old as the system?

Yeah, I put the whole system together in 2009 and only thing I've changed since then are the HDDs.

Building PCs doesn't come naturally to me so I've been putting off the inevitable, but I think the time has come to build a new machine. The tricky thing for me is that I WILL NOT use anything after Win7 (absolutely refuse to touch Win 8 or later) so compatibility is going to be a bit of a minefield and I believe I'll have to use something like Driver Booster to get it up and running?

Mr Mcgoo · 28 Jun 2022 at 15:08

Windows 10 is very mature now and is in fact a good OS over windows 8/8.1 but I would say on par with windows 7. The trouble is windows 7 only has support until 2025 and no more security updates from then on, where windows 10 will be here until, well a long time yet. Windows 10 is the way to go and a new system wont cost too much unless you want a high end system. Anything on the lower end, based on todays hardware, will be an upgrade for you by a noticeable amount.

Lee James · 28 Jun 2022 at 20:15

Mr Mcgoo said:
Windows 10 is the way to go and a new system…

Sorry, Win10 is NOT an option, I absolutely hate it and wouldn't touch it if you paid me. As for security, I protect my system myself - against the big threats which are the big tech companies like M$. Their new OSes are pure spyware, they are the threat, the network who spy on the public. I have highly modified Win7 to disable their spyware.

Mr Mcgoo · 28 Jun 2022 at 20:18

Lee James said:
Sorry, Win10 is NOT an option, I absolutely hate it and wouldn't touch it if you paid me. As for security, I protect my system myself - against the big threats which are the big tech companies like M$. Their new OSes are pure spyware, they are the threat, the network who spy on the public. I have highly modified Win7 to disable their spyware.

you can do the same with windows 10 if you wanted. Either way you can still use windows 7 with a new system just windows 10 would be more compatible for the future that's all

Lee James · 28 Jun 2022 at 20:19

Mr Mcgoo said:
you can do the same with windows 10 if you wanted. Either way you can still use windows 7 with a new system just windows 10 would be more compatible for the future that's all

Thanks dude

RussD · 4 Jul 2022 at 16:00

Bare in mind that using Win 7 can give you problems in a new system. New Systems are now geared for Win 10 Win11. I had a few problems using Win7 with some new stuff so I installed Win 10 and All is OK. You have to be Very Lucky if you get no problems. Good Luck.