Computer suddenly running very slow

Cool Buddy

Wise Old Owl
My computer was running fine till a few days back when suddenly I noticed that it was taking around 5 minutes to boot up. And even after booting completely into Windows 7, the computer comes to run very slow. Here are a few examples of how slow the computer is:

1. It takes around 7-8 seconds to refresh
2. It is unable to run a Standard definition video without dropping frames
3. Takes 2-3 seconds to open the start menu

The only thing that I can relate to the time when the problem started is opening a spare SATA cable that had remained plugged in on my mobo after I'd removed the DVD drive.

I changed the SATA port on which the HDD was plugged in. But beyond that I can't think of anything else.

I checked the temperatures and they're fine (CPU 26, HDD 36 & 38, mobo 42, gfx 39)

It does not seem to be a software problem as even the boot menu takes some time to appear. The CMOS battery seems to be fine coz the time & date are correct.

Here is my config

Gigabyte LMT S2P motherboard
AMD Phenom II X4 840 @ 3.2ghz (stock)
4 GB Corsair RAM (single stick)
MSI AMD Radeon HD 5670 (1 GB)
Corsair CX 430 PSU
Seagate 1 TB HDD
WD Green 500 GB HDD

One thing I feel could be relevant, sometime back (3-4 months), the computer was suddenly not booting. That day I had opened the RAM and cleaned it with an eraser. The computer booted up and ran fine after that.

Could this be a case of damaged RAM or HDD?
 

Hrishi

******************
Post a screenshot of running processes in your system and a snapshot or monitoring report of HardDrives.
Check HDD utilisation.
 
> Run memtest for an hour.

> Try running a live linus from pen drive and see if Linus works smoothly.

> Scan your HDD for errors or bad sectors.

> Scan your system for infections.
 

meetdilip

Computer Addict
On task manager, see which process is using higher amount of RAM. Also clean your RAM slot and reinsert RAM. To begin with, use Ccleaner to clean registry and junk file and check.
 
OP
Cool Buddy

Cool Buddy

Wise Old Owl
The problem is not related to malware or registry issue or any such thing. I can say that because any of those wouldn't slow down the boot process. That wouldn't affect it before Starting windows appears.

I took out the RAM, blew in the RAM slot, cleaned the contacts with an eraser, but it didn't help.

I think it's a problem with the SATA ports or SATA cable. I ran chkdsk but it detected no errors.

I think the read speed of the HDD has slowed down. How do I verify this?
 

quicky008

Technomancer
My computer was running fine till a few days back when suddenly I noticed that it was taking around 5 minutes to boot up. And even after booting completely into Windows 7, the computer comes to run very slow. Here are a few examples of how slow the computer is:

1. It takes around 7-8 seconds to refresh
2. It is unable to run a Standard definition video without dropping frames
3. Takes 2-3 seconds to open the start menu

The only thing that I can relate to the time when the problem started is opening a spare SATA cable that had remained plugged in on my mobo after I'd removed the DVD drive.

I changed the SATA port on which the HDD was plugged in. But beyond that I can't think of anything else.

I checked the temperatures and they're fine (CPU 26, HDD 36 & 38, mobo 42, gfx 39)

It does not seem to be a software problem as even the boot menu takes some time to appear. The CMOS battery seems to be fine coz the time & date are correct.

Here is my config

Gigabyte LMT S2P motherboard
AMD Phenom II X4 840 @ 3.2ghz (stock)
4 GB Corsair RAM (single stick)
MSI AMD Radeon HD 5670 (1 GB)
Corsair CX 430 PSU
Seagate 1 TB HDD
WD Green 500 GB HDD

One thing I feel could be relevant, sometime back (3-4 months), the computer was suddenly not booting. That day I had opened the RAM and cleaned it with an eraser. The computer booted up and ran fine after that.

Could this be a case of damaged RAM or HDD?

It seems one of your HDDs is malfunctioning and is likely to die soon- I had faced a similar issue on my system a couple of years ago when my HDD was acting up.Take screenshots of the current status of each of your HDDs using crystal disk info and post them here.
 
OP
Cool Buddy

Cool Buddy

Wise Old Owl

It seems one of your HDDs is malfunctioning and is likely to die soon- I had faced a similar issue on my system a couple of years ago when my HDD was acting up.Take screenshots of the current status of each of your HDDs using crystal disk info and post them here.

Sorry for the late reply guys.. The above comment turned out to be exactly correct. The PC stopped booting after I changed the SATA port couple of times and switched the SATA cable once. Then I took out the hard drive and put it into a casing. On connecting it to the laptop it was clearly evident that the HDD has gone bad.
It's still readable but the read speed is very low and folders on the HDD take a lot of time to open. I'm trying to salvage whatever data I can. Thankfully it is in warranty period and I will hopefully get a replacement.

Thanks for all the help guys. The problem is solved now.
 

gameranand

Living to Play
Lucky you that you get to recover your data. I was left with a dumb HDD with 1200 GB of data which I can't recover.
 

iSh0w

Broken In
Check your CPU usage to see what processes are running!
Check what is getting launched and is running at startup ;)
 
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