Steps to fix slow, unresponsive computer

Clone the drive to a much bigger SSD and see if that fixes it.

 

I'd look into replacing the SSD, and also run a memory check on the RAM. There are things about SSDs that don't have DRAM and at 80% full, if it doesn't have a DRAM I believe it's using up some of that empty space as a cache. So a new SSD should help.

 

I know an actual NVME M.2 slot is the hot stuff right now and currently "overkill" for most needs. Doesn't ever hurt to have the extra speed though. NVME on a PCIe adapter is probably good but I just don't know much about them.

 

Check this site out
https://www.techlicious.com/tip/reasons-why-your-computer-is-slow/

Good luck!

 

If a PCI drive goes bad it could take out your motherboard?

 

I like them. Been using NVME for quite a while. I have a 1TB on one computer and a 2TB on the other.

To the OP, did you clean out registry, cache, shadow copies etc? When I was on Windows, I used CCleaner, but you also have a built in utility (I think it's still there on Win 10, but I don't know now).

At 80% full, I wouldn't put much more stuff on that main disk. I could be more of an alarmist, but that's about the max that I like to go on SSD as far as used capacity. Nice thing about running NASs, as files tend to be what clutters up a system.

 

Are you using it in an m.2 slot or via the PCI?

 

One dedicated, one via an adapter.

 

andy
did you open task manager to see if disk is the bottleneck?

you will have to regedit to show disk usage
https://www.petenetlive.com/KB/Article/0001203

it's possible cpu is at 100% from never finishing serch indexing, for instance

 

Sabrent.

 

Ya, turn off indexing?

 

Along those lines, may want to try to do a reg edit to disable Cortana (if that reg edit is still available, I know MS has tweaked things to make them even harder for the user to mess with) as that is also another hog of resources.

There used to be tool that one could create a custom iso of Win 10 and pull out bits that one didn't want installed, but again, past a certain version, got harder and harder to do. Used to be able to strip out Cortana, but that would castrate searches. Reminds me back with IE 4 and when that was started to get integrated throughout the OS that trying to pull it out was tantamount to borking an install.

 

I second this post. Anytime I saw a PC bogged down, I'd test HDD first, then look at Task Manager and see whats up. Last week my laptop's fan was running constantly and it wasn't dusty. Checked out taskmanager and saw some useless MS Office process stuck on full-throttle. I cleared it and CPU usage dropped back down to 1% and fans quit.

I will say this, I've never had much luck with hard drive testers on SSD. Test would pass but I knew something had to be up with it. I'd change SSD and problem fixed, so I don't put much faith in SSD testing.

 

If none of the stuff above works, this one should do the trick.

 

There is a program on this page called Why So Slow. Maybe it can help?

https://www.resplendence.com/downloads

 

I would put money on drive space being the main issue. Drive space is a thing. I read somewhere a long time ago in a PC hardware and maintenance class in JC that the OS needs empty space to do its thing efficiently.
And it seems to be even more of a thing with SSD technology. Don't take my word for it. Confirm the theory by asking Google. The interwebs seem to think you will see dramatic drops in performance when said drive gets beyond 70% capacity. Consider cleaning up the drive or cloning to a larger SSD.

$0.02