Solved Huge slowdown, and hard drive problems.

[Blitzriuriu]

Hello, around 3 months ago i got a new computer, which in my eyes is decent, can run almost everything i throw at it, but here is the thing. I had 2 perfectly fine hard drives, and a month ago one started to fail working. It started making wierd noises inside my pc case, like its starting to spin again from complete stop. And my pc was freezing for like 20 seconds when that happened. So we took it out of pc's as we considered it as broken. So i was left with 120gb single drive, everything is fine for month now or so, and this one is starting to fail too. I am a gamer, and here is what happened. A week ago I was playing this GTAIV game fine, mid-settings. But now, around 2-3 days ago, it lags horribly, as well as everything else. Disk usage is amost 90% of time at full usage, but the computer is idle, not playing games or anything. Like im copying 10 movies at the same time. I cant even open browser at the time. But as much as i have seen, the usage comes from svchost.exe, and there are like 30 of them, in the resource monitor. I run a disk check, CHDSK or something like that, and it froze at 39%. So what should I do? I dont even want to attempt a reinstall of the OS because of this. It might just break completly.

 

[bassfisher6522]

Sounds like one of two thing or a combo of both, either malware/virus or windows being windows and using irregularly. First I would completely and thoroughly check the PC for malware and virus's running full scans in safe mode, then have a look at this....

Stop svchost.exe from stealing CPU cycles | The Download Blog - CNET Download.com

Here's another good read...

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/what-is-svchostexe-and-why-is-it-running/

 

[Blitzriuriu]

Thanks, I just put my avast for full in-depth scan, going to notify the results here, asoon it is done.
And i just checked the resource monitor and first 4 processes are svchost.exe, just as i mentioned. And the usage is 3'000'000 for each of them, differs a bit in some numbers, but remains at 3k and at full usage.

 

[britny]

Blitzriuriu

you should perform "clean boot" by doing following...
-in the search box Type msconfig , and click msconfig.
-in the Services tab click the "select the Hide all Microsoft services check box", and click Disable all.
-in the Startup tab , for each startup item, select the item and then click Disable.
-Close Task Manager.
-On the Startup tab of the System Configuration dialog box, click OK, and then restart the computer.

second follow these steps
1-Press "Ctrl," "Alt" and "Delete" at the same time to display the Windows Task Manager.

2-Go to the Process tab to see a list of currently running processes on your computer.

3-Look in the CPU column and locate programs that are using many CPU cycles. High CPU cycles can cause the CPU usage of a program to increase.

4-Right-click on the program and highlight "Set Priority" from the context menu. Select the "low" or "below normal" option to change the priority of the program.
-Repeat Steps 3 and 4 to change the priority of other programs with high CPU usage.

 

[gregrocker]

I would not adjust the priority of Processes in Task Manager.

Instead test the HD with maker's HD Diagnostic extended CD scan followed by full Disk Check to determine its actual condition. If it fails either, replace it.

Follow these sames steps for Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 to get a perfect install with your licensed version.

In the future other issues can be resolved using Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7

 

[Blitzriuriu]

Ok i just finished scanning my pc. It found one virus, somekind of .dll file from a game, so i deleted it. But the problem doesnt go away. But also, couldnt it be something with my pc power problems? 2 of my perfectly fine hard drives has broken in time of month.

 

[gregrocker]

What PSU do you have? Run the Power Supply Calculator to get a rough estimate and compare it to the PSU on there.

I'd want a perfect install on tested-good hardware. The hardware tests are in the Troubleshooting tutorial.

 

[Blitzriuriu]

Ive done that test when the 1st drive failed, im good with power supply.

 

[Blitzriuriu]

Ok i wanted to write a small report now. Seems that the problem isnt in my hard drive, but in game (?) . This one game does something to my hard drive that forces the huge disk usage, even after it is turned off. So I havent turned the game in for like 2 days, and everything seems fine. So im marking this thread as solved, as it all turned out to be problem in game. It might be virus, so i will attempt an reinstall some time. Thanks you all who helped I appreciate it a lot.

 

[dperecky]

This one game does something to my hard drive that forces the huge disk usage, even after it is turned off.

Well that's easy to figure out... You probably have the CD or whatever means you need to reinstall the game later... so just delete it (Control Panel | Programs). If that changes stuff, then you know. If not, then it's probably a virus.

 

[dperecky]

Ok i just finished scanning my pc.

If you have a genuine copy (I don't see why you wouldn't) of Windows 7, download Security Essentials. This is from www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/. My sugg: Disable the other antivirus and try a scan with it.