Windows 10 computer is very unresponsive

Anonymous
2019-03-07T19:03:07+00:00

First I'll describe the problem, then give the background.

The problem is that a Windows 10 computer usually is very unresponsive.  Clicking on anything, the blue circle will spin, then stop.  Then 10-20 seconds later the app will start to come up, but slowly.  The row of icons will appear at a rate of about 3 per second.  Often when I try to type into it, the characters don't appear - until several seconds later, then they will suddenly show up.

I've looked at task manager, and it is showing periods of high CPU use, and it is in these periods when it us unresponsive.  The main things using the CPU are "system", "service host: diagnostic policy service" and "service host: Windows event log".  See the attached screen capture from Task Manager.  When the CPU use is 20% or higher, it is unresponsive.

Background: I got a used HP Z620 last week (two 8-core Xeons, 64GB of RAM).  It came with Windows 7 and was working fine.  I tried to upgrade it to Windows 10, but it got into a boot loop. I took it into the computer repair shop, and they did a reinstall of Windows 10.  But when I got it back, it had this problem.  It would come and go - see the Task Manager image, which shows 4 minutes.  I left it on overnight last night, and this morning the task manager was flat at or near 0%, and it was responding normally.  When I came back after lunch, it had rebooted and the problem was back, except worse.  Now all (or almost all) of the time the CPU use is high and it is unresponsive.  The repair shop guarantees their work, but I'm wondering if there is a quicker solution.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Performance and system failures

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-03-14T05:09:05+00:00

    Well, I may have solved the problem.  I got the computer back from the shop yesterday afternoon, with a new HD and a clean install of Windows 10.  The HD was nearly 6 years old and their testing machine showed so many bad sectors that they stopped the test.

    So I thought new HD and clean install of Windows, that should fix it.  But I still had the problem.  I thought, OK, it has to be the motherboard, the CPUs, or the RAM.  I had run BurninTest a few times and it showed no problem.  I ran one complete pass of MemTest86 (3+ hours) and it didn't show a problem.  But today I left it for a little over an hour, and when I came back it was doing 5 beeps/flashes.  I looked up the beep error code and it was a memory error.  Even though BurninTest and Memtest86 didn't find a problem, I took out all RAM and put in 8 sticks of different RAM (leaving 4 slots empty for now). 

    Now, 2 hours and 42 minutes later, the problem has not reappeared, and it has never gone this long w/o it.  So if it goes overnight without the problem, I think it is fixed.

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-03-13T03:21:40+00:00

    Some people suspected a HD error, but it doesn't make sense, although that is what the repair shop said this afternoon.  I did clone the drive, remove it, and boot off the cloned drive and I still had the problem.  So I swapped back to the original drive.  I ran HDTune for the long test (hours) and it didn't find a problem.  When the repair shop called this afternoon, they said that they put the drive in their special testing machine, and it had so many bad sectors, they stopped the test.  But they also said that they tested it when I took it in a week ago on the same machine, with no errors.  So why did all of these drive errors start right when I got it back after the Windows 10 install?

    I haven't gotten it back yet - probably tomorrow.

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-03-12T22:34:34+00:00

    Congratulations Jan,  and FYI for others as well:

    It looks like the intermittent failure showed up at the right time, and the HDD will be replaced.   Performance issues like yours that are intermittent and not predictable, in my experience, are usually hardware related.  Two other methods to help determine if something is heat or hardware electronics related is:

    1. Using a compressed gas "duster" to "cool" the device or component. (Formerly "freon" spray cans).
    2. Gently tapping various components with a non-conductive tool (ex: back of a screwdriver)

    In those cases the failing "component" may show itself with some kind of "hiccup" / sensitivity, or the original failure.  I hope there was something in the Event Viewer that gave some indications as well.

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  4. Anonymous
    2019-03-12T19:54:38+00:00

    Well, last night I found HPs page about BIOS changes to do before upgrading to Windows 10.  I did this (after the fact, of course) and got it where it would not boot.  I took it back to the store that installed Windows 10 a week ago.  They were able to get in.  They checked the HD on a machine and it showed up with many bad sectors.  I had run HDTune on it and it showed OK.  They tested the HD when it was in earlier and it was OK then.  So maybe the failing HD was the problem all along.  They are replacing the HD and doing a clean install.  Strange that it failed right when I got it back, though.

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  5. Anonymous
    2019-03-12T03:56:17+00:00

    Well, there were very few things starting up on bootup.  I disabled or uninstalled all of them except Windows Defender.  I still had the problem.

    I cloned the boot drive to another drive, and within 35 minutes, the problem returned, so that pretty much rules out a HD problem.

    I think I've done everything I can do.  I'm going to take it back to the shop tomorrow.

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