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

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

47 answers

Sort by: Oldest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Igor Leyko 112.4K Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2019-03-07T19:11:41+00:00

    Hi Jan,

    please open Resource monitor and look if System interrupts take noticeable part of CPU load. If yes, there is problem with hardware or drivers, use LatencyMon for diagnosis.

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. DaveM121 936.1K Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2019-03-07T19:39:59+00:00

    Hi Jan

    From your screenshot, I would say your problem is Disk Usage . ..

    Open Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc)

    Choose the Processes Tab

    Leave that window open to monitor your system

    When your PC is unresponsive, is your Hard drive, CPU or RAM overly busy at that time?

    If so, click on the appropriate column header, so the arrow faces down

    What are the top 5 processes at that time?

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2019-03-07T19:40:50+00:00

    Thanks for the quick reply.  I don't know how to tell if system interrupts are doing it.  Attached is a photo showing the resource meter.  I rebooted and it is showing low CPU use on the right (I think that is CPU 0), but about 50% on the left (in resource meter).  Also notice that there are peaks of unexplained drive activity.  (Well, it would not let me attach an image this time, even when I clicked on the icon.)

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2019-03-07T19:49:23+00:00

    I'm doing this on a different computer.  I rebooted again, and right now the problem is gone, but it has been like this before and the problem came back.  I did notice that there is a lot of disk activity at the time of the problem.  But the computer shouldn't have that, just sitting there.  Generally the top 3 are:

    * system

    * service host: diagnostic policy service

    * service host: Windows event log.

    I did do a shot of the processes last night, and that is attached.  (I'm having to use photographs instead of screen captures because I don't have anything on the new computer to handle screen captures.)

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  5. Igor Leyko 112.4K Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2019-03-07T19:52:44+00:00

    please switch to CPU tab. sort upper table by CPU column and make a screen when PC is slow responsible. Or at least look at top 5-6 processes.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments