What causes computers to inexplicably become slow?

Edits between brackets.

I have a Dell Latitude that I used for at least 2 years and played games like Age of Mythology and even Shroud of the Avatar plus others like DosBox games and The Sims. I bought myself a newer, better computer and gave the old one to my wife. Within a month or two, the [OLD] computer just went to the pot - taking 20 minutes to boot up, running Age of Mythology for maybe 15 to 20 minutes before crashing out etc. [The new computer works great and is a clear upgrade over the old one, but I get dirty looks from the wife for keeping the great computer and leaving her with the crappy one ].

Anyone have any ideas of what can cause a computer that was running just fine to suddenly be snail slow? Is it something that can be fixed?

Insights and suggestions will be appreciated.

Thanks
DTXCF

 

Lots of possibilities software and hardware. I would look to see what has been installed in the last couple of months including windows updates and hardware drivers. Also using task manager see what, if anything, is taking up a lot of resources while the game is running. Would focus more on the CPU and Disk but low memory come into play as well. Also look to see if there is anything odd in the list of what is running like possible malware. If you aren't running some kind of antivirus, would most definitely get one installed and scan. From a hardware side, could be disk issues too if the disk drive is starting to fail it can cause performance issues or memory issues as well. So many possibilities unfortunately

 

@DalTXColtsFan

It's just like @Tirrag said:

First off, when you said

Could you give us the make and model so we can look it up and see what the specs are ?

Also, when you said "it takes 20mins to boot", do you have any idea what all is being "loaded" during boot (if you know that is) ?

And lastly, what security software (anti-virus) are you using ?

 

Greetings DalTXColtsFan
So is the computer always slow or only when running SOTA? If just SOTA then check your settings in SOTA options. Try setting it for the fastest with low graphic detail. If it is the computer do like others have said and check amount of memory (16gig), test Hard drive with something like Black Magic drive tester, and by all means find out what is taking up most of the time and processor in taskmanager. You could even post the list here so we could help you look at it. Let us know what you find out and post what you find so we can help. Good luck.

 

The new computer or the old one you gave to your wife?

 

I have had problems with Microsoft Telemetry in the past. The indicator was a load of disk usage when nothing was running. And when running programs it slowed them down by filling up the pagefile virtual memory.
If it's something like this then you can check here https://techloris.com/microsoft-compatibility-telemetry/
vj

 

Can be caused by many things. The most common reasons I've come across are :

Poor antivirus software (Norton I'm looking at you)
Virus and other malware infections
HDDs getting full
Conflicts between two pieces of software

So I'd start with looking at what's been installed since you stopped using it - remove and take from there.

If all else fails, you can do a "reset to factory settings" (in WinX its under settings, update and security, recovery - top option). Be aware this will scrub everything off the PC so you start from scratch. But if you can't figure it out and that doesn't fix it then it may be a hardware issue.

 

control alt delete can get you a resource monitor via the task manager menu, good place to see what hardware is hitting the wall if any, check temps too I use CPUID there could be some dust build up or even thermal paste on the CPU has deteriorated and there is CPU throttling to compensate.

'windows button + S" and search for event viewer can help you see any software thats going nuts with errors if any crashing occurs. If crashing does occur check ram sticks

(task manager can also help you ID resource hogging applications, cleaning up the programs that run on startup can be a major cause of general sluglishness.

Should be a lot there to keep you busy, remember a computer format is always an idea, windows 10 is free now!

Good luck and don't give up.

 

It's WINDOWS!

Windows is the problem.

 

Thanks for the replies everybody.

There's a very good chance I'm going to try the reset to factory settings - there is absolutely nothing still on the old computer that we actually need.

As far as what was INSTALLED on the old laptop after I gave it to my wife, the answer is NOTHING - in fact on the CONTRARY I UNINSTALLED everything OFF of it that I knew she would never need - the only games she plays are Age of Mythology and the Sims - I left those two and uninstalled everything else including DosBox and SotA. All she needs a laptop for is those two games, Facebook, Netflix, YouTube, online shopping and other surfing - that's it - the specs are below and should be MORE than adequate for those things.

There was somewhat of a correlation between when she created her own profile on the machine and when the problems started. It's possible that she was logging in as her and applications were still running under my login, and that was causing issues. But I removed all of the profiles except hers and the problem persists.

I do not have any of my "own" virus scanners running on the old laptop - it's just the default Microsoft Defender stuff that comes with Windows. The only "threat" it's found is something called PUA:Win32/FusionCore.B from a FileZilla installer EXE, which is a little strange because I never installed FileZilla on this machine - that EXE was sitting on an external USB hard drive that I used to use for work and now use for home.

Specs:
Dell Inspiron 5570
Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-8130U CPU @ 2.20Ghz 2.21 Ghz, 1 socket 2 cores 4 logical processors, caches 128K, 512K 4Mb
12GB RAM
1TB HD type HDD system disk Yes page file Yes
GPU Intel(R) UHD Graphics 620 - 6GB shared GPU memory

Right now at this moment, the antimalware service executable is running and taking up 210Mb of memory. Chrome is taking up 144Mb. There's a bunch of other stuff i.e. steam, Dell.D3.WinSvc, Desktop Window Manager et al taking up a few dozen Mb each - task manager says I'm using a total of 33% of the available memory, 3% CPU 4% disk.

I launched Age of Mythology - right now it says 23% CPU, 52% memory, 20% disk. I'll play for about 20 minutes and post an update.

 

OK, I'm a little annoyed.

I just played AoM for over 45 minutes and did not experience one iota of performance problems.

I have The Sims running - I'm going to let it run and run and run while downtown to try to tax the processor.

One other question I was asked was about startup - I looked at the Startup tab in Task Manager and I have all but about 7 items disabled. 4 of the 7 items are various audio drivers. The rest look like normal stuff. Those numbers aren't exactly right but I don't see anything there that shouldn't be there.

I find it hard to believe the problem was temporary - maybe I convince the wife to stop shutting it down and instead only close the lid (which is what I do - I reboot a couple times a month tops) it will be okay.

Any other suggestions will be appreciated, otherwise I'll update this post in a week or two to report if I had any new problems.

 

yes i would always recommend full shutdown. things can get wonky over time the more you keep just sleeping it. you can change the power options to shutdown when lid is closed.

 

If its windows 10 machine and boots up ( from total power off, to the point where you can start to control windows ) takes anymore than 2-3 minutes, you most likely have faulted hardware or severily corrupted windows installation.
If its older hard drive and not an SSD, then it might got few hits here and there and generated some bad sectors, thus corrupting data or making it harder to access.

Anyhow, 20 minutes to boot up is indicating big issues. I would personally reset the windows ( its super simple with w10).
My kids use my 7 year old laptop with windows 10 and it does not take anymore than 30ish seconds to boot.

Also, just dropping the lid on the laptop should be fine. I do it constantly with my work laptop and its running virtual machines and all sorts of software all the time and having 0 problems.

 

Agreed with Katu.

I would try the reset (do the "full" option - not the "keep my files" one).

If its still misbehaving after that then HDD failure is likely, though it could be other things.

No way Win10 should take 20 mins to boot on an 8th Gen CPU laptop - even if its not an SSD (I suspect from the specs you posted its a mechanical drive - would be very unusual to see a 1Tb SSD in an i3 based laptop from 2018)