What should I do?

[BloodyWaters]

So lately, my computer with decent specs (bottom of post) has been slowing down. For the first minute after startup, it is completely unusable. After a bit, everything is better, but programs take a while to launch and various things take a lot longer to load than they used to. I then went to find out what the problem was. The CPU was usually at 0-10% at 36-38C during the slowdowns, so that wasn't the problem. RAM was around 34% full, so not there either. It was obviously not the GPU, so I looked at the hard drive, which was at a warm 46C and pinned at 100% with only 10mb/s usage. I've tried to disable the programs that use it the most, which didn't work. I've deleted some stuff, making it only 2/3 full. Didn't work either. I downloaded a HDD check program, which said it was in good shape. I ran the defragmeting program, which didn't help as well.

 

After about 15 min of being on the problems generally go away. If I keep the PC on, I won't have to deal with the problems every time I use it. The problem is that I only use my PC about 3-4 times a week, so keeping it on would waste energy and running a PC 24/7 when you don't need to isn't really a good thing for it.

 

What do you think I should do? Should I reinstall Windows? If worst comes to worst, what HDD should I get? (I'd never use more than 500gb of space)

 

Specs

Intel Core i5 2320 @3.0GHz

8gb DDR3 RAM

GTX 1050 Ti

298GB Hitachi HTS725032A9A364

[Weed man]

Have you tried reinstalling windows, or you can just wait a few days, I used to have the same issue and after 2-3 days my pc just started running normally again.

[Gamerguy207]

I would reinstall windows

[BloodyWaters]

3 minutes ago, Weed man said:

Have you tried reinstalling windows, or you can just wait a few days, I used to have the same issue and after 2-3 days my pc just started running normally again.

This has been an ongoing problem for about a month.

[PorkishPig]

2 minutes ago, BloodyWaters said:

So lately, my computer with decent specs (bottom of post) has been slowing down. For the first minute after startup, it is completely unusable. After a bit, everything is better, but programs take a while to launch and various things take a lot longer to load than they used to. I then went to find out what the problem was. The CPU was usually at 0-10% at 36-38C during the slowdowns, so that wasn't the problem. RAM was around 34% full, so not there either. It was obviously not the GPU, so I looked at the hard drive, which was at a warm 46C and pinned at 100% with only 10mb/s usage. I've tried to disable the programs that use it the most, which didn't work. I've deleted some stuff, making it only 2/3 full. Didn't work either. I downloaded a HDD check program, which said it was in good shape. I ran the defragmeting program, which didn't help as well.

 

After about 15 min of being on the problems generally go away. If I keep the PC on, I won't have to deal with the problems every time I use it. The problem is that I only use my PC about 3-4 times a week, so keeping it on would waste energy and running a PC 24/7 when you don't need to isn't really a good thing for it.

 

What do you think I should do? Should I reinstall Windows? If worst comes to worst, what HDD should I get? (I'd never use more than 500gb of space)

 

Specs

Intel Core i5 2320 @3.0GHz

8gb DDR3 RAM

GTX 1050 Ti

298GB Hitachi HTS725032A9A364

2

Since the Hitachi HTS725032A9A364 appears to be an aged 7200RPM hard drive, I would suggest that you invest $50 towards a SanDisk SSD PLUS 120GB as a boot drive. You will see a giant improvement in speed when using this computer. If you need more storage, you can use the Hitachi as a data drive.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

What is happening is that Windows is completely bogging down your Hard Drive. Since hard drives are inherently slow and takes them much longer to access data on different parts of the disk since the read head needs to physically move. 

 

I had the same issues with my laptop and desktop as both used to have the primary HDD as boot. Start up times just like you were terrible, things took forever to load, stability was an issue, which lead to the system being unusable for the first 5 minutes after the desktop appears. As SSDs inherently have much higher and consistent read and write rates, you will have a much better experience if you upgrade to one. Even the crappiest SSD you can buy today will be night and day compared to your older HDD.

[BloodyWaters]

9 minutes ago, Homeless_Pineapple said:

Since the Hitachi HTS725032A9A364 appears to be an aged 7200RPM hard drive, I would suggest that you invest $50 towards a SanDisk SSD PLUS 120GB as a boot drive. You will see a giant improvement in speed when using this computer. If you need more storage, you can use the Hitachi as a data drive.

 

1 minute ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

What is happening is that Windows is completely bogging down your Hard Drive. Since hard drives are inherently slow and takes them much longer to access data on different parts of the disk since the read head needs to physically move. 

 

I had the same issues with my laptop and desktop as both used to have the primary HDD as boot. Start up times just like you were terrible, things took forever to load, stability was an issue, which lead to the system being unusable for the first 5 minutes after the desktop appears. As SSDs inherently have much higher and consistent read and write rates, you will have a much better experience if you upgrade to one. Even the crappiest SSD you can buy today will be night and day compared to your older HDD.

Thing is, SSD's are expensive. I'm only willing to spend $50 on an upgrade, and you can't get that much SSD space with that.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

2 minutes ago, BloodyWaters said:

 

Thing is, SSD's are expensive. I'm only willing to spend $50 on an upgrade, and you can't get that much SSD space with that.

You will only be using it as the boot drive. You can reuse your current HDD as mass storage for files and less commonly used programs. There's little you can do to drastically improve performance. Reinstalling Windows is a temporary fix. The issue will come back eventually. 

[BloodyWaters]

Just now, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

You will only be using it as the boot drive. You can reuse your current HDD as mass storage for files and less commonly used programs. 

Could I fit my OS, ~60gb of games, and Unity on there?

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

Just now, BloodyWaters said:

Could I fit my OS, ~60gb of games, and Unity on there?

Should be fine for a 120GB SSD. I generally recommend placing games onto your HDD as you still want some wiggle room for updates, etc.

[BloodyWaters]

Just now, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Should be fine for a 120GB SSD. I generally recommend placing games onto your HDD as you still want some wiggle room for updates, etc.

Ok! Thanks!

[PorkishPig]

Just now, BloodyWaters said:

Could I fit my OS, ~60gb of games, and Unity on there?

Your current Hitachi drive will be able to meet your needs. Just hook up a new Sandisk SSD, install Windows on it, and connect your current drive for additional storage. You just need to make sure you direct all Steam and program libraries to the Hitachi.

[KenjiUmino]

3 minutes ago, BloodyWaters said:

Could I fit my OS, ~60gb of games, and Unity on there?

you don't have to cram everything on the SSD - you can have your games on the HDD while using the SSD as boot drive - that means only windows and a hand full of programs you use often need to be on the SSD, all your games and music/videos/pictures can go to the HDD 

[BloodyWaters]

Just now, Homeless_Pineapple said:

Your current Hitachi drive will be able to meet your needs. Just hook up a new Sandisk SSD, install Windows on it, and connect your current drive for additional storage. You just need to make sure you direct all Steam and program libraries to the Hitachi.

Sounds good! Thanks!

[BloodyWaters]

Just now, KenjiUmino said:

you don't have to cram everything on the SSD - you can have your games on the HDD while using the SSD as boot drive - that means only windows and a hand full of programs you use often need to be on the SSD, all your games and music/videos/pictures can go to the HDD 

Those are the things I frequently use.

[KenjiUmino]

Just now, BloodyWaters said:

Those are the things I frequently use.

windows not on SSD = whole computer slow

 

games not on SSD = game loads only a few seconds longer compared to SSD but FPS the same