My fiancée's computer is acting... weird....

[inZaniac]

So my fiancée has been having issues today. Her computer has suddenly stopped working normally, what I mean by this is even since she booted it up today, it's been hanging/freezing at the simplest of tasks and barely function for more then a short period of time. The description she has given me is that nothing works, ctrl+alt+del doesn't work, can't bring up task manager, and have to hard shut it down and try to restart it that way. She's tried giving the computer time to think and nothing. When it does work, it barely works, super slow and unresponsive and she's tried everything to check to see what the issue is and can't find anything as to why or what is causing all of this. 

 

My first theory was that it might be RAM related but I am unsure myself and without being able to go see her as she lives quite a distance away, I am basically stuck being phone support. Can point me in the right direction to try and figure out how we might be able to find the issue so we can try to figure out a fix?

 

Some background of the computer,

 

Windows 10,

Intel i7-3770k (yes she's still rocking a 3rd gen chip)

mobo is a generic but decent one (I think gigabyte but I can't remember for sure)

GTX 970 gpu

and 16gb of ram ( I don't know speeds or make/model)

she has multiple HDD's and a SSD(OS)

 

I hope I have given an adequate explanation as to what the symptoms are and if there are any further questions, I will do my best to try to answer them.

 

I really appreciate any help because I really don't know where to start with this one.

 

Thanks guys  

[Arrogath]

I immediately suspect a windows update having done something goofy personally, they've had a few mistakes in the past that cause issues on certain hardware so I'm not ruling it out. Personally I would suggest a clean install, and then go from there depending on if it clears up your issue. If she needs to rescue things off the drive she could try using a system restore point, you can get into the repair windows option by making an installation media usb and booting from that. There is the possibility of hardware failure, but I would definitely check all the heat sinks and fans before assuming it's broken. The computer could just need a good blow out if it's just thermal throttling

[SupaKomputa]

4 minutes ago, Arrogath said:

I immediately suspect a windows update having done something goofy personally, they've had a few mistakes in the past that cause issues on certain hardware so I'm not ruling it out. Personally I would suggest a clean install, and then go from there depending on if it clears up your issue. If she needs to rescue things off the drive she could try using a system restore point, you can get into the repair windows option by making an installation media usb and booting from that. There is the possibility of hardware failure, but I would definitely check all the heat sinks and fans before assuming it's broken. The computer could just need a good blow out if it's just thermal throttling

Don't, reinstall is the last thing you wanna do, check the hardware first:

- Memory : unplug, clean and check with Memtest86.

- HDD: scan and repair. check for bad sectors.

- Check temperature, if hot, clean heatsink and reapply thermal paste.

If everything clear, now open windows update, uninstall the last / recent update.