slow My computer is running too slow what it might be?

[Jonnyriam]

Greetings everyone, so basically my computer has been super slow lately, I can't play any game without it not even letting me alt+tab and do anything on Chrome for example. Multi-casting is crap, boot time too between other things.. so 
I'm curious about what you guys would think of what it could might be a proper solution to it.
Currently my pc specs are:

• CPU: i5-7400 3.0GHz
• RAM: 8GB DDR4
• Motherboard: MSI H110M PRO-D
• Hard drive: 1TB HDD (TOSHIBA DT01ACA100)
• GPU: GTX 1050ti

I've changed my thermal grease a month ago since I know that also as influence in the disk, cleaned it up and everything. But it's still slow, so if you might have any idea why I'd really appreciate it

[Dimondminer11]

2 minutes ago, Jonnyriam said:

Greetings everyone, so basically my computer has been super slow lately, I can't play any game without it not even letting me alt+tab and do anything on Chrome for example. Multi-casting is crap, boot time too between other things.. so 
I'm curious about what you guys would think of what it could might be a proper solution to it.
Currently my pc specs are:

• CPU: i5-7400 3.0GHz
• RAM: 8GB DDR4
• Motherboard: MSI H110M PRO-D
• Hard drive: 1TB HDD (TOSHIBA DT01ACA100)
• GPU: GTX 1050ti

I've changed my thermal grease a month ago since I know that also as influence in the disk, cleaned it up and everything. But it's still slow, so if you might have any idea why I'd really appreciate it

ok 1. Boot time is crap because you are using a mechanical hard drive. 2. The computer is running slowly because you have only 1 stick of ram in single channel mode and you only have a quad core cpu that is damn near slower than the one in my laptop.

[Kilrah]

HDD combined with lack of RAM = garbage performance.

[Spudwell06]

Maybe you should defragment your hard drive

[Haro]

4 minutes ago, Jonnyriam said:

8GB DDR4

Make sure you're not page filing. 

 

4 minutes ago, Jonnyriam said:

CPU: i5-7400 3.0GHz

What games exactly? Well a 4c/4t chip won't be good at multi tasking. But what workload/ games exactly?

 

4 minutes ago, Jonnyriam said:

Hard drive: 1TB HDD (TOSHIBA DT01ACA100)

Wait. Only an HDD?!

Then it's the ram and the drive that is slowing the PC down. For all we know as well it could be that the cpu is pinged at 100%. 

Edited July 26, 2020 by TofuHaroto

[Mister Woof]

1. As stated, mechanical hard drive.

2. Single channel, slow RAM.

3. Slow, 4 core non hyperthreading CPU.

 

It's time to upgrade the whole thing, IMO.

 

Short term solutions are getting an SSD and a good 16GB kit of DDR4, both of which you can reuse for your new build when you do it.

[Moonzy]

10 minutes ago, Dimondminer11 said:

you have only 1 stick of ram in single channel mode and you only have a quad core cpu that is damn near slower than the one in my laptop.

since when will a quadcore cpu cause issues with alt tabbing?

i am using my i5 6600 and i can still alt tab even when it's pinned 100% while gaming.

 

OP, is your ram near 80-100%? how many sticks of ram is in your PC physically?

[TetraSky]

If this is a "new" issue, I suggest looking at what else is booting with your PC.

Open Task Manager and check the Start-Up tab. It should also say how long it took for the last boot to finish and which application slowed boot the most.

Now, this is not the only thing that slows it up. There can be plenty of Services running in the background. But it's harder to tell with those and you can't exactly go around disabling everything either.

 

RAM doesn't matter as much, nor the CPU, not sure what the others are going on about here. It's not like OP is running a Pentium 3 with PC-133 memory here. The 7400 is still more than adequate today and 8GB is fine too, even if it was a single stick (they never said it was).

 

The main issue here, is that you are massively "bottlenecked" by have a single hard drive for everything.
A computer can only be as fast, as the slowest component...

Meaning, over time, it will get slower and slower as you install more and more apps, as it fills up, etc.

Nothing you can do about that, that's how hard drives are. The more you fill it up, the longer it will take to seek through everything it needs to load up. This is not an issue with SSDs because it can access everything at the same speed regardless of where it is on the NAND.

Hard drives will also start slowing down in speed as they age, so that doesn't help either.

 

The only temporary fix/solution, is to simply reformat windows every once in a while, to essentially restart fresh without everything holding it back. (Defragging can only help so much...)

The best solution would be to get an SSD for your OS and softwares and keep large files/applications on the hard drive (like games). You don't need a huge SSD either. 128GB is good enough. (I use 74GB on my OS's SSD right now, for comparison) 

[Moonzy]

16 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

not sure what the others are going on about here. It's not like OP is running a Pentium 3 with PC-133 memory here. The 7400 is still more than adequate today and 8GB is fine too, even if it was a single stick (they never said it was).

this, this is what ticks me off sometimes

people saying completely fine hardware is trash (especially PSU people)

it triggers me

 

i suspect OP's issue is his PC is running out of RAM and using pagefile , which is on his slow hard disk

coupled with your explanation could easily explain his issues

8gb of ram is on the brink of not enough, if u run chrome and games, especially demanding titles

[Kilrah]

24 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

 It's not like OP is running a Pentium 3 with PC-133 memory here. The 7400 is still more than adequate today and 8GB is fine too

8GB is not fine with a game, Chrome plus who knows what. Chrome is using 3GB on its own on my PC right now. If you quit everything and just game then yes, but here the thing will be swapping like mad and doing so on a slow hard drive... so yes, performance will be very reminiscent of the P3 era where it was common not to have enough RAM and have to swap to an HDD.

[Jonnyriam]

48 minutes ago, BlueScope819 said:

Virus scan?

no viruses tbh.

[Jonnyriam]

47 minutes ago, Dimondminer11 said:

ok 1. Boot time is crap because you are using a mechanical hard drive. 2. The computer is running slowly because you have only 1 stick of ram in single channel mode and you only have a quad core cpu that is damn near slower than the one in my laptop.

Thought about getting an SSD before due to the speed they can achieve on boot time, but boot time isn't what really bothers me the most is the fact multi-casting and how slow it gets with google and Rocket League open for example.. I can alt+tab, chrome just seems to be oddly slow upon response

[Jonnyriam]

48 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

Make sure you're not page filing. 

 

What games exactly? Well a 4c/4t chip won't be good at multi tasking. But what workload/ games exactly?

 

Wait. Only an HDD?!

Then it's the ram and the drive that is slowing the PC down. For all we know as well it could be that the cpu is pinged at 100%. 

well I normally don't play really expensive games upon CPU workload. I can play Rocket League just fine on my computer, but for some odd reason I can't on my desktop. Specs aren't much different from this. it has an i5-9400, GTX 1050 and also has an SSD and the main drive, aside that it's all the same.
Yes I only have an HDD here, thought about getting an SSD so loading speeds are faster same with writing ones, but unfortunately my CPU seems to be an issue too. And I've saw some oddly events where my CPU just goes up to 100%. 

[Haro]

Just now, Jonnyriam said:

And I've saw some oddly events where my CPU just goes up to 100%. 

Well. You're cutting your bandwidth in half with that single channel ram. It's only 8 gigs which will most likely result in page filing.  hard drive is just..well slow. And a 4c/4t chip is just simply not enough for any type of multi tasking. 

[Jonnyriam]

45 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

since when will a quadcore cpu cause issues with alt tabbing?

i am using my i5 6600 and i can still alt tab even when it's pinned 100% while gaming.

 

OP, is your ram near 80-100%? how many sticks of ram is in your PC physically?

Yes it's common my RAM reaching those values when i'm gaming only with spotify, chrome, discord and the game open honestly. Also I have 2 sticks physically.

[Jonnyriam]

5 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

Well. You're cutting your bandwidth in half with that single channel ram. It's only 8 gigs which will most likely result in page filing.  hard drive is just..well slow. And a 4c/4t chip is just simply not enough for any type of multi tasking. 

I forgot to say i have 2x 4GB RAM sticks, installed on slot 1 and 3, they are supposed to be working in dual channel

[Moonzy]

7 minutes ago, Jonnyriam said:

Yes it's common my RAM reaching those values when i'm gaming only with spotify, chrome, discord and the game open honestly. Also I have 2 sticks physically.

it's possible that your system is tossing data from RAM to your hard disk because it's running out of space, hence why you feel lag when you alt tab, because the data have to be retrieved from your hard disk

2 minutes ago, Jonnyriam said:

I forgot to say i have 2x 4GB RAM sticks, installed on slot 1 and 3, they are supposed to be working in dual channel

hmm, from the photo of your board i only see 2 slots

Spoiler

is this not your board?

[Haro]

3 minutes ago, Jonnyriam said:

forgot to say i have 2x 4GB RAM

Sadly doesn't change from the fact that it's still 8 gigs. 

[Jonnyriam]

Just now, Moonzy said:

it's possible that your system is tossing data from RAM to your hard disk because it's running out of space, hence why you feel lag when you alt tab, because the data have to be retrieved from your hard disk

hmm, from the photo of your board i only see 2 slots

  Hide contents

is this not your board?

Yeah that's my board 

[Jonnyriam]

1 minute ago, TofuHaroto said:

Sadly doesn't change from the fact that it's still 8 gigs. 

Well true, I sometimes feel like just picking this whole computer, sell it and buy a new one ngl..

[Moonzy]

Just now, Jonnyriam said:

Yeah that's my board 

hmm, you used up your slots

you could add in 1x8GB, paired with 1x4GB, so it'll total to 12GB

you should see some improvements, especially if you tend to hit 80-100% RAM usage

 

also while you're at it, you could grab an SSD, maybe 250gb, to fit in your OS and some commonly played games

this should solve most of your problems

[Haro]

5 minutes ago, Jonnyriam said:

computer, sell it and buy a new one ngl

Just wait for zen 3 right now. And then check what it has to offer and decide to which platform you want to switch to. 

[Jonnyriam]

Just now, TofuHaroto said:

Just wait for zen 3 right now. And then check what it has to offer and decide to which platform you want to switch to. 

Well not that I'm not a fan of AMD, but I feel like there is a bigger support for Intel than AMD, I'm saying this mainly since I dev games as a game dev student, (no I'm not that much of an Hardware person myself), but I wouldn't mind buying one technically right now.

[Haro]

Just now, Jonnyriam said:

bigger support for Intel than AMD,

No not really. 

Correct me if I'm wrong but game dev is more GPU dependant than cpu. 

Either way both will work just fine really. 

[Jonnyriam]

5 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

hmm, you used up your slots

you could add in 1x8GB, paired with 1x4GB, so it'll total to 12GB

you should see some improvements, especially if you tend to hit 80-100% RAM usage

 

also while you're at it, you could grab an SSD, maybe 250gb, to fit in your OS and some commonly played games

this should solve most of your problems

That's not a bad idea itself considered it, maybe would just buy a new one and sell this or use this with an elgato for streaming