Windows progressively gets slower (Hardware or software issue?)

[AndresQuintero]

I have been building PCs for over 7 years. Although my main operating systems are MacOs and Linux, I still know my way through windows. About 3 or 4 months ago, my father's PC started getting slower and slower boot times on his R7 2700 machine. He said he felt slow downs and that perhaps he needed an upgrade (he does architecture and 3D renders). I told him he had a really good build with that 8 core and that perhaps he just needed to get a new SSD. He upgraded to a PCI-E M.2 SSD and re-install Windows. Boot times where back to normal and everything seemed ok. However, after a day, the boot times started slowly increasing from 25 seconds all the way to a full minute and a half. He was convinced it was a graphics card issue to I donated by 1080ti so that he could work with it meanwhile. He re-installed windows and everything was magically back to normal. After 3 days all the problems came back. 

 

I am convinced this is a software issue not a hardware issue. The bios screen appears after 14 seconds and then it is windows that takes a really long time load. The fact that it gradually increases is concerning and I can't quite understand it. My father is currently re-installing windows once again, this time with no other hard-drives but the SSD installed and only 16gb of ram on dual-channel.

Any ideas on what could be happening?

- R7 2700

- X370 Gaming X Asrock 

- GTX 1080ti

- 16 gb 2400 Mhz Ram.

[AndresQuintero]

I have been building PCs for over 7 years. Although my main operating systems are MacOs and Linux, I still know my way through windows. About 3 or 4 months ago, my father's PC started getting slower and slower boot times on his R7 2700 machine. He said he felt slow downs and that perhaps he needed an upgrade (he does architecture and 3D renders). I told him he had a really good build with that 8 core and that perhaps he just needed to get a new SSD. He upgraded to a PCI-E M.2 SSD and re-install Windows. Boot times where back to normal and everything seemed ok. However, after a day, the boot times started slowly increasing from 25 seconds all the way to a full minute and a half. He was convinced it was a graphics card issue to I donated by 1080ti so that he could work with it meanwhile. He re-installed windows and everything was magically back to normal. After 3 days all the problems came back. 

 

I am convinced this is a software issue not a hardware issue. The bios screen appears after 14 seconds and then it is windows that takes a really long time load. The fact that it gradually increases is concerning and I can't quite understand it. My father is currently re-installing windows once again, this time with no other hard-drives but the SSD installed and only 16gb of ram on dual-channel.

Any ideas on what could be happening?

- R7 2700

- X370 Gaming X Asrock 

- GTX 1080ti

- 16 gb 2400 Mhz Ram.

[Moonzy]

sounds like one of his softwares may be causing issues

 

but if it affects bios appearance time, it's not software issue.

 

how full is his SSD?

[SansVarnic]

-= Topics Merged =-

 

Please post only once.

[AndresQuintero]

1 hour ago, Moonzy said:

sounds like one of his softwares may be causing issues

 

but if it affects bios appearance time, it's not software issue.

 

how full is his SSD?

It does not affect BIOS UEFI appearance time. The SSD is brand new and has no files in it. Only the windows install. 

[Moonzy]

24 minutes ago, AndresQuintero said:

It does not affect BIOS UEFI appearance time. The SSD is brand new and has no files in it. Only the windows install. 

try booting into safe mode next time this occurs, see if it takes a long time to boot

 

sounds like it's one of his softwares causing it to boot longer then

[Mark Kaine]

5 hours ago, Moonzy said:

try booting into safe mode next time this occurs, see if it takes a long time to boot

 

sounds like it's one of his softwares causing it to boot longer then

which could be easily fixed by not having any non default software in startup tho?

 

Eh, frankly, outside of that I don't know what could be causing this, but it does sound like a software issue for sure.

 

I don't know, but my laptop suddenly became really slow after a windows update, so I reverted and it's much snappier again, however the laptop was slow immediately and not "after 3 days" so it's probably not the same issue.

[Moonzy]

7 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

which could be easily fixed by not having any non default software in startup tho?

hard to say, some software edits windows, so even if it's not running, it can still slow it down

[Mark Kaine]

5 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

hard to say, some software edits windows, so even if it's not running, it can still slow it down

yeah that's possible. tho it sounds like nothing is installed currently,tho it could be on a second drive, we'd need OP to clarify that.

[homeap5]

Imo it's NOT a software issue and installing Windows again is pointless. It may be just faulty second drive (if your father have any) or some external device that slows down boot process because can't start proper. It can be overheating problem too. Or even external hdd. Years ago it may be also DVD inserted.

 

But if it is software issue then it's probably related to software your father use. Some programs have really strange protection and needs special drivers that may cause problems with boot if these programs are old.

 

It may be also driver that update automatically and causes problem.

 

You should do clone of your old os to check for sure. If cloned os boot time is much better than original one - it's drive problem.

 

If you want to know what software is starting with your system (if you think it's software issue), use Autoruns.

[Aree Soothsayer]

14s for your Bios to startup? That sounds slow to me. Check and see if the motherboard maker has more up to date firmware. The old one might be fussing about something new in the Windows install. Something that sort of accumulates over time.

[AndresQuintero]

Updates. My father has been installing software and every time he installs a new program he restarts and checks time. Again, after a couple of hours it starts running slow out of no where. I will try to use Autoruns to see if there is any piece of software that may be slowing the system down on startup. 

The faulty second drive could have been a problem but, we thought of that early on and disconnected all drives except the main PCI-e ssd. 

Still we have no idea. Re-installing windows solves the issue temporarily.

[Aree Soothsayer]

2 hours ago, AndresQuintero said:

Updates. My father has been installing software and every time he installs a new program he restarts and checks time. Again, after a couple of hours it starts running slow out of no where. I will try to use Autoruns to see if there is any piece of software that may be slowing the system down on startup. 

The faulty second drive could have been a problem but, we thought of that early on and disconnected all drives except the main PCI-e ssd. 

Still we have no idea. Re-installing windows solves the issue temporarily.

Then windows updates itself in the background and the problem crops up again.

[AndresQuintero]

On 9/21/2020 at 1:14 AM, Aree Soothsayer said:

Then windows updates itself in the background and the problem crops up again.

Should I disable update from the beggening? I believe it would be a security risk

[Aree Soothsayer]

Follow these directions, they will leave you in control of when you update. Then you can also make an image of your drive in case of  "oh noooo!" and something went wrong.

 

Press the Windows logo key + R then type gpedit.msc and click OK.
Go to "Computer Configuration" > "Administrative Templates" > "Windows Components" > "Windows Update".
Double-click "Configure Automatic Updates".
Select "Disabled" in Configured Automatic Updates on the left, and click Apply and "OK" to disable the Windows automatic update feature.

 

[Mark Kaine]

17 hours ago, AndresQuintero said:

Should I disable update from the beggening? I believe it would be a security risk

the "security risk" is vastly over exaggerated and it would just be for a few days to test things anyway (initially???) - because yes it does sound a lot like an update problem as has been pointed out.