Windows 11 Machine Slows to Crawl out of nowhere...

[laez]

Hello! I've been building PC's for over 20 years and have never run in to an issue that I haven't been able to troubleshoot. Well, my latest machine out of nowhere has this nutty issue... I'll be using it, playing a stupid game like FTL, and all of a sudden everything freezes... If I click on something or try and move a window, it responds 30 seconds to or more later... This particular time I managed to slowly (infuriatingly) get in to task manager. It is also experiencing the extreme slowness. There is literally nothing pushing the system, fans are all off it's using so little resources. SSD's (all Samsung 980 pros) 0% utilization, RAM is less than 12%, and the processor is nearly at idle. Running a 13900k, RTX4090 founders, fast corsair RAM (shut off the higher clock settings hoping that would help, but nope). There is just nothing I can really do to troubleshoot... because by all appearances nothing is wrong, even while the CRAWL is happening. Anyway, was hoping someone else might have seen something similar perhaps something I'm missing. This machine has never seen a shady website, it's literally dedicated to games through steam. I use Macs for work, so if it's time to abandon the PC world so be it. Anyway, the last crazy issue I went through I managed to find the answer on these forms (moved from a 12900k to a 13900k and got caught in a loop due to ASUS not distributing the updated Intel RAID drivers on the site for this particular board yet), so I figured I'd give it another shot before I part this thing out. Thanks! 

[chtorogu]

What clockrate is it running at when this happens? I have a 4690K that does something similar sometimes when speedstep is active. I found it was due to it getting stuck at the lowest frequency of 800 MHz. Turned off Speedstep and the problem went away.

[laez]

41 minutes ago, chtorogu said:

What clockrate is it running at when this happens? I have a 4690K that does something similar sometimes when speedstep is active. I found it was due to it getting stuck at the lowest frequency of 800 MHz. Turned off Speedstep and the problem went away.

Will check that out!

[Mark Kaine]

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO

 

 

 

[191x7]

3 hours ago, laez said:

Hello! I've been building PC's for over 20 years and have never run in to an issue that I haven't been able to troubleshoot. Well, my latest machine out of nowhere has this nutty issue... I'll be using it, playing a stupid game like FTL, and all of a sudden everything freezes... If I click on something or try and move a window, it responds 30 seconds to or more later... This particular time I managed to slowly (infuriatingly) get in to task manager. It is also experiencing the extreme slowness. There is literally nothing pushing the system, fans are all off it's using so little resources. SSD's (all Samsung 980 pros) 0% utilization, RAM is less than 12%, and the processor is nearly at idle. Running a 13900k, RTX4090 founders, fast corsair RAM (shut off the higher clock settings hoping that would help, but nope). There is just nothing I can really do to troubleshoot... because by all appearances nothing is wrong, even while the CRAWL is happening. Anyway, was hoping someone else might have seen something similar perhaps something I'm missing. This machine has never seen a shady website, it's literally dedicated to games through steam. I use Macs for work, so if it's time to abandon the PC world so be it. Anyway, the last crazy issue I went through I managed to find the answer on these forms (moved from a 12900k to a 13900k and got caught in a loop due to ASUS not distributing the updated Intel RAID drivers on the site for this particular board yet), so I figured I'd give it another shot before I part this thing out. Thanks! 

Latest firmware on the SSD-s?

tested RAM with memtest86+?

Disabled the Multiplane Overlay MPO?

[laez]

8 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO

 

 

 

lol - not gonna lie, I thought about it. 

[laez]

8 hours ago, 191x7 said:

Latest firmware on the SSD-s?

tested RAM with memtest86+?

Disabled the Multiplane Overlay MPO?

Will test the RAM just in case, but it's only recently started happening. Built the machine in October/November of 22 when the 13900k and RTX4090 released. Has been rock solid until just this past month or so. 

[Bjoolz]

Could you screenshot Task Manager? Both the Processes tab and the Performance tab? 

[laez]

42 minutes ago, Bjoolz said:

Could you screenshot Task Manager? Both the Processes tab and the Performance tab? 

It's very difficult to do when it's happening, every action on the machine takes like 30 seconds to multiple minutes to do - but, when it happens again I'll give it a shot! It's super weird, like literally nothing is running on the machine but it's just crawling. Perfmon is near flat, temps are low, fans are at the bottom of their curves because nothing is happening. Just Windows is CRAWLING, but nothing in Task Manager indicates that it should be... Like there should be some process that's tapping out the CPU, or the NVMEs, RAM, something. But by all indicators, the machine is running smooth as silk. But, Windows is acting like it's in a time warp that's slowing everything down to a crawl - like, I can't even drag a Window with the mouse in realtime. I drag it and maybe a minute later is slowly moves across the screen... Never seen anything like this. 

[da na]

Sounds like the Dell Throttlegate issues outta 2008. CPUs would clock down out of nowhere. Try ThrottleStop to keep your CPU boosting.

[laez]

11 hours ago, Bjoolz said:

Could you screenshot Task Manager? Both the Processes tab and the Performance tab? 

 

[laez]

Had to take photos since the PC is unusable. 

[Mark Kaine]

15 hours ago, laez said:

lol - not gonna lie, I thought about it. 

DO IT!!!

 

[Mark Kaine]

14 hours ago, da na said:

Sounds like the Dell Throttlegate issues outta 2008. CPUs would clock down out of nowhere. Try ThrottleStop to keep your CPU boosting.

if its a throttlegate issue why's the cpu boosting to 5.48GHz @  1% usage... intels are so weird ngl...

[chtorogu]

Here's an idea for further troubleshooting. Try running a Linux live environment from a USB for some time and see if the slowdowns still occur. This one should feel familiar. https://kubuntu.org/getkubuntu/ If you have an extra drive or an external one you could also make it a more like for like test by installing it.

[Mark Kaine]

On 11/10/2023 at 5:29 AM, laez said:

Hello! I've been building PC's for over 20 years and have never run in to an issue that I haven't been able to troubleshoot. Well, my latest machine out of nowhere has this nutty issue... I'll be using it, playing a stupid game like FTL, and all of a sudden everything freezes... If I click on something or try and move a window, it responds 30 seconds to or more later... This particular time I managed to slowly (infuriatingly) get in to task manager. It is also experiencing the extreme slowness. There is literally nothing pushing the system, fans are all off it's using so little resources. SSD's (all Samsung 980 pros) 0% utilization, RAM is less than 12%, and the processor is nearly at idle. Running a 13900k, RTX4090 founders, fast corsair RAM (shut off the higher clock settings hoping that would help, but nope). There is just nothing I can really do to troubleshoot... because by all appearances nothing is wrong, even while the CRAWL is happening. Anyway, was hoping someone else might have seen something similar perhaps something I'm missing. This machine has never seen a shady website, it's literally dedicated to games through steam. I use Macs for work, so if it's time to abandon the PC world so be it. Anyway, the last crazy issue I went through I managed to find the answer on these forms (moved from a 12900k to a 13900k and got caught in a loop due to ASUS not distributing the updated Intel RAID drivers on the site for this particular board yet), so I figured I'd give it another shot before I part this thing out. Thanks! 

ok, i still in all seriousness recommended windows 10, especially if its just for gaming, why bother with an immature OS that's plagued with issues... but...

you didn't really describe the issue well tbh... "crawl"....

 at what occasions.... games... idle... how long, how frequent.... how does system utilization look while it's happening....?

 

 

also reminder: 

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO

 

 

 

[Bjoolz]

10 hours ago, laez said:

 

Not seeing anything weird. 

[laez]

Ok! Looks like I figured it out - since the machine was stable and nothing showed out of the ordinary, I thought it might just be display related - almost as though there was some sort of buffer between what’s going on in the PC and the display (display lag?). Anyway, I unplugged and replugged the display port cable during one of the times it was happening and it instantly started working perfectly… I’ve replaced the cable and DDUed the drivers for now, we’ll see how that goes… very strange. 

[laez]

6 hours ago, chtorogu said:

Here's an idea for further troubleshooting. Try running a Linux live environment from a USB for some time and see if the slowdowns still occur. This one should feel familiar. https://kubuntu.org/getkubuntu/ If you have an extra drive or an external one you could also make it a more like for like test by installing it.

Great suggestion, I was actually going to do something like this with a windows instance as well, just to see if it was the OS. Fortunately it looks like it was just display related, but I’ll update here for the benefit of all if I discover anything else. 

[laez]

5 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

ok, i still in all seriousness recommended windows 10, especially if its just for gaming, why bother with an immature OS that's plagued with issues... but...

you didn't really describe the issue well tbh... "crawl"....

 at what occasions.... games... idle... how long, how frequent.... how does system utilization look while it's happening....?

 

 

also reminder: 

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO

 

 

 

From my understanding, Windows 10 doesn’t have a scheduler optimized for a 13900k. Otherwise I’d still be on Windows 10.

[Mark Kaine]

4 minutes ago, laez said:

From my understanding, Windows 10 doesn’t have a scheduler optimized for a 13900k. Otherwise I’d still be on Windows 10.

Exactly! ... actually i think it does tho...

 

the point is... it doesn't matter, it has one, and ... 10 is better / more stable.

 

i mean you have the choice, messy "optimization" with 11 or smooth sailing with 10? (until they discontinue it, ig) 

[Mark Kaine]

35 minutes ago, laez said:

Ok! Looks like I figured it out - since the machine was stable and nothing showed out of the ordinary, I thought it might just be display related - almost as though there was some sort of buffer between what’s going on in the PC and the display (display lag?). Anyway, I unplugged and replugged the display port cable during one of the times it was happening and it instantly started working perfectly… I’ve replaced the cable and DDUed the drivers for now, we’ll see how that goes… very strange. 

ok, so it's fixed? lol... 

 

strange but it happens, i guess.

i was honestly just thinking before you throw your pc in the trash, better install a mature os, as last resort!

[laez]

9 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

ok, so it's fixed? lol... 

 

strange but it happens, i guess.

i was honestly just thinking before you throw your pc in the trash, better install a mature os, as last resort!

It's not "fixed" per say, but when it starts happening a simple unplug and replug of the monitor cable fixes it... Super strange, but at least I have a solution. Kinda sad to have to do that with a machine that was like 6k to build lol. 

[Danaterium]

Hi, I created an account just to be able to post and thank you all.  laez, when I read your post it sounded exactly like my own issue right down to the 20+ years building PC’s. This problem was driving me crazy and finally when I came across this site I found an answer.  For me, it was the display port the whole time just like you said.  I unplugged\plugged back in and the system was back to normal operation.  I was so shocked it was that simple.  However I probably would have never figured it out because I fall victim to overlooking the easy solutions even when I try to be aware of it.  Thank you again, and everyone else too for your suggestions.