Pc having short periods of unresponsiveness

[.Scary]

So my computer has been oddly slow lately out of seemingly nowhere. Games have been freezing then becoming responsive again after about 30 seconds or out right just crashing. I assumed it was my HDD storage drive but I checked it's health through CrystalDiskInfo and running the "chkdsk" command in CMD with it not showing any problems and CrystalDisk says it is in good health.  As well as defragging and using the disk optimize tool in windows 10.  Then I started noticing even Windows and my file explorer were doing the exact same thing with short periods where it is unresponsive. Which is strange because windows is on my SSD boot drive and NOT my HDD. So I assumed windows was corrupted and did the "sfc/scannow" command and there were no corrupted files. I then used fortec to check for possible corrupted files and again there was nothing. So finally I reinstalled windows and I am still experiencing the same issues. I've updated my bios to the most recent version, I've done everything I can possibly think of and I have no idea what could be causing this to happen. The really strange this is that most of time my pc is very snappy and responsive. Any ideas?

[MadAnt250]

Game you play and system specs? And how much space do you have left on your drives?

[.Scary]

6 minutes ago, MadAnt250 said:

Game you play and system specs? And how much space do you have left on your drives?

It has been happening in Rainbow 6 Siege and Red Dead Redemption 2 that I've noticed so far. Tried Elden Ring maxed out and didn't seem to have that problem but I only ran it for about 15 minutes. All games are stored on the HDD

C drive has 58 Available /250 gigs 
D drive has 403 Available /2TB 
RTX 3060 TI
Ryzen 5 5600x 
Gigabyte Aorus AX370 Gaming K5 
32 GB Ram @ 3200
650 watt PSU

[Tech Reprise]

7 minutes ago, .Scary said:

It has been happening in Rainbow 6 Siege and Red Dead Redemption 2 that I've noticed so far. Tried Elden Ring maxed out and didn't seem to have that problem but I only ran it for about 15 minutes. All games are stored on the HDD

C drive has 58 Available /250 gigs 
D drive has 403 Available /2TB 
RTX 3060 TI
Ryzen 5 5600x 
Gigabyte Aorus AX370 Gaming K5 
32 GB Ram @ 3200
650 watt PSU

I myself had a Gigabyte X370 and there were random memory issues kinda like yours. It would randomly stop recognizing a memory stick or revert back to base 2133Mhz speed which made the system work sluggishly and stutter.
You should reinstall all the memory sticks and update to latest Chipset, Reset Bios to see if problem is solved. If not then we can further discuss other possible solutions.

[MadAnt250]

5 minutes ago, .Scary said:

It has been happening in Rainbow 6 Siege and Red Dead Redemption 2 that I've noticed so far. Tried Elden Ring maxed out and didn't seem to have that problem but I only ran it for about 15 minutes. All games are stored on the HDD

C drive has 58 Available /250 gigs 
D drive has 403 Available /2TB 
RTX 3060 TI
Ryzen 5 5600x 
Gigabyte Aorus AX370 Gaming K5 
32 GB Ram @ 3200
650 watt PSU

So Rainbow 6 and RDR2 so far.

Can you monitor what is going on as far as temps, CPU and GPU utilization goes?

 

Also, have you tried to defrag you HDD?

[.Scary]

1 minute ago, MadAnt250 said:

So Rainbow 6 and RDR2 so far.

Can you monitor what is going on as far as temps, CPU and GPU utilization goes?

 

Also, have you tried to defrag you HDD?

Yes as mentioned above I have defragged and optimized both drives, in terms of temps I just got an awesome noctua cooler and my CPU in RDR2 didn't even break 70c 
GPU was at about 70c as well, checking with HWmonitor of course! CPU utilization Idle sits at about 2-4% GPU utilization Idle is 0% obviously haha 
in game CPU utilization goes to between 55-70%, GPU about 70-85% 

[.Scary]

6 minutes ago, Techreprise said:

I myself had a Gigabyte X370 and there were random memory issues kinda like yours. It would randomly stop recognizing a memory stick or revert back to base 2133Mhz speed which made the system work sluggishly and stutter.
You should reinstall all the memory sticks and update to latest Chipset, Reset Bios to see if problem is solved. If not then we can further discuss other possible solutions.

I haven't experienced memory not recognizing or XMP being randomly disabled and I've had this board for about 5 years so that issue in particular can be ruled out. I did not however update to latest chipset now that I think about so I'll give that a go! I will also try resetting the bios! 

[.Scary]

31 minutes ago, Techreprise said:

I myself had a Gigabyte X370 and there were random memory issues kinda like yours. It would randomly stop recognizing a memory stick or revert back to base 2133Mhz speed which made the system work sluggishly and stutter.
You should reinstall all the memory sticks and update to latest Chipset, Reset Bios to see if problem is solved. If not then we can further discuss other possible solutions.

Yeah still getting the same issue  

[Tech Reprise]

Just now, .Scary said:

Yeah still getting the same issue  

Try moving the smallest game to ssd and check.

[MadAnt250]

One of so many things can be the cause, it's kinda frustrating when stuff like this happens. 

Some more things to try are:

Verifying the integrity of the game's files.

Clearing the game's cache.

Try an older gpu driver.

Try another drive. 

Reinstall the game.

 

 

[.Scary]

3 hours ago, Techreprise said:

Try moving the smallest game to ssd and check.

I tried some very weak RPG Maker games and they all ran fine with no issues on both drives. Tested with Metal Gear Solid V on the HDD I got the freezing issue and on my SSD I did not so It seems it's my HDD that is the problem. I'm just wondering how that is possibly affecting my file explorer/windows because windows is installed on my SSD and also wondering how CrystalDisk and chkdsk Command can't tell the drive is failing. Also another thing I forgot to mention is my desktop image goes black sometimes, all shortcuts are still visible and when the window to give an app permission to make changes pops up (i.e installing a program) sometimes instead of dimming the background around the window the screen around the window will go black. 

[Tech Reprise]

6 hours ago, .Scary said:

I tried some very weak RPG Maker games and they all ran fine with no issues on both drives. Tested with Metal Gear Solid V on the HDD I got the freezing issue and on my SSD I did not so It seems it's my HDD that is the problem. I'm just wondering how that is possibly affecting my file explorer/windows because windows is installed on my SSD and also wondering how CrystalDisk and chkdsk Command can't tell the drive is failing. Also another thing I forgot to mention is my desktop image goes black sometimes, all shortcuts are still visible and when the window to give an app permission to make changes pops up (i.e installing a program) sometimes instead of dimming the background around the window the screen around the window will go black. 

Chkdsk is not that reliable when it comes to HDD health. 

I would start by disconnecting the HDD and see if it solves the issue with windows. Also do a scan with some good Antivirus like Kaspersky, Malwarebytes to check for any malware. But to me it seems like a dying HDD which is slowing the OS down when the OS is trying to access something thing on the HDD.

[.Scary]

2 hours ago, Techreprise said:

Chkdsk is not that reliable when it comes to HDD health. 

I would start by disconnecting the HDD and see if it solves the issue with windows. Also do a scan with some good Antivirus like Kaspersky, Malwarebytes to check for any malware. But to me it seems like a dying HDD which is slowing the OS down when the OS is trying to access something thing on the HDD.

That makes sense I will do that! I did run malwarebytes the other day and had no results so I agree it's probably the HDD I will update the thread when I get a new drive. Thanks for all the help!

[.Scary]

Got a new SSD today and sure enough it solved the problem! My HDD was the issue, Played RDR2 for 2 hours without any instances of freezing! Thank you both for the help!