Windows Explorer freaking out

[HardStroke]

Been having annoying problems with Windows Explorer lately.
Icon on the desktop are showing as the default file (e.g. folders with stuff are showing as empty, image icons are not the images themselves but the white sheet with little blue square) until I refresh the desktop
Pressing Start+E opens on 'This PC' but sometimes it takes 2 minutes to load the drives (says "Working on it..." and loads for 2 minutes) which I've never seen before.
Before the latest Windows update when I opened a video file the explorer just crashed and restarted, and only then was I able to play the video. Now its fine.
Any ideas on why this is happening? I really don't want to deal with backups and a fresh installation right now.
Windows installation is almost 4 years old. Installed on a 970 Evo 500gb with 70% health and 100gb of free storage.

[TempestCatto]

11 minutes ago, HardStroke said:

70% health

Kinda wondering if this right here is the culprit.

[Ha-Satan]

Have you recently changed any other hardware? I have had this happen to me before when I upgraded the motherboard without reinstalling Windows.

[Haswellx86]

Run these commands in the command prompt - 

 

1) chkdsk C: /F

2) sfc /scannow

3) DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

 

And then go in control panel and start automatic maintenance (you can do that through cmd as well).

 

Update Windows as well. If you see anything eating up CPU or drive usage in task manager, just let it keep doing it. Interrupting these events just messes Windows. 

[SpookyCitrus]

55 minutes ago, HardStroke said:

Windows installation is almost 4 years old. Installed on a 970 Evo 500gb with 70% health and 100gb of free storage.

70% health on an Nvme isn't good, it's not terrible but it can definitely explain some issues. Have you ran any read and write tests? If it's status is still "Good" and read and write tests are normal, I'd lean more towards the age of your installation being the problem. I'd do as @Haswellx86 suggested as well as any sort of file cleaning you can thing of. Maybe run Glary to get rid of temp files and the likes. A Windows in-place upgrade/repair install also wouldn't be a bad idea. If you are still having issues after all that or the drives read and writes are not nominal, replace the SSD.

[HardStroke]

1 hour ago, TempestCatto said:

Kinda wondering if this right here is the culprit.

It was fine until now, idk what happened
 

 

57 minutes ago, Satan_Prometheus said:

Have you recently changed any other hardware? I have had this happen to me before when I upgraded the motherboard without reinstalling Windows.

Nope
Only hardware changes I've had in the past 3 years were adding a 980 1tb about a year and a half ago and a CPU upgrade from a 10600k to a 10900k about 2.5 years ago.
Never had any problems.

 

56 minutes ago, Haswellx86 said:

Run these commands in the command prompt - 

 

1) chkdsk C: /F

2) sfc /scannow

3) DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

 

And then go in control panel and start automatic maintenance (you can do that through cmd as well).

 

Update Windows as well. If you see anything eating up CPU or drive usage in task manager, just let it keep doing it. Interrupting these events just messes Windows. 

Already did that, no success.
RestoreHealth was the first thing I did, didn't help.
 

28 minutes ago, SpookyCitrus said:

70% health on an Nvme isn't good, it's not terrible but it can definitely explain some issues. Have you ran any read and write tests? If it's status is still "Good" and read and write tests are normal, I'd lean more towards the age of your installation being the problem. I'd do as @Haswellx86 suggested as well as any sort of file cleaning you can thing of. Maybe run Glary to get rid of temp files and the likes. A Windows in-place upgrade/repair install also wouldn't be a bad idea. If you are still having issues after all that or the drives read and writes are not nominal, replace the SSD.

Yes, I ran a test with Samsung Magician (thought maybe it would find something since its Samsung's software and hardware, idk) which came fine, about to run one with crystaldiskmark which should be way more detailed.
Its 4 years old, purchased Nov 2020.
I'm also leaning toward the age of the OS but its such a PITA is this is the actual case. I hope not.

[HardStroke]

48 minutes ago, SpookyCitrus said:

70% health on an Nvme isn't good, it's not terrible but it can definitely explain some issues. Have you ran any read and write tests? If it's status is still "Good" and read and write tests are normal, I'd lean more towards the age of your installation being the problem. I'd do as @Haswellx86 suggested as well as any sort of file cleaning you can thing of. Maybe run Glary to get rid of temp files and the likes. A Windows in-place upgrade/repair install also wouldn't be a bad idea. If you are still having issues after all that or the drives read and writes are not nominal, replace the SSD.

Update:
Ran CDM and here's the result:

 

Write speeds are very low, idk why.

[SpookyCitrus]

41 minutes ago, HardStroke said:

Update:
Ran CDM and here's the result:

Write speeds are very low, idk why.

Have you ran these tests prior or when the system was newer? Have you ever gotten the full write speed? If you've never checked, it could just be a limitation of the M.2 slot you have it installed in or if you have multiple drives in the system the pcie lanes could be affecting the speeds for the slot. It could also be due to the drive being 82% full and a limitation of the cache. If there is no reason for it to be so slow it could be due to the health and it would be recommended to replace it. 

 

Again if you don't want to fresh install Windows an in-place upgrade may work.

 

Or if you have other nicer M.2 Nvme drives in the system you may want to clone the OS over to one of the newer nicer drives and use that older one solely for storage. 

[HardStroke]

12 hours ago, SpookyCitrus said:

Have you ran these tests prior or when the system was newer? Have you ever gotten the full write speed? If you've never checked, it could just be a limitation of the M.2 slot you have it installed in or if you have multiple drives in the system the pcie lanes could be affecting the speeds for the slot. It could also be due to the drive being 82% full and a limitation of the cache. If there is no reason for it to be so slow it could be due to the health and it would be recommended to replace it. 

 

Again if you don't want to fresh install Windows an in-place upgrade may work.

 

Or if you have other nicer M.2 Nvme drives in the system you may want to clone the OS over to one of the newer nicer drives and use that older one solely for storage. 

First thing I did after installing that 970 Evo and installing Windows was run a CDM test. Came out fine. Both read and write speeds.
PCIE lanes were not effected at all, I already took care of it when I installed my 980 a year and a half ago.
Checked a few times to ensure the speeds are all as they should and that nothing interferes with nothing.
In-place upgrade as in upgrading to Windows 11?
I heard that cloning an OS can have errors and cause problems.
I have a brand new 970 Evo Plus 500gb that sits on my shelf but idk if I really want to deal with this thing.
 

[SpookyCitrus]

6 hours ago, HardStroke said:

First thing I did after installing that 970 Evo and installing Windows was run a CDM test. Came out fine. Both read and write speeds.
PCIE lanes were not effected at all, I already took care of it when I installed my 980 a year and a half ago.
Checked a few times to ensure the speeds are all as they should and that nothing interferes with nothing.
In-place upgrade as in upgrading to Windows 11?
I heard that cloning an OS can have errors and cause problems.
I have a brand new 970 Evo Plus 500gb that sits on my shelf but idk if I really want to deal with this thing.
 

Sounds to me like your drive is failing then, the low health, the slow write speeds, the Windows issues indicating a slow or failing drive. If this were my computer I'd replace the drive and do a clone

 

If you use the right software clones are actually very simple to do. Both Macrium Reflect and Aomei Partition Assistant will allow you to do a clone from within Windows to a new drive. Once done you can simply swap the drive out. Sometimes it will have trouble booting so it's advised to run Macrium's boot fix on the drive prior to trying to boot into it. There are plenty of videos out there on how to do an OS clone.

 

An in-place upgrade is where you use a Windows install USB, if you're on Windows 10 you'd use a 10 installer, to re-install Windows over itself. It doesn't remove any apps or data it just fixes any OS corruption with the system files. If you have a Windows 10 install USB you simply launch the setup.exe from within your current Windows and it will walk through installing Windows but give you the option to keep apps and data. You can do the same thing by installing the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool and just running the installer from your desktop.  If you were on a newer version of Windows 11 you could do it from within Windows as they have an actual tool for it now called Repair Install in the settings.