Is it lupus?
July 19, 2018 8:12 PM Subscribe
My laptop's been having a bit of trouble for the last two weeks or so. Things that normally boot up within a second now takes up to ten seconds. E.g. I'd click on an icon (say, firefox) and it would take about five seconds for the hover-over animation to show, then another five for the program to start. More deets below.
Occasionally the laptop starts with a sound like a washing machine spinning or an engine starting in slow motion, but not a 'grinding' sound. It's never come close to overheating before but has gotten a little hot now once or twice. Once it gets running it goes a little smoother but still sluggish. No crashes/clicks/BSOD, all my files are where they normally are with normal names. It sometimes runs normally after a few restarts. The vents are on the rear of the machine and aren't blocked when I use the laptop. It's a newly built unit, just over a year old.
For protection I block ads, use Malwarebytes, Windows Defender, and common sense. I haven't had a virus on this laptop.
Specs:
OS: Windows 10
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB
Processor: i7
RAM: 16GB
main stuff on a 240GB SATA SSD, media on a 500GB HDD
Any thoughts?
Occasionally the laptop starts with a sound like a washing machine spinning or an engine starting in slow motion, but not a 'grinding' sound. It's never come close to overheating before but has gotten a little hot now once or twice. Once it gets running it goes a little smoother but still sluggish. No crashes/clicks/BSOD, all my files are where they normally are with normal names. It sometimes runs normally after a few restarts. The vents are on the rear of the machine and aren't blocked when I use the laptop. It's a newly built unit, just over a year old.
For protection I block ads, use Malwarebytes, Windows Defender, and common sense. I haven't had a virus on this laptop.
Specs:
OS: Windows 10
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB
Processor: i7
RAM: 16GB
main stuff on a 240GB SATA SSD, media on a 500GB HDD
Any thoughts?
Response by poster: No Spotify, but I kind of have the thought that it happened after the lat major Window's update (not sure if coincidence). I forgot to mention that in both drives I have at least a third of the space left.
posted by womb of things to be and tomb of things that were at 8:22 PM on July 19, 2018
posted by womb of things to be and tomb of things that were at 8:22 PM on July 19, 2018
Best answer: Is it an SSD or a regular HD? I'm not sure what might be going on, but it sounds like something weird with a spinning platter.
posted by Alensin at 9:26 PM on July 19, 2018
posted by Alensin at 9:26 PM on July 19, 2018
Best answer: Never mind. I see that it features both an SSD and regular HD. Oops.
posted by Alensin at 9:56 PM on July 19, 2018
posted by Alensin at 9:56 PM on July 19, 2018
Best answer: What does Task Manager show in usage (RAM, processor, disk usage)? I've had a similar issue with slowing down related to indexing and/or Superfetch at times, and that'll show as the appropriate process taking up too many resources. The whirring sound is making me think either HDD or fan...
posted by I claim sanctuary at 10:01 PM on July 19, 2018
posted by I claim sanctuary at 10:01 PM on July 19, 2018
Best answer: The bearings in the fan that cools your CPU are failing, or full of dust. That's the grinding. The slow is your CPU doing heat throttling to keep from burning itself out.
Get a can of compressed air and blow that gunk out... you may need to get a fan replacement.
posted by zengargoyle at 10:53 PM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]
Get a can of compressed air and blow that gunk out... you may need to get a fan replacement.
posted by zengargoyle at 10:53 PM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]
Best answer: Or the HDD part is dying.... there's not much else that can make noise.
posted by zengargoyle at 10:59 PM on July 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by zengargoyle at 10:59 PM on July 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
Best answer: On a friend's much older Windows 10 laptop having an overheating problem I was able to fiddle around in Performance Monitor until I got it to display the processor temperature. It showed the temperature in Kelvin, which made it difficult to interpret, but it made it possible to compare the temperature just after booting up to the point when problems started showing up.
(Though I would think there may be other explanations besides overheating; I would start with the above suggestion to check what's going on in Task Manager.)
posted by XMLicious at 3:07 AM on July 20, 2018
(Though I would think there may be other explanations besides overheating; I would start with the above suggestion to check what's going on in Task Manager.)
posted by XMLicious at 3:07 AM on July 20, 2018
Best answer: Oh, I keep forgetting that many modern computers have built-in diagnostics that you can run to check the hardware at least a bit...
You didn't mention the actual make/model of your laptop... but for instance, a google search of 'dell uefi self diagnostics' tells me how to reboot my laptop and press a button and start the built-in diagnostics.
If you can find this for your laptop... you might be able to rule out actual hardware problems, or maybe not... but it would at least hopefully check the obvious things wrong with your laptop's hardware regardless of what OS you use. Depends on your laptop make/model...
posted by zengargoyle at 4:32 AM on July 20, 2018
You didn't mention the actual make/model of your laptop... but for instance, a google search of 'dell uefi self diagnostics' tells me how to reboot my laptop and press a button and start the built-in diagnostics.
If you can find this for your laptop... you might be able to rule out actual hardware problems, or maybe not... but it would at least hopefully check the obvious things wrong with your laptop's hardware regardless of what OS you use. Depends on your laptop make/model...
posted by zengargoyle at 4:32 AM on July 20, 2018
Best answer: I hesitate to push this out there because the potential for hosing a system is profoundly huge, but ... there's a website, Tweaking.com, that proffers a program, also called tweaking.com that pretty much fixed two immensely buggy laptops recently (long lags, things not running at all, etc.) I was so desperate that I just let it run its default horrifyingly long and complex mechanations, and darned if it didn't give me back two perfectly running Windows 10 computers. (Ignore the PC Health "free" scan ads, etc.). Like I said, though, if it paperweights your machine, I was never here.
posted by Chitownfats at 6:15 AM on July 20, 2018
posted by Chitownfats at 6:15 AM on July 20, 2018
Response by poster: (sorry to threadsit)
Thanks heaps for all the replies so far.
Re: Task Manager- I don't see anything different to when my computer was happy. Mostly just hogged by firefox and chrome, and windows defender, but not a huge amount.
Re: seeing when the problem happens- it happens right away, from booting up (normally it takes less than 15 seconds from hitting the power button through loading screens through lockscreen through start up (only a couple of apps) through to me starting to work. Now each step takes about five seconds all on its own. I lied about the error msg, just remembered that I sometimes get an error message before the lockscreen happens saying that my wacom graphics tablet can't run or something (it's not plugged in).
zengargoyle: there's no grinding sound. My laptop is a Metabox (rebranded clevo).
Update: It seems to have been fixed now. I tried moving everything off my desktop (though there wasn't a lot) and moved a bunch of files to a USB. The indexing comment above made me think of how many webpages I saved the last few months thinking eh, I'll sort this out tomorrow, and ended up with gabillions of resource folders as well. So I deleted a bunch of them. I don't know if that's actually related to the lappie working normally now, or if something happened under the hood spontaneously, but last week my laptop went back to normal for a few hours after I deleted things off the desktop as well (thought it was a coincidence so didn't mention it), so maybe it is? I also just realised that in the 'about' section in settings (the Windows Defender bit), the little circle next to Device performance and Health had been black (though the health report had said no issues so ??), now it's a tick like the rest of them.
I'll get an can of air compressor tomorrow nevertheless. If anyone else has any more thoughts I'd appreciate them, in case this isn't a permafix.
posted by womb of things to be and tomb of things that were at 6:43 AM on July 20, 2018
Thanks heaps for all the replies so far.
Re: Task Manager- I don't see anything different to when my computer was happy. Mostly just hogged by firefox and chrome, and windows defender, but not a huge amount.
Re: seeing when the problem happens- it happens right away, from booting up (normally it takes less than 15 seconds from hitting the power button through loading screens through lockscreen through start up (only a couple of apps) through to me starting to work. Now each step takes about five seconds all on its own. I lied about the error msg, just remembered that I sometimes get an error message before the lockscreen happens saying that my wacom graphics tablet can't run or something (it's not plugged in).
zengargoyle: there's no grinding sound. My laptop is a Metabox (rebranded clevo).
Update: It seems to have been fixed now. I tried moving everything off my desktop (though there wasn't a lot) and moved a bunch of files to a USB. The indexing comment above made me think of how many webpages I saved the last few months thinking eh, I'll sort this out tomorrow, and ended up with gabillions of resource folders as well. So I deleted a bunch of them. I don't know if that's actually related to the lappie working normally now, or if something happened under the hood spontaneously, but last week my laptop went back to normal for a few hours after I deleted things off the desktop as well (thought it was a coincidence so didn't mention it), so maybe it is? I also just realised that in the 'about' section in settings (the Windows Defender bit), the little circle next to Device performance and Health had been black (though the health report had said no issues so ??), now it's a tick like the rest of them.
I'll get an can of air compressor tomorrow nevertheless. If anyone else has any more thoughts I'd appreciate them, in case this isn't a permafix.
posted by womb of things to be and tomb of things that were at 6:43 AM on July 20, 2018
Best answer: If you can eliminate hardware issues, and can't make any further progress, the simple thing to do is reinstall windows. I've had to do it once with Windows 10, and it did improve performance considerably. Seems we're not done with periodic reinstalls every few years yet.
Here's the download page to create your reinstall media. I used USB, but check that you computer can boot from it. A USB CD drive is less than $20 and might be another decent alternative. CD's right? But they still work even in our pushbutton world of the future.
The other thing I'd check before hand is Windows activation. What you have to do/need to re-activate the new install varies by how you got windows in the first place. Check to make sure that you have what you need before you start. Also don't be afraid to call MS directly if you run into issues here. I've had to in the past and they have been very helpful in my experience. Windows activation usually Just Works, but you know, just in case.
posted by bonehead at 8:50 AM on July 20, 2018
Here's the download page to create your reinstall media. I used USB, but check that you computer can boot from it. A USB CD drive is less than $20 and might be another decent alternative. CD's right? But they still work even in our pushbutton world of the future.
The other thing I'd check before hand is Windows activation. What you have to do/need to re-activate the new install varies by how you got windows in the first place. Check to make sure that you have what you need before you start. Also don't be afraid to call MS directly if you run into issues here. I've had to in the past and they have been very helpful in my experience. Windows activation usually Just Works, but you know, just in case.
posted by bonehead at 8:50 AM on July 20, 2018
Best answer: When Windows wants to push an update I find that Windows Prefetch eats drive activity and my laptop gets stupid slow. Prefetch is meant to collect he update files in the background without causing trouble, but, yeah. Firefox can do the same thing.
I have Spotify, and I remove it from Startup. I do not need it to be pre-heated; I can wait 5 more seconds for it to load when I want it. Pruning startup can be really helpful.
posted by theora55 at 9:36 AM on July 20, 2018
I have Spotify, and I remove it from Startup. I do not need it to be pre-heated; I can wait 5 more seconds for it to load when I want it. Pruning startup can be really helpful.
posted by theora55 at 9:36 AM on July 20, 2018
Best answer: If you can manage to find the temperature readout in Performance Monitor you might make note of the temperature it runs at now, so that if you find yourself suspecting overheating in the future you aren't stuck wondering, “Is that normal?”
posted by XMLicious at 9:50 AM on July 20, 2018
posted by XMLicious at 9:50 AM on July 20, 2018
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by MexicanYenta at 8:15 PM on July 19, 2018