Windows 10 - Every disk shows 0% usage, performance is very sluggish
Windows 10 - Every disk shows 0% usage, performance is very sluggish
I returned to my computer this morning, still lingering from the previous day, and everything felt unusually slow. System uptime was around 40 hours. This is my media/living room PC with older hardware that remains functional. Windows 10 home CPU: 3600x GPU: GTX 1080 RAM: 16gb CL34 Corsair LXPP DDR4 Boot drive: Toshiba 256gb SSD Drive 2: Samsung 970 Pro Evo 2TB SSD Drive 3: Seagate 2TB HDD Drive 4: WD 1TB. My first action was restarting the PC, assuming it might have developed a problem and shut down. No issue with Queue 15 minute boot time. All disks were showing 0% usage. I suspect the drive is likely the one failing, as it’s around 4 years old and has not improved over time. After checking disk health for a while, I found no significant issues. Windows indicated the drive was healthy. The highest read speed recorded since boot was 1.8kb/s. Am I in trouble? What should I do? I don’t have another drive available to use without moving much data. After a tough day, it turned out my GPU drivers were the culprit. After several reboots and attempts to fix them, I reached the elevation prompt in Computer Management and removed the graphics driver. The problem was resolved.
Check the disk with a chkdsk utility or consider using repair tools. If it fails, there are software options available. For severe issues, certain sectors may be beyond repair.
Everything seems fine and temperatures are stable. The CPU is running at about 10-15% during idle, which matches my past experience. Memory usage is low at 30%, and everything appears normal except the boot drive and Windows, which feels unusually sluggish.
I thought I managed, but starting up isn’t working so it’s probably not what I imagined and I’m struggling to get much done on this machine. My other PC is being used by my cousin; I’ll have a laptop ready once my partner comes home, but for now I don’t have one. There might be an old Linux drive tucked away in a drawer—worth checking? No clue about the USB or which one it is, and I have more than a dozen.
Sure, I managed as well, but it didn't last long. It's worth a try since the symptoms matched and it caused a CPU overload.