PC slowing down

[mikef]

I wonder whether anyone else has experienced this or has any pointers?

I have a decent spec PC that slows down noticeably during the day. I don't mean that it has slowed down over time with bloat - on boot the Geekbench 3 score is 22,000, by the end of the day it's nearer 6,000

This was happening under Win 8.1, still the same under Windows 10

My initial suspects were three services - Malwarebytes Premium, Acronis 2016 and Norton Intenet Security 2015. I've run without those and checked logs, but no real pointers or improvement so far. I also run those exact same services on a couple of other decent spec Win 10 systems that don't exhibit the same behaviour.

Any ideas where to look next?

[mikef]

Thanks, I'll do that next time. Tha CPU isn't being stretched and has a Megahalems cooler with Gelid paste, there are three case fans - I can use the Asus utility to up the fan speeds, so will try that. Also a Corsair PSU that gives diagnostics through USB link.

I do a lot of database development work and did suspect SQL Server which can hog free memory and doesn't show up in memory monitors but I've set the max DB memory setting to less than half the available RAM, so I don't /think/ that's it

[mikef]

Hi

Thanks all for the input

So far the first suggestion looks like the culprit (so especially thanks) Funny how as a software guy I always assume it's a software problem

I've changed the fan profiles, particularly the CPU fans, and so far it's holding up

Mike

[mikef]

nyt said:

Is running 3 anti-virus packages a good idea?

I've always read that they interfere with each other and lead to slowdown

Only two, the Acronis 2016 is an automated backup app
As mentioned, Malwarebytes is a bit different from a normal anti-virus; the Premium version does run as a background service though to catch dodgy content in sites in real time. I do run this combination of Norton 2105 and Malwarebytes on other PCs with no issues

[mikef]

Self-build. I was already thinking that if adjusting the fan profiles doesn't do the trick (they are definitely all working and showing up in the monitor) then I might redo the paste - I use Gelid GC-Extreme ceramic paste.

I don't suspect the PSU - Corsair AX860i driving 1 CPU and 1 GPU. It has onboard diagnostics that hook up to the motherboard via USB and can be monitored onscreen.

[mikef]

Makes sense, I'll replace the paste. The CPU isn't being pushed that hard, it's a software development box with hex core i7-5820 and I have a more powerful QA box that I use when I need processing power.

[mikef]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

1. Yes, it does
2. Yes, pretty much identical and each time it's rebooted (which I've been having to do at least once a day)

[mikef]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Thanks. I'm not sure about the disks; it's all SSD apart from internal backup space; system disk is a Samsung HD840 Pro, main database disk is a Mushkin PCIe SSD, database logs to a Samsung XP951 PCIe M.2 SSD.

I'll investigate the memory - it's the cheapest DDR4 that Overclockers sell, 64GB of Avexir 2400MHz, that may have been a false saving

[mikef]

Crystaldiskinfo shows the system SSD SMART status as 100%

The problem occurs even when I know I haven't been hitting the other 2 SSDs. The Samsung XP951 shows status as 93% with some used reserved blocks; Can't get a reading on the Mushkin Scorpio PCIe SSD

That doesn't feel like it's the problem

[mikef]

nyt said:

OP - are any processes malfunctioning and just using memory?

Perhaps, next time that the machine gets slow, you could upload screen grabs of task manager with processes sorted for 1)CPU 2)Memory and 3)Disk IO.

I wish it had been that easy; when it's slowed down task manager is typically showing <2% CPU, >50GB of free memory and zero disk activity...

[mikef]

Core temperatures (now that I have the fan profiles set to kick in sooner, I didn't check before but could do that) are around 55C under load. CPU is running at 3306MHz; I have only done the mildest overclocking of this CPU and that was automated, using the ASUS Express utility, as it does what I need at stock.

[mikef]

It's been at stock since I first had this issue, maybe 2 - 3 months ago

[mikef]

That's a thought, although it would be a bit of work to simulate workload under a non-Windows O/S

I'm really hoping to avoid a reinstall; dealing with license re activation for products like MS, Adobe and Origin is a total pain

I'm hoping for now that blasting all the fans a bit harder may sort things about, but will need a few days to confirm that.

Also had memtest running for 100 minutes now, I'll report back on that when it finishes

[mikef]

I must admit that I hadn't taken the temp readings when the fans were set to the quietest mode, so could well have been in excess of 55C. I could go back to that fan profile - and have a go with prime95 to see what the temps do

[mikef]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Ran memtest for 12 hours; 100% pass, zero errors

[mikef]

Thanks - I've just run Prime95 for an hour (screen shot of temps attached). Then re-run Geekbench, same score as at start of day



I'll try leaving it alone for 8 hours and see whether it exhibits the slow-down behaviour

I agree that this feels like a software service that's at the root of the issue, but I'd rather work out what that is rather than blast a carefully configured system; that has to be last resort

[mikef]

I've done all the usual SQL stuff and as this is a dev box it's not executing queries all (or even much of) the time and there are no long-running or particularly inefficient queries. Maximum server memory setting is 24,576 MB (out of 64GB), I set that when this started to happen

Plenty of free space - around 75GB on the system SSD, over 300GB on each of the database PCIe drives

[mikef]

WinstonWolf said:

Martin4x4 said:

Try System Internals has a much more comprehensive process explorer.

This ^^ Sysinternals will get to the bottom of what's going on very quickly if it's SW related.

I just checked the sys internals site, there look to be around 40 utilities; do I need a specific one?

[mikef]

Thanks - looking at that now. I guess I need to do that when the system next slows itself down

[mikef]

Good thinking, thanks. I'll boot without starting usual services, baseline that (any better way than just saving the .text file?), boot with known services and do the same