Computer slows to a crawl intermittently

[cdhulipalla21]

So my computer has been essentially freezing every 15-20 minutes for a period of around 1 to 3 minutes during which all my programs begin to not respond and my connection to the internet drops. This problem has been occurring for around three days now and I have not made any changes to my computer in a while. The slow-downs are consistently occurring, though I seem to get them more often when I am playing Counter Strike: Global Offensive which is a game that is not particularly taxing on my system. My specs are as follows:
Intel Core i5-2500K CPU
Asus P8P67 Pro Rev 3.1 Motherboard
AMD Radeon HD 6950
8GB Corsair Vengeance CL9 DDR3-1600 RAM
Samsung 64GB SSD 830
WD Caviar Blue 500GB 7200RPM HDD
Corsair Enthusiast Series CMPSU-650TX Power Supply
Samsung SH-B123 12x BD-ROM

I have had this computer for about three years now.

 

[TheELF]

This is probably a hardware problem,but there is no way of telling what exactly might be causing it.
You could make sure its not software by reinstalling your OS or installing a new one on the HDD.
Once you rule out software,it could be anything
weakening PSU so it doesn't provide enough power for normal operation but just enough for the PC not to shut down.
Faulty RAM that makes soft freeze every time it is written to
and so on and so on.

 

[tcsenter]

If your hard drive is throwing lots of bad blocks/sectors, it can slow the system down as the data in those sectors is read/copied to a spare area and the bad block/sector is marked.

Open Event Viewer, expand the Windows event logs, and click on "System" log. Then check the log for "Disk" events. Or just schedule Check Disk with physical media scan (e.g. chkdsk /r) on the next reboot.

 

[denis280]

Open Event Viewer, expand the Windows event logs, and click on "System" log. Then check the log for "Disk" events. Or just schedule Check Disk with physical media scan (e.g. chkdsk /r) on the next reboot.

+1

 

[Matt1970]

I think it is likely a process slowing it down. Start task manager and see if one of the processes is slowing it down.

 

[inachu]

If everything appears fine and no reason for slowdown then:
it can be dust buildup.
Hard drives could be running very hot.
Over all perhaps fragmentation of your files is not much but your swap file could be all over the hard drive. Time to disable your swap file.
Delete your swap file which is located in the root of your C drive.
reboot and run defrag.

Once defrag is complete then go back and turn the swap file back on and it will rebuild itself

 

[Gunbuster]

If everything appears fine and no reason for slowdown then:
it can be dust buildup.
Hard drives could be running very hot.
Over all perhaps fragmentation of your files is not much but your swap file could be all over the hard drive. Time to disable your swap file.
Delete your swap file which is located in the root of your C drive.
reboot and run defrag.

Once defrag is complete then go back and turn the swap file back on and it will rebuild itself

Sorry but this is a load of BS busy work that will not help resolve the problem OP is describing.

 

[PliotronX]

+1

+2

 

[tcsenter]

To clarify, I meant to run chkdsk on the Western Digital HDD, not the SSD. Pretty sure you'll have to use Samsung's utilities to check the health of the SSD.

 

[inachu]

Sorry but this is a load of BS busy work that will not help resolve the problem OP is describing.

What Matt1970 says is just as valid. Working with computers for over 25 years I have seen my share of events where the OP's issue can appear in a case where my advice could also fix their issue.

The fact is you and I do not know and can only work off of symptoms/ case issue that we have work on in the past FROM EXPERIENCE that could solve the above issue.

 

[inachu]

If your hard drive is throwing lots of bad blocks/sectors, it can slow the system down as the data in those sectors is read/copied to a spare area and the bad block/sector is marked.

Open Event Viewer, expand the Windows event logs, and click on "System" log. Then check the log for "Disk" events. Or just schedule Check Disk with physical media scan (e.g. chkdsk /r) on the next reboot.

This very well may be the case but have seen so many causes for this issue.

I hope this is a software issue and not a hardware issue.