Windows 10: Poor performance but very low hardware usage

Hi everbody,

I came here after leaving my PC in a couple of repairment stores and not finding a solution for a problem that has been drowning my vital energy for the past month. Before everything, I'll post my specs and how my PC is configured:

• CPU: Intel i5-6600K @3.50GHz
• Memory: 16GB DDR4
• GPU: NVIDIA GIGABYTE RTX1070
• Disks: 2 SSDs (one for W10 OS, other for Unix OS) + 2 HDDs
• OS: Windows 10 Home + Linux Mint 20 / Dual Boot
• W10 Version: What winver says: Version 1909 (SO compilation 18363.1237), what system information says: Version 10.0.18363

I might not have the best PC out there, but it was great enough when I assembled it (4 years ago, it is neither not that old). Moreover, it didn't showed a problem like this ever, it has always behaved so well. Sadly, one day weeks ago, my Windows 10 OS (I do also have Linux on dual boot) started to misbehave, becoming so laggy and slow.

First of all, I thought it could be a virus, so I scanned with Kaspersky Total Security the full system and disks but no malware was detected. The next step I followed was doing the backup of the sensitive data located at the Windows SSD, and reinstalling it from scratch. Surprisingly, this step didn't solve the problem, and the fresh installed Windows 10 continued performing so slow.

However, the Windows installation smashed the BIOS UEFI entries and I lost access to the Linux OS, which I also had to reinstall. When I did that, I've entered in Linux and saw that it was performing as always, so I assumed (don't know if correctly) that it couldn't be a hardware problem, since all the components that supply Windows also supply Linux. Since you would be asking for it, it couldn't also be the SSDs: when I reinstalled both OS, I changed them: W10 where Linux were and viceversa.

We might be reaching the current state of my problem: I have a fresh Windows 10 unusable that can't be reinstalled again (because I could lose again the boot to the Linux system, and it was shown that reinstalling Windows doesn't solve anything). The problem isn't also related to CPU/GPU/disk/memory usage, since those values doesn't get higher than 20% / 10% / 10% / 25%, respectively (might the problem be that those values can't go higher even though they should?). A proof of it is this a benchmark I run yesterday, that said that my PC is worse than 99% of the ones that had been scanned with PCMark10 tool, which is surreal. During that benchmark, none of the specs worked much higher than the limits I've said before.

To sum up, it (appearently) seems not to be a hardware issue, since Linux works perfectly, but a Windows 10 problem that survives a fresh reinstallation (*Eek *cry). I know I didn't provide much information apart from the low usage and my PC configuration, but I'll be alert to this post and provide anything you require in order to troubleshoot this problem; perfmon, more benchmarking, whatever is needed.

Thank you so much to everybody that could help me.

:)

 

Poor Performance..

Ehh, well that didn't work...everything went well during the flash nothing went wrong, but no changes... Still low framerates...and poor performance...and other suggestions anybody?

 

prompts low memory & poor performance

Hello Salman,

Thank you for posting your concern here in Microsoft Community and welcome to the window 10 Family.

From the description provided, I understand that you are facing slow performance issues after upgrading to Windows 10.

Before proceeding, please check for the amount of hard disk space remaining, as the available free space is also responsible for Windows to run at optimal level of performance. Also, ensure to install any pending updates and also update all device
drivers from Device Manager.

Now please follow the below methods and check for the results.

Method 1

• Place the computer in a Clean Boot state and check if there are any third party applications to be causing the slow down.

1. To disable all non-Microsoft services consult the article called
Clean Boot.
Follow: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/929135

Note: After troubleshooting, refer to this section "How to reset the computer to start normally after clean boot troubleshooting"

Disclaimer: A clean boot is performed to start Windows by using a minimal set of drivers and startup programs. This helps eliminate software conflicts that occur when you install a program or an update or when you run a program in Windows. You may
also troubleshoot or determine what conflict is causing the problem by performing a clean boot. You must log on to the computer as an administrator to be able to perform a clean boot. Your computer may temporarily lose some functionality when you perform a
clean boot. When you start the computer normally, the functionality returns. However, you may receive the original error message, or experience the original behavior if the problem still exists. If the computer is connected to a network, network policy settings
may prevent you from following these steps.

2. To disable any 3rd party unwanted startup programs in Windows 8 and above, follow:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/20119.how-to-enable-or-disable-startup-programs-in-windows-8.aspx

(Applies to Windows 10 as well)

• Try Autorun and disable any start-up programs you don't need.

Download Autorun: Autoruns for Windows - Windows Sysinternals

Method 2

I suggest you to run the System Maintenance troubleshooter. and see if it helps.

Follow the below steps:

1. Type troubleshooting in the search bar.

2. Select Troubleshooting.

3. Select View all on the top left corner.

4. Click on System Maintenance.

5. Follow the on-screen instructions to run the troubleshooter.

Hope the above information was helpful. If you need further assistance, please do let us know and we would be happy to help you further.

Thank You.

 

how to determine what's causing 100% disk usage

Considering your 2nd screenshot, assuming your Disk column is organised high to low, you have a problem with disk transfer rate- it appears to be low yet shown as 100%

There are various programs running that appear unnecessary.

Suggest you do a clean boot and compare. You should expect disk usage when idle - a few mins after boot - to be zero unless there's good reason.

Comparing your 1st and 3rd screenshots, note the max transfer rate is 10x that in the 3rd screenshot.

It's not doing an update, and not apparently a paging problem.

From that it appears you have limited disk transfer rate, and the disk activity doesn't settle to near zero.

There are several threads on the topic of limited transfer rate - here are some:
Disk usage 100% please help Solved - Page 2 - Windows 10 Forums
Slow internal hard drive tansfer speeds - Windows 10 Forums
100% Disk Usage, tried some methods found online. - Windows 10 Forums

I'd suggest looking through those first, using any ideas there, keep a list of what you try, and post back with that list if you still have problems.


Please post specs of your PC. See mine for comparison.