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Computer Suddenly Slowed to a Crawl

niemiro

niemiro

Senior Administrator, Windows Update Expert
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Three days ago, my computer worked absolutely perfectly & wonderfully quickly. And almost overnight, it's slowed to such a crawl that there is a good 15 second - half minute delay before something small like msconfig will even open, even as the only running program, and there's even a delay in performing such simple operations as unchecking a check-mark in msconfig. Boot time is now > 20 minutes too. Additionally, all programs now hang & go white after each mouse click, but will eventually recover after about 10 seconds.

Does anybody have any idea about how to go about diagnosing this? It's how sudden it's been that's really got me. I've tried a diagnostic startup through msconfig (so no 3rd party startups or services and reduced Microsoft services), and the problem persisted. I'll get back to you on safe-mode.

My initial diagnostics aimed at hardware, even with this so sudden (if I turn on driver verifier, I instantly get BSOD after BSOD after BSOD on this computer with no named driver, just stack corruption - turn it off & the computer runs flawlessly, and has done so without a single BSOD for > 4 months whereas before it was 20+ times a day, if not more)

So I ran Furmark for 20minutes, no artifacting. I ran Prime95 for four and a half hours on Blend test - all passed, except my only observation was that Worker #3 was massively slower than the rest. By the end, the total range in tests completed was about 4-5 on the other workers. Worker 3 was behind by about 25 tests. They all passed, but do you think this is significant?

I'm currently running chkdsk & will let you know the result of that (I'm running it on my D:\ drive which is a 1TB mechanical HDD. C:\ is a 64GB SSD). I may soon run HDD diagnostics too & memtest86+ too if you think it's worth it (although I'm beginning to think this is actually not hardware at all).

What could be so sudden? Do you think I'm looking at software causes here? Any ideas where to begin with diagnostics considering the fact that a clean boot does not rule out the cause?

MBAM & MSE come up clean.


I'm just really confused how it could be so sudden? Is hardware a possibility or unlikely to manifest in this way? Personally, I'm leaning towards software causes, but it's a big pain, as it's completely unusable at the moment.

Thank you!

Richard
 
Thank you both very much for your help.

Wrench97 said:
Check the temps and voltages> Hardware Monitor

Is it a platter drive or a SSD?
If platter run the Diagnostics from the drive manufacturer.
Click to expand...

Does this look alright? Sorry, I don't really know what good values are.

hardwareMonitor.PNG

HDD diagnostics talked about below (D:\ drive which is a 1TB mechanical HDD. C:\ is a 64GB SSD)

satrow said:
One of my standard checks for issues like this used to be to check DMA/PIO speeds of the IDE/SATA controllers; it still crops up rarely with Vista and, I'm pretty sure, W7: DMA reverts to PIO | Windows Problem Solver
Click to expand...

I've never even heard of that before! But both the script & device manager confirm that everything which can be DMA is.


But....more bad news. chkdsk on D:\ actually almost entirely fixed the problem. Which is perhaps not a very good sign. Especially as its logfile wasn't exactly clean:

Code: 
ListChkdskResult by SleepyDude v0.1.6 Beta | 17-06-2013

------< Log generate on 16/07/2013 07:01:53 >------
Category: 0
Computer Name: DRAGON-SLAYER
Event Code: 1001
Record Number: 388825
Source Name: Microsoft-Windows-Wininit
Time Written: 20130715224746.000000-000
Event Type: Information
User: 
Message: 

Checking file system on D:
The type of the file system is NTFS.

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.                         

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 5)...
  891392 file records processed.                                         

File verification completed.
  389 large file records processed.                                   

  0 bad file records processed.                                     

  0 EA records processed.                                           

  0 reparse records processed.                                      

CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 5)...
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x692095c000 for 0x20000 bytes.
  1018836 index entries processed.                                        

Index verification completed.
  0 unindexed files scanned.                                        

  0 unindexed files recovered.                                      

CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 5)...
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x6920976000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x6920976000 for 0x1000 bytes.
  891392 file SDs/SIDs processed.                                        

Cleaning up 933 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 933 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 933 unused security descriptors.
Security descriptor verification completed.
  63723 data files processed.                                           

CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
  37264648 USN bytes processed.                                            

Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe728f000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe7295000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe7386000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe7395000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe7486000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe7495000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe76b6000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe76c1000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 134993
of name \SOLIDW~2\SOLIDW~1.0\64bit\SOLIDW~1\PROGRA~1\SOLIDW~1\data\Images\shaders\SURFAC~1\GALVAN~1.DDS.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe77b5000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe77c2000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe78b3000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe78c2000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe79b3000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe79c2000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe7ab3000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe7ac2000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe7bb3000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe7bc2000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe7bc3000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe7bc3000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe7cb4000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe7cc3000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 135212
of name \SOLIDW~2\SOLIDW~1.0\64bit\SOLIDW~1\Common\SOLIDW~1\i386\SWDOCU~1.DLL.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe891c000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe891d000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 135414
of name \SOLIDW~2\SOLIDW~1.0\64bit\SOLIDW~1\PROGRA~1\SOLIDW~1\SLDBEN~1\Macro\Mold\Moldbase\SWD5C4~1.SLD.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe83ea000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe83f0000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe84e1000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe84f0000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe8711000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe871d000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe880e000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe881d000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 135431
of name \SOLIDW~2\SOLIDW~1.0\64bit\SOLIDW~1\PROGRA~1\SOLIDW~1\SLDBEN~1\Macro\CAVITY~2.SLD.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe7ee4000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe7eef000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe7fe0000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe7fef000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe80e0000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe80ef000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe81f0000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe81f0000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe82e1000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x1fe82f0000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 135432
of name \SOLIDW~2\SOLIDW~1.0\64bit\SOLIDW~1\PROGRA~1\SOLIDW~1\SLDBEN~1\Macro\PUNCH_~1.SLD.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x6bbbfa1000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x6bbbfa5000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 344057
of name \PROGRA~1\ELECTR~1\THESIM~1\Game\Bin\Packs\TS3SP06\TS3SP06.exe.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0xade535f000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0xade5365000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0xade5366000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0xade5366000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0xade5367000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 556584
of name \WSUS_O~2\iso\WS415E~1.ISO.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x6e5526e000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x6e55277000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 683558
of name \WEB_CR~1\TEXT_T~1\79865.txt.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0xadfd38e000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0xadfd398000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 775481
of name \PROGRA~1\Geeks3D\BENCHM~1\FURMAR~2.1\core3d.dll.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0xadfd56d000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0xadfd574000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0xadfd575000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0xadfd575000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0xadfd576000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0xadfd577000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 891321
of name \DOWNLO~1\_WWWTO~1.X2~\LIFESA~1.MKV.
  891376 files processed.                                                

File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
  51930807 free clusters processed.                                        

Free space verification is complete.
Adding 165 bad clusters to the Bad Clusters File.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the
master file table (MFT) bitmap.
Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

 976759807 KB total disk space.
 767696224 KB in 824684 files.
    315704 KB in 63724 indexes.
       660 KB in bad sectors.
   1024531 KB in use by the system.
     65536 KB occupied by the log file.
 207722688 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
 244189951 total allocation units on disk.
  51930672 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
00 9a 0d 00 64 8e 0d 00 b3 2d 16 00 00 00 00 00  ....d....-......
c0 11 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

But more concerning, I've had a quick flick through the Event Log, and noticed a LOT of these over the last few days:

Event 11, atapi, "The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Ide\IdePort3."

I mean, I know what all of those words are, but what does it actually mean? Does it pretty much definitely mean controller i.e. motherboard is bad? Could it be datacable/HDD itself? Or doesi t just mean that corrupt data was detected?

I'll run some HDD diagnostics and get back to you, but I'm assuming this isn't good news?

Thank you!

Richard
 
Drive failed SeaTools for Windows Short DST. Could that still mean either HDD or controller?

I'll get further test results & results from Western Digital diagnostics later.
 
Hmm, my guess is the 'board on the drive. Run your tests then switch motherboard connections, repeat the tests/check for a different port# erroring in logs? Also try some new SATA cables and different power connections from the PSU.

Looks like chkdsk's repair broke a number of programs and some big files too.

EDIT: I don't think the Seagate tests are aimed at the motherboard controller, pretty sure it's the drive - but could it be the drive electronics rather than the physical platter - I'm unsure.

Could you connect it to a Marvell or JRaid to check?
 
Last edited:
OK, so I swapped the suspect HDD into a different controller, and put a known good HDD in the previously used slot, and the suspect HDD still fails, and the good HDD passes even in the potentially suspect controller slot. So yeah.....looks like the HDD is going. In a way, I'm pleased that it looks to be not the motherboard. Western Digital website suggests they will uphold the warrenty for my serial number, so that's good too.

Also, it's very interesting to note that the good HDD runs a complete short DST in a couple of minutes. The dodgy one crawls along taking 20+ minutes for even a short DST.

And the slowness is returning after a couple of reboots after chkdsk.

Ah well, I'll get this HDD shipped off I guess! Thank you so, so much for all of your help. You have both been absolutely invaluable in keeping this machine alive this last year. Please understand how much this means to me. Thanks again for all your hard work :)

Richard
 
Having just woke and completed my first cup of coffee I see I am still way too late to the party.
Boot time is now > 20 minutes too
Click to expand...
A classic sign of drive failure, but also driver failure, among other things. It appears you eliminated those "other things" while I was listening to my dog snore all night - since he has lost nearly all his hearing (he's 12 years old now), I think he snores louder just to hear himself!

Failing Seatools would have convinced me and is all the excuse needed to start an RMA with Seagate - if a Seagate drive - and if still under warranty. But your screen shot says they are WD drives so you can run Dataguard from here. Though Seatools can be used to diagnose other brand drives effectively, WD may want you to run their tool anyway. I have never had WD or Seagate give me any hassle if the drive fails their own tool. Of course, the point is moot if out of warranty.

That said, plug the serial number in here to check your warranty status. If still in effect, you can start a hot exchange (they send replacement first, you return old in the same box).
 
Digerati said:
Having just woke and completed my first cup of coffee I see I am still way too late to the party.
Boot time is now > 20 minutes too
Click to expand...
A classic sign of drive failure, but also driver failure, among other things. It appears you eliminated those "other things" while I was listening to my dog snore all night - since he has lost nearly all his hearing (he's 12 years old now), I think he snores louder just to hear himself!

Failing Seatools would have convinced me and is all the excuse needed to start an RMA with Seagate - if a Seagate drive - and if still under warranty. But your screen shot says they are WD drives so you can run Dataguard from here. Though Seatools can be used to diagnose other brand drives effectively, WD may want you to run their tool anyway. I have never had WD or Seagate give me any hassle if the drive fails their own tool. Of course, the point is moot if out of warranty.

That said, plug the serial number in here to check your warranty status. If still in effect, you can start a hot exchange (they send replacement first, you return old in the same box).
Click to expand...

Thank you for your help :)

I was actually about to make the hot replace RMA request a minute ago (but backed out as you'll see why in a second). The drive is still under warranty according to that tool (and lasts up to 2016 so plenty of time to spare), and I also tested with the Dataguard for the purposes of the RMA request, which it also failed the drive.

But....it turns out that what with me being in the UK, my bank was going to charge me an arm and a leg for making a hold against my debit card in a foreign currency. So I backed out of that. I'll probably buy another HDD in the meantime for the purposes of a hot replace (I was actually going to buy one anyway because I'm running low on storage space), and then do a cold replace. It'll take a few days longer, but saves on those bank charges :)

So thank you all so much! I will be sending it back, but for the time being at least, I'm constrained to my laptop lest I do any more damage to the data on that HDD (all the important stuff is of course backed up, and has always been, but ideally I want to avoid a clean install, and if I corrupt all my program files that won't be possible).

So thanks again to all!

Richard
 
Richard, you might want to check what the replacement drive will be, it's not impossible that it would be a 'recertified'-type drive. If that's the case, and the drive is under 12 months old (24 if you want to try under an EU ruling/law), you might do better to check what the sellers RMA replacement would be.
 
But....it turns out that what with me being in the UK, my bank was going to charge me an arm and a leg for making a hold against my debit card in a foreign currency.
Click to expand...
What? WD puts a hold on your card, until they receive the bad drive, but it does not seem right your bank should charge you since it is just a hold, not a real charge (unless you fail to return the drive in time - something like 30 days). You did change the country to UK in that link, right?

Yes, it is likely you will get a "recertified" drive, but that does not mean it was a broken drive that was fixed and returned - just once the box is opened, it cannot be sold as new again. But certainly you can check with the seller, but I know for Newegg, it is just 30 days for drives.
 
satrow said:
Richard, you might want to check what the replacement drive will be, it's not impossible that it would be a 'recertified'-type drive. If that's the case, and the drive is under 12 months old (24 if you want to try under an EU ruling/law), you might do better to check what the sellers RMA replacement would be.
Click to expand...

Digerati said:
But....it turns out that what with me being in the UK, my bank was going to charge me an arm and a leg for making a hold against my debit card in a foreign currency.
Click to expand...
What? WD puts a hold on your card, until they receive the bad drive, but it does not seem right your bank should charge you since it is just a hold, not a real charge (unless you fail to return the drive in time - something like 30 days). You did change the country to UK in that link, right?

Yes, it is likely you will get a "recertified" drive, but that does not mean it was a broken drive that was fixed and returned - just once the box is opened, it cannot be sold as new again. But certainly you can check with the seller, but I know for Newegg, it is just 30 days for drives.
Click to expand...

Thanks for reminding me of the recertification. I had forgotten!

Apparently, because it's a debit card rather than a credit card (I don't have any credit cards at all), the money actually comes out of my account, and then goes back in after 30 days if all is well. My bank then charges me for the currency conversion. It would make far more sense if my overdraft were capped at negative normal amount + postive hold amount as that guarantees the hold will not be refused. Apparently that can't be done. Doesn't make any sense. It also doesn't make any sense as the money shouldn't have been currency converted at all IMO - the UK side of my bank must surely hold the money for 30 days, not Western Digital. It's just a con by the bank to get more money out of me, I think. Either way, I gave up at that point :p

I definitely set myself to the UK website initially. I'll have another try at seeing if it forces a revert to USD/the US website, or whether I just messed something up half way through. I might well have closed the wrong tab & got onto the US website by accident!
 
Niemiro, if you haven't already sent your drive back and if you have another drive to use temporarily, you can mail your defective drive to WD and they will ship you a replacement once they receive yours. That way you don't need to use a credit card or have a hold put on your funds. Turnaround time in the U.S., when shipping to Texas, is usually within a couple weeks.
 
Glad to hear about the warranty, Richard.

Your chkdsk log shows bad sectors along with 0xc0000185 exceptions - I/O error.
 
Turnaround time in the U.S., when shipping to Texas, is usually within a couple weeks.
Click to expand...
I just went through an RMA exchange for a WD drive. I submitted the RMA request on their website on July 10, a Wednesday and received the replacement drive (in Omaha area) on Friday, the 12th. :) The only charge that has appeared on my card is $5.99 for the prepaid shipping label.
 
Thanks again everyone :)

I received the new HDD that I ordered yesterday, and used Macrium Reflect to copy all data onto it. That seemed to go pretty well, but the old drive's pretty dead now :p

It now says that it's corrupt & unreadable, so I ran chkdsk to see what would happen. Basically, it just spent 20+ minutes in the index verification stage scrolling through corruptions without pause for breath. Taking a couple of averages of errors/division * estimated no. divs., I would say that 90,000 indexes ended up corrupt, of which probably 30,000 were repaired & 60,000 deleted. Wow. I can honestly say that I've never seen such a dreadful chkdsk log before! I would love to upload it, but I've got this suspicion that it might not actually get written to the Event Log, and the drive seems on its last legs so I might have to end it prematurely if it gets any slower or I'll be here for years!

Richard

EDIT: Now it's going through and recovering 50, 949 orphaned files. My 60,000 estimate wasn't bad! I can honestly say I've never seen a chkdsk log this bad, although I'm sure you've all seen plenty worse!
 
Last edited:
1Tb drives have a lot of space to hold a lot of corruption and orphaned files. Plus, I am not sure ~51,000 orphaned files really means 51,000 separate files. Some of that may be disjointed fragments of the same file that chkdsk cannot connect back together. Rather a moot point if not repairable.

The problem with making these super large capacity drives is the magnetic platters are the same size. So to put more data on the same physical size disk, each storage bit is smaller (to get more density per disk). However, until Man can create perfection 100% of the time, there will always be some imperfections in the raw and finished materials. This means a single imperfection affects many more bits of data than drives of yesteryear.

What is interesting is chkdsk appears to keep progressing on through the errors - most of which I suspect are due to the tables, not the data on the drive itself.

I am not sure I would personally use that drive for anything real important after this. But I might, out of curiosity (and after giving up trying to recover any more data) do a full (not quick) format on the drive, then run chkdsk and diagnostics again on it to see what happens.

If there is still data on the drive you want, you might consider spending $90 for SpinRite. I think it is well worth it. Steve Gibson's video is worth watching too, if you want to know what is happening on your disk, and what SpinRite does.
 

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