Computer Suddenly Slow And Unresponsive!

[FirefoxRocks 0]

I have a very strange problem with my computer since Tuesday (6 days ago). It has become suddenly slow and unresponsive to the state where it is intolerable. There wasn't any apparent software or hardware changes to cause this, and I have already tried a system restore, to no success.It isn't necessary the startup that is slow, but everything. Start up is actually pretty normal, but afterwards it takes a long time to launch a single application or to even click Start. The Windows shell is literally unresponsive. Launching something like Task Manager takes 3 minutes, same with Microsoft Office Word. Google Chrome appears faster, but to do anything it takes a few minutes for the chrome (interface) to become responsive, whether it be opening a new tab or loading the app icons on the new tab page.Pressing CTRL+ALT+DELETE will not bring up the Login UI screen until minutes later. In rare cases, I have had to use the power button to forcefully shut down the system, which I have never had to do before.I have disabled all startup programs except for Soluto and Comodo Internet Security. I also have ran virus and spyware scans via Comodo Internet Security, they both turned up negative. Windows Defender hasn't shown anything either.My hard disk is approximately 48% full, with over 2/3 of that containing a virtual machine and a collection of videos. I have ran CCleaner and cleaned out "junk", which wasn't a lot. I have also tried defragmenting the hard disk, that wasn't much help.In safe mode, the problem is still apparent to a lesser degree.Does anyone have any suggestions? I really need this computer running smoothly again as I depend on it quite a bit for university.

[yordan 10]

Have a look at the memory free (alt-control-del after three-minutes, sorry ), I had that when my virtual machine uses too much memory, and my physical system goes out of free mem.

[FirefoxRocks 0]

I don't have the virtual machine running, and my CPU usage isn't anything abnormal. My memory usage isn't anything abnormal either, it's around 1.12 GB with Chrome running right now. But it is still quite unresponsive, and I have noticed that Chrome takes long to load pages not due to network connectivity issues but because it is "waiting for cache" for a long time before actually downloading the page.

[yordan 10]

Physical problem?What about unplogging the Ethernet cable (or removing the Ethernet adapter) and see if you can do "normal" offline job (wordprocessing, watching a movie from your hard disk or your DVD, etc...) just to see if you have an Ethernet packet trouble or faulty cable problem?

[FirefoxRocks 0]

Physical problem?What about unplogging the Ethernet cable (or removing the Ethernet adapter) and see if you can do "normal" offline job (wordprocessing, watching a movie from your hard disk or your DVD, etc...) just to see if you have an Ethernet packet trouble or faulty cable problem?

This isn't an Internet related issue because it happens even when I am not connected. I have also tried shutting off the "radio" (WiFi/Bluetooth) and it is still a problem.
Is my hard drive faulty? So far nothing has came up on Dell Diagnostics.

[yordan 10]

Try using defraggler, during a fast defrag if the disk is faulty it should raise a lot of errors.

[FirefoxRocks 0]

I am running that right now and it doesn't show any errors, I have also tried Auslogics Disk Defrag, again with no errors.

[yordan 10]

So, - not a disk problem.- not a network problem.Can you run memtest?

[manuleka 0]

have had similar problem with my 500GB HDD... but in my case i didn't test anything other than just a lucky guess on a Hard-Drive issue, i grabbed a spare drive (only 60GB in size unfortunately) and it solved the problem, but this issue was obvious from startup and takes a while to load everything and run anythingmight pay to try a spare HDD although you're problem exists after start-up, i'm guessing it's a software issue... try live-booting Ubuntu or any Linux Distro from USB or CD and see if the problem persists, if so then it could most probably be RAM or some Hardware fault

Edited November 14, 2011 by manuleka (see edit history)

[FirefoxRocks 0]

So as per Dell Technical Support running Dell Diagnostics, there was a hard disk drive error that luckily was not a physical defect. A reinstallation of the operating system solved the problem, but nonetheless I had to run out to Walmart to buy an external hard drive to back up my data as Dropbox, Pogoplug and SkyDrive didn't come close to storing the amount of data I had on the computer, plus it would take forever to upload a 20 GB file even if I have a university speed network connection.All the other tests are coming up fine though, the hard disk still has 1 error that comes up on Dell Diagnostics, so I'm not sure if it's a sign that it will completely fail soon...

[yordan 10]

I had to run out to Walmart to buy an external hard drive to back up my data

It's really necessary to own an extra disk for backup purposes. Each piece of your own data must be on an external disk, a simple electrical outage while your hard disk head is over the FAT area could destroy your whole disk data.And, yes a physical error on your hard drive can raise problems. Fortunately, you have so many things on your computer that not necessarily a vital info will fall oh the faulty sector. But this is an indication that your hard disk has to be put under strict observation and you should keep backing up your personal data.
However, there is no indication that a system file will necessarily be written on a faulty sector, so you could also happen to keep using your computer during several years before another system failure.