Hi guys, been experiencing a type of slowdown when using my PC in the last 2 days. Looking for some input before I jump the gun and purchase a new rig.
-Specs- (Attached a DXDIAG if interested)
A pre-built tower purchased in 2013 from Newegg ( https://www.newegg.com/avatar-gaming-fx77/p/N82E16883258007 )
OS: Windows 8.1 Single Language 64-bit
System Model: GA-78LMT-S2
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
CPU: AMD FX(tm)-6100 Six-Core Processor (6 CPUs), ~3.3GHz
RAM (DDR3): 8192MB RAM
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
-Context-
So my landlord had the house I'm living in re-painted (white only) and my stuff was potentially caught in the crossfire. All of my stuff including my computer was covered, but I never took it off of the table when I moved my table around so they could access the walls. So it's possible parts could've been damaged when moving it around? I also noticed a lot of dust and/or paint falling down onto my things for about 18 hours after the painting as well when coverings over my things were removed; so it's possible an excessive amount of dust or paint shavings? got into my case and I didn't dust the rig out before using it.
Some past issues that were solved with hardware replacements;
*CPU fan failed after a year or two of use; bought a new one and didn't replace the thermal paste. Not good I know, but I didn't notice any issues with temps using OpenHardwareMonitor through the years.
*PSU failed three years ago; got a new gold 80+ one ( https://www.newegg.com/evga-superno...1-650w/p/N82E16817438094?Item=N82E16817438094 )
*Unsolved issue! My ram stick's never been replaced and has had small issues since I'd say at least 6 years ago or so. Bluescreens, random restarts, and the very occasional and rare stutter/lag I could probably attest to it.
That said, the bluescreen happens maybe once or twice every 1~3 months, generally when A LOT of things are happening. Like playing a graphically intensive game, while playing YouTube on 720p in the background, while also playing an online game from 2001 that only uses a single core because it's that old. And the random restart is so rare that it usually only happens when I'm not looking like, I fell asleep with my PC on (probably a bluescreen tbh, but I can't tell if I'm not there). Or I go out and leave it on for several hours. Usually only once every year or two at the most and 99% of the time never impacting my personal use outside of a minor inconvenience.
-The Actual Problem-
TL;DR: Everything's fine, except when I have to "load" something "new" for the first time onto the screen. The time needed to load in scales up with the type of application or action being shown/taken. Especially an issue when gaming due to freezes often lasting whole seconds depending on the visual being displayed.
So right now I actually don't experience a slowdown when doing things AFTER it's been "loaded" RECENTLY per say. For example when I boot up, everything's fine until I have to get to the Desktop from the Start (the screen with a bunch of stuff that gate keeps you for some reason). I click on my Desktop a few times and everything except my mouse freezes for about 5 or 6 minutes. But eventually it gets into the Desktop and everything's pretty dandy and smooth and normal afterwards. Then it's the same for ANYTHING except scale the loading/freeze time up or down as necessary depending on the application/software/action.
Gaming is great, once I can load in as the load times are significantly longer depending on the game. Say League of Legends, can vary from 2~4 minutes more than normal (average time when I'm the only factor is like 20~40s). Genshin Impact maybe takes 2~3 minutes depending on how many things I have going in the background now takes 10 minutes. And then it stutters and freezes every time I pan the screen like 90 degrees to see another quadrant of an area. Afterwards, it's the same old usual smooth gameplay as long as it doesn't need to retrieve/load/render new assets.
I've noticed this as consistent trend throughout using my PC today. First time a character uses their ability in game, freeze. For 90% of the times they use it afterwards there's no issue and the game plays smoothly. Right now I have like 10 tabs open on Chrome and Discord in the background and I see no issues outside of the ordinary from my usual PC use. Until I go to a website I haven't gone to in some hours and the PC needs to take those extra few seconds to load the new assets in. For every new page. When I played a game of League of Legends earlier there were hardly any freezes by the time I was like 75% of the way into a game because there was nothing "new" happening on the screen any more.
One last anecdote; I go to a new web page and click the bar to enter my username+password and the page freezes for a few seconds before reacting. No more slowdowns on that current page afterwards until the page changes.
-What I've Tried-
Rebooting.
Turning off my PC for 1+ hour.
Dusting my PC out (I didn't dismount any parts or take it into a separate room; typically a non-issue in my 9 years of using this guy).
De-fragging my HDD. It got stuck on Part 8 (5%). I closed it and tried to re-run it, but the window still showed it as "stuck" on Part 8 (5%) and in the middle of closing. Haven't tried to restart and try again since.
Everything I've tried has had either minimal or seemingly no effect.
-My Hypothesis-
Some of the white paint particles shaving off of the walls after the fresh re-paint fell onto my GPU's small bits through the tower's top air vents. This caused the GPU to have issues and the symptom are all of my freezes/slowdowns.
Why it's the GPU: Some of the online article symptoms listed match my experience to an extent.
Why it's not the CPU: Online articles told me the chances of it being the CPU is extremely unlikely
Why it's not the RAM: Most online articles list the things I already have been experiencing for years, but it's not at a rate or consistency that's been enough to push me to get a new stick/new PC; I feel it's unlikely to be the RAM in this case because of this.
Why it's not the HDD: Online articles describing a failing HDD generally don't match my anecdotal experience. I do know it is aging and have seen things load slower VERY slowly over time, but not to the point of alarm.
Why it's not the motherboard: It's strapped to the side of the tower rather than being directly in line of fire of falling dust.
In fact the falling dust/paint shavings is a large part of why I speculate my issue to be GPU related since it's the only part that I know is in direct line of fire of the open vent.
Thanks for reading if you got this far. TL;DR's right below "The Actual Problem" line.
-Specs- (Attached a DXDIAG if interested)
A pre-built tower purchased in 2013 from Newegg ( https://www.newegg.com/avatar-gaming-fx77/p/N82E16883258007 )
OS: Windows 8.1 Single Language 64-bit
System Model: GA-78LMT-S2
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
CPU: AMD FX(tm)-6100 Six-Core Processor (6 CPUs), ~3.3GHz
RAM (DDR3): 8192MB RAM
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
-Context-
So my landlord had the house I'm living in re-painted (white only) and my stuff was potentially caught in the crossfire. All of my stuff including my computer was covered, but I never took it off of the table when I moved my table around so they could access the walls. So it's possible parts could've been damaged when moving it around? I also noticed a lot of dust and/or paint falling down onto my things for about 18 hours after the painting as well when coverings over my things were removed; so it's possible an excessive amount of dust or paint shavings? got into my case and I didn't dust the rig out before using it.
Some past issues that were solved with hardware replacements;
*CPU fan failed after a year or two of use; bought a new one and didn't replace the thermal paste. Not good I know, but I didn't notice any issues with temps using OpenHardwareMonitor through the years.
*PSU failed three years ago; got a new gold 80+ one ( https://www.newegg.com/evga-superno...1-650w/p/N82E16817438094?Item=N82E16817438094 )
*Unsolved issue! My ram stick's never been replaced and has had small issues since I'd say at least 6 years ago or so. Bluescreens, random restarts, and the very occasional and rare stutter/lag I could probably attest to it.
That said, the bluescreen happens maybe once or twice every 1~3 months, generally when A LOT of things are happening. Like playing a graphically intensive game, while playing YouTube on 720p in the background, while also playing an online game from 2001 that only uses a single core because it's that old. And the random restart is so rare that it usually only happens when I'm not looking like, I fell asleep with my PC on (probably a bluescreen tbh, but I can't tell if I'm not there). Or I go out and leave it on for several hours. Usually only once every year or two at the most and 99% of the time never impacting my personal use outside of a minor inconvenience.
-The Actual Problem-
TL;DR: Everything's fine, except when I have to "load" something "new" for the first time onto the screen. The time needed to load in scales up with the type of application or action being shown/taken. Especially an issue when gaming due to freezes often lasting whole seconds depending on the visual being displayed.
So right now I actually don't experience a slowdown when doing things AFTER it's been "loaded" RECENTLY per say. For example when I boot up, everything's fine until I have to get to the Desktop from the Start (the screen with a bunch of stuff that gate keeps you for some reason). I click on my Desktop a few times and everything except my mouse freezes for about 5 or 6 minutes. But eventually it gets into the Desktop and everything's pretty dandy and smooth and normal afterwards. Then it's the same for ANYTHING except scale the loading/freeze time up or down as necessary depending on the application/software/action.
Gaming is great, once I can load in as the load times are significantly longer depending on the game. Say League of Legends, can vary from 2~4 minutes more than normal (average time when I'm the only factor is like 20~40s). Genshin Impact maybe takes 2~3 minutes depending on how many things I have going in the background now takes 10 minutes. And then it stutters and freezes every time I pan the screen like 90 degrees to see another quadrant of an area. Afterwards, it's the same old usual smooth gameplay as long as it doesn't need to retrieve/load/render new assets.
I've noticed this as consistent trend throughout using my PC today. First time a character uses their ability in game, freeze. For 90% of the times they use it afterwards there's no issue and the game plays smoothly. Right now I have like 10 tabs open on Chrome and Discord in the background and I see no issues outside of the ordinary from my usual PC use. Until I go to a website I haven't gone to in some hours and the PC needs to take those extra few seconds to load the new assets in. For every new page. When I played a game of League of Legends earlier there were hardly any freezes by the time I was like 75% of the way into a game because there was nothing "new" happening on the screen any more.
One last anecdote; I go to a new web page and click the bar to enter my username+password and the page freezes for a few seconds before reacting. No more slowdowns on that current page afterwards until the page changes.
-What I've Tried-
Rebooting.
Turning off my PC for 1+ hour.
Dusting my PC out (I didn't dismount any parts or take it into a separate room; typically a non-issue in my 9 years of using this guy).
De-fragging my HDD. It got stuck on Part 8 (5%). I closed it and tried to re-run it, but the window still showed it as "stuck" on Part 8 (5%) and in the middle of closing. Haven't tried to restart and try again since.
Everything I've tried has had either minimal or seemingly no effect.
-My Hypothesis-
Some of the white paint particles shaving off of the walls after the fresh re-paint fell onto my GPU's small bits through the tower's top air vents. This caused the GPU to have issues and the symptom are all of my freezes/slowdowns.
Why it's the GPU: Some of the online article symptoms listed match my experience to an extent.
Why it's not the CPU: Online articles told me the chances of it being the CPU is extremely unlikely
Why it's not the RAM: Most online articles list the things I already have been experiencing for years, but it's not at a rate or consistency that's been enough to push me to get a new stick/new PC; I feel it's unlikely to be the RAM in this case because of this.
Why it's not the HDD: Online articles describing a failing HDD generally don't match my anecdotal experience. I do know it is aging and have seen things load slower VERY slowly over time, but not to the point of alarm.
Why it's not the motherboard: It's strapped to the side of the tower rather than being directly in line of fire of falling dust.
In fact the falling dust/paint shavings is a large part of why I speculate my issue to be GPU related since it's the only part that I know is in direct line of fire of the open vent.
Thanks for reading if you got this far. TL;DR's right below "The Actual Problem" line.
