r/techsupport • u/TchoupedNScrewed • Jan 20 '22

PC used to be able to run both a game and web browser at the same time. Now I can often struggle to run one. Open | Windows

Ran a full security scan with Kaspersky but found nothing, deleted a lot of garbage off of my PC that I no longer needed, but still having issues despite having 16 GB of RAM. This is leading up to issues with GPU crashes when I simply try to tab out of a game as well as actions taking minutes to complete.

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u/BairdInspire_ Jan 20 '22

Check task manager to see what program is hogging all your resources.

  1. Open Task Manager (ctrl + shift + esc on a keyboard)
  2. Click more details if you don't see Processes, performance, app history.. tabs
  3. Look at the columns in the Processes tab and see if any of your components are at or near 100%
  4. You can click these column headers to organize the processes based on how much resources they are consuming.

You might be able to find your resource hog doing this.

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Assuming you don't have malicious software running. It could be several different things.

  • Hard drive might be failing.
  • RAM might be failing.
  • CPU is getting old.
  • Graphics card could be failing.

Your issue kind of sounds like either a Hard Drive problem or a RAM problem.

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RAM

Check to make sure your RAM is still good.

  1. Click the start menu icon or magnifying glass icon on the task bar.
  2. Search for "Windows Memory Diagnostic"
  3. Click Restart now and check for problems
  4. Once restarted, wait for the result message

This will test your RAM and attempt to find any bad sectors in your RAM. If it comes back with no errors it's most likely not your RAM. If the test comes back with errors, you'll have to buy new RAM.

Hard Drive

If you still have a HDD (spinning disk drive) then there could be bad sectors of your hard drive.

  1. Pres Windows key + E on your keyboard
  2. Right click on your main hard drive. Usually it's the C: drive.
  3. Click Properties
  4. Click the Tools Tab
  5. On Error Checking click Check
  6. Click Scan Drive

This will scan the drive for any errors it might have. If there are errors you can click to Repair Drive but I'd look into getting a new hard drive. Keep in mind getting a new drive will require you to re-install everything so make sure to back stuff up.

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CPU

If this is a desktop computer and not a laptop you can try opening your computer tower and looking at the motherboard for any capacitors that look bloated or like they popped. Google "bad capacitor motherboard" and look at the images to get an idea of what a bad one looks like. If you see any of those it could indicate a bad motherboard or CPU.

If your CPU is more that 5 years old then it might be time to look to replace it. Replacing a CPU will require a lot of work. Depending on the age, you might not find a CPU that will fit your motherboard socket type and you might have to replace the whole motherboard along with new RAM.

If all of that looks good, then a possible re-install of windows might be necessary. You can find videos on how to re-install windows on YouTube. Make sure to back up all the data you want saved on to a separate drive somewhere.

1

u/TchoupedNScrewed Jan 22 '22

Sorry for the delayed response, I ran through all of your steps with no issues and no problems found so I think it may be virus related despite the fact scans show up nothing.

If my OS is on an SSD would I have to worry about it?