So Slow it could no longer be used

[JWR]

Background: I have had sporadic issues over the last few months where once in a while I had unexplained slow-downs in this desk-top HP PC running Win 10. It was purchased in Jan 2020. No new apps or new software installed in over a year except for Turbotax. There is a new spellchecker installed but such symptoms had been seen prior to that.
In prior incidents I had it go unresponsive to normal Windows mouse actions like the closure X and the minimize hyphen, the File tab upper left, etc. In rare cases, the Windows start flag key could not be used either via the key on the keyboard or by clicking on the icon on the screen. In the past if it got intolerable I did a full power cycle (a very few times in the last 3 years.) A week ago I ran a full MS Defender scan on all the memory. Took hours. No problems found. It is not like this was going on all the time. The machine was generally very good. Just once in a long while such symptoms.

Today: I had a slowdown (first time ever) so bad that every attempted action timed out (with the MS programs saying "Not Responding" in the upper ribbon/header. I did a full power cycle off and back on and the disease was STILL THERE. I then did a Restart (which was difficult to initiate due to the slow response). The Restart process looked 'normal' except it just sat there for ages -- the dire warning not to turn off power & saying "Preparing Windows" literally was there for more than half an hour. I went to dinner, did other things and eventually (roughly 2hrs total) it responded as if nothing had happened. Responded to an escape key , entering my PIN and proceeded to use the PC. From that point until now (a good 6 hours) the thing is running completely normally, files pop up fast, Word initiates very quickly, web browsing is fast as usual, etc. All is now "fast and normal."

Anyone else ever have this kind of PC disease? Any ideas as to what it is or was? I fully expect it will come back (eventually.)

 

[Bighorn]

There exists the possibility the computer contains what is called a rootkit infection, not easily detected by the Operating System or AV programs. For other infections a full/deep scan by the AV will help.

One test I use is a Bootable Linux LiveDVD or LiveUSB drive and run programs on it to determine if the slowness also occurs with it. The DVD contains usable programs that can be used to verify things like sound/audio, graphics, connection to Router, pretty much anything outside of Windows. Frequently if that Linux [I use Mint] works it leads to doing a fully-clean install of Windows to which end I use the GPARTED program on the disc to wipe all partitions from the internal drive to put it back to its as-shipped condition.

Sometimes doing a Repair install or In-place Upgrade of Windows will help.

As for using Win10 on older machines, I have it running on Notebooks as old as 2010 quite well with CPU speeds from 1.10GHz up through 2.50GHz and 4GB or 8GB RAM [machines I have rehabbed rather than put in landfill].

 

[JWR]

There exists the possibility the computer contains what is called a rootkit infection, not easily detected by the Operating System or AV programs. For other infections a full/deep scan by the AV will help.

One test I use is a Bootable Linux LiveDVD or LiveUSB drive and run programs on it to determine if the slowness also occurs with it. The DVD contains usable programs that can be used to verify things like sound/audio, graphics, connection to Router, pretty much anything outside of Windows. Frequently if that Linux [I use Mint] works it leads to doing a fully-clean install of Windows to which end I use the GPARTED program on the disc to wipe all partitions from the internal drive to put it back to its as-shipped condition.

Sometimes doing a Repair install or In-place Upgrade of Windows will help.

As for using Win10 on older machines, I have it running on Notebooks as old as 2010 quite well with CPU speeds from 1.10GHz up through 2.50GHz and 4GB or 8GB RAM [machines I have rehabbed rather than put in landfill].

Do you have a feel for whether those rootkit infections come from malicious sources or are they sometimes the result of bugs and other problems?

 

[Bighorn]

Basically the answer for the questions is that the possibilities could be the same. Infections can arrive via downloads from the Internet, included in installation routines of programs on other media, part of an attachment to a file in E-Mail, etc.