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I have my 5 year old computer that I've done some alterations to but works fine for the most part. Sometimes, when I have been using it for a while, it freezes for a couple of seconds and I hear something spinning forcefully. I suspect that it may be my hard drive. Is there any way that I can confirm that this issue is my hard drive? Could it have something to do with from top level,can defragmentation for instance reduce those scenarios or is it damaged? Could this issue be caused by another component in my computer?
Thanks in advance.

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  • Have you checked its SMART parameters? Jul 1, 2014 at 16:47
  • Everything on HDtune on Health tab has its status Ok, should I check sth else, btw I am checking for corrupted blocks also now. Jul 1, 2014 at 16:53

3 Answers 3

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How much memory do you have? What kind of programs are you running when this lag happens? While it's possible that paging could be the cause of it, it may also be possible that your drive is failing.

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  • 500 gigs on HDD & 8 at ram, when this happens I usually have enough programs running , my task manager says 2-3,5 gigs.My paging is on default shall I try to increase it? Jul 1, 2014 at 16:24
  • If you're only using 3.5 out of 8GB RAM and your drive is stalling during I/O operations, it likely has bad sectors and is failing. Download a utility such as DiskCheckup and check for reallocated/uncorrectable sectors.
    – Bigbio2002
    Jul 1, 2014 at 16:29
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Generally that is a sign that you do not have enough ram to contain all the info you need to run everything you have open and so the hard drive is being used to swap info in and out of memory.

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  • I agree more ram less swapping , but I recently upgraded to 8 gigs for win7 64bit.Shall I invest on more Ram or on hard-drive. Jul 1, 2014 at 16:20
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There are many symptoms and causes related with this behaviour, here are some of them:

  • Temperature. As time passes, the computer stores dirt and the CPU's thermal compound degrades in quality and doesn't transfer heat as efficiently, making the CPU to heat up and it may probably be scaling down its speed to keep cool. This causes the fan to speed up and it may be quite noisy. Clean up your computer thoroughly using the proper tools and replace the thermal compound.
  • Faulty RAM or low RAM. When RAM becomes old, its latency may increase, one of the main symptoms is that the mouse pointer appears to lag, I recommend to run a test on it using memtest86+. Also, as other users say, it may as well be the lack of it, when you computer runs out of ram it stores the less used chunks on files on your hard drive, and this process is terribly slow. You might want to consider buying new or more RAM in both cases.
  • Bad hard drive. Your drive might as well be dying. Use a tool to check the SMART status of your drive. Usually when the HDD is the case of the slow down, only file-related operations slow down (like when opening an app or booting) and contrary to the RAM case, you won't see your mouse lagging because of the hard drive. You can use this tool: HDTune, as suggested in this question: How can I read my hard drive's SMART status in Windows 7?.
  • Software issues or malware. I won't say that there's a malware or a virus that makes your computer to heat up or that clogs the RAM completely, but their presence may be causing you some trouble too.
    • Run a check with an antivirus. Run a check with anti-malware tools too, like adwcleaner or malwarebytes.
    • Run the msconfig tool (Win+R and execute msconfig.exe) and disable any unwanted apps that run on startup. You can move to the Services tag and disable unwanted or suspicious services too, you may want to check the Hide Microsoft services option so you don't disable anything important.
    • You can refer to this answer for a more detailed explanation of the disabling process.
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  • Thank you very much nice answer.I've done my test and my Reallocated Sector Count is Ok,so I 'll check also the rest. Jul 1, 2014 at 16:48

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