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My PC was painfully slow until I fixed this one SSD problem
I've dealt with some slow PCs in my life. At an old job a decade ago, the PCs were so slow that you could quite literally boot the PC, go away for 20 minutes, and come back with it finally ready to be used. But these days, SSDs have thankfully largely eradicated that sluggishness. That is why I instantly knew something was wrong when a 'new' computer was taking forever to reach the desktop.
Anyone who's ever owned an SSD knows that switching from a hard drive cuts your Windows boot times down to mere seconds. Unfortunately, earlier this year, I had to deal with a PC that took 30 minutes.
Just booting the PC took an eternity
I've never seen a PC that slow
For a bit of background, the PC wasn't exactly mine, but I was the one who had to deal with it when it broke. Despite numerous warnings, my mom decided to buy herself a prebuilt PC last year. There's nothing wrong with prebuilts as long as you avoid some common traps, but alas, my mom ignored all of my advice and went ahead with a prebuilt that had just about every red flag you could think of. It was suspiciously cheap, and we soon found out why.
It only took two months for her to call me and complain that the PC was entirely unusable. I held back the "I told you so" and inspected the PC. She wasn't kidding.
Upon booting, just reaching the desktop took 15 to 30 minutes, and that wasn't much help; opening the browser or even File Explorer in Windows was nearly impossible. The worst part is that symptoms like that, meaning absolutely awful performance, can be misleading. It could've been the SSD, but equally, the RAM, CPU, or the motherboard could have been the culprit.
I finally made my way into the Task Manager, and under Performance, I found that the disk utilization was sitting at a constant 100%. That's not normal SSD behavior. Healthy drives spike briefly, but you'll never see them sitting at 100% for too long unless there's something seriously wrong with them.
How do you troubleshoot a drive that just won't work? It wasn't easy, but I tried my best.
Fixing the problem took many attempts
Here's what you can try if your SSD is acting up
Turns out that it's really, really hard to troubleshoot a PC that takes half an hour to execute the simplest task, but I tried what I could. There are a few steps to take when you suspect the drive might be failing.
Here's what I tried, and what you should try too if your PC is ever seriously underperforming.
Start with the basics and rule out software culprits
Something as simple as Windows Update can make your PC painfully slow, so if that's running in the background, that's probably the problem.
No Windows Update? Start your digging in Task Manager (which was, coincidentally, basically the only thing I could run on that PC). Check and see if any app or Windows service is hogging disk resources.
On Windows, you can also try to turn off SysMain (also known as Superfetch) as a temporary test. Superfetch preloads frequently used apps into your RAM to make them load faster when you need them, but it can sometimes cause high disk and memory usage. To turn it off, type "Services" into Windows Search, then scroll down to "SysMain." Double-click on it, then set the Startup type to "Disabled," and lastly, "Stop" the service.
In my case, none of that helped, so I moved on.
Remember to turn SysMain back on once you're done testing.
Disable everything
Try to shut down every unnecessary background process, especially cloud sync apps (OneDrive, Dropbox, etc.), as they could be stuck indexing. Next, disable startup apps to rule out a stuck program.
If you're running a third-party antivirus service and your PC can handle it, try to scan your PC for malware. If nothing comes up, disable the antivirus.
Test your drive health
This is a step I couldn't complete on that PC (it was way too slow), but usually, if you suspect problems with the SSD, testing drive health can really shed some light on the matter. This means checking the S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) attributes of your drive.
I usually do this using a free tool called CrystalDiskInfo, but you can also run a basic check using the Windows Command Prompt: Hit "Start," type in "Command Prompt," press Enter, and then type the following command:
wmic diskdrive get status
Boot into safe mode
You can reboot your PC into safe mode. This may or may not resolve the issue, but more importantly, it'll give you some degree of certainty whether the problem is software- or hardware-based. Safe mode strips Windows down to its bare bones, ruling out all kinds of software issues.
Windows 11 automatically triggers the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) if your PC fails to boot twice in a row, and that lets you enter safe mode. If you need to access it, simply shut down your PC with the power button twice in a row during boot, then go to Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Startup Settings > Restart, and then choose one of the safe mode options. You can also trigger it in Windows by navigating to Settings > System > Recovery > Advanced startup > Restart now.
That didn't help, so I had to keep trying.
Check connections
This is a kind of last resort scenario, but if all else fails, you can try to physically re-seat the drive, which essentially means removing and installing the SSD again. Shut down your PC, unplug everything, ground yourself, and re-seat the SSD stick (or unplug and replug both data and power cables for SATA drives).
If a different port or M.2 slot is available, try to move the drive there.
Try the drive in a different PC
I was getting desperate at that point. Nothing seemed to be helping, and my troubleshooting options were greatly limited by how slow the PC was. I decided to try the drive in a different PC.
You can do the same thing. Just don't try it as the boot drive. I added it as a secondary drive, and I quickly found that the drive was constantly disconnecting, and when that didn't happen, it would freeze and refuse to open folders or copy files.
I knew for a fact then that the SSD was dead, and the only thing left to do was to cut my losses.
The fix was unfortunate, but unavoidable
That SSD went straight to the tech graveyard
I had hoped I'd be able to save the SSD, but no dice. I finally managed to scan it in CrystalDiskInfo when I moved it to a different PC, and found that it was failing. Its Power On Count was also in the thousands, despite the PC being supposedly new. This suggested that the drive was used prior to my mom buying the PC. That explains the low price, I suppose.
The problem with giving up on a disk drive is potential data loss. Fortunately, my mom didn't have any files she couldn't afford to lose, but if she did, we'd have a problem — the drive was next to impossible to navigate, and adding more write cycles could've killed it completely.
If you're ever in this position, you're probably better off just taking the drive to a professional recovery service if the files are important. I ended up just getting a new SSD.
Keep an eye on your SSD health
All of this could have been avoided
This whole journey was no fun, and most of it could've been prevented. But there's a lesson to be learned here, and it's that regular scans can help you detect potential problems before they ever result in data loss.
Don't wait for your PC to act up. Download CrystalDiskInfo, or proprietary manufacturer software if applicable, and keep an eye on drive health, error counts, and temperature. It's better to be safe than sorry.