System Slow During Certain Events

[TheBorgInva]

Got this system August 2022 from factory (and out of date ten seconds after it left).
Basic system specs.

Dell XPS 8950
Windows 11 Pro 64-bit (10.0, Build 22621)
Processor: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700 (20 CPUs), ~2.1GHz
Memory: 16384MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 12
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
Display Memory: 16092 MB

I disabled a bunch of 'wares/crap from M$, as I always do. Nothing boots up with Windows other than what is in the core OS and several programs. Most are very small and use up little RAM. So pretty lightweight with these specs.

What I can not understand falls in two parts.

1 > Sometimes on a boot, everything is just slow to load. Libre Office, Firefox, VLC. Takes a reboot or two to get things loading as "normal" as Windows loads them. Never ZIPPED open warp fast, sadly, just... Windows normal.

No idea why that happens.

2 > Some programs will bring this system to a screeching crawl, even though by watching Task Manager nothing is 100% super high. Firestorm, Epic Games Client (especially when downloading), uTorrent, (hey, there are companies do use them too legitly... [going to trademark that word]), some games (locally).

I just do not understand why the system practically freezes at times when running those programs. Even after un/reinstalls, junk file and registry cleans, SFC, DSIM, etc. Every thing other than a format/reload to even test if things work better after or not.

All programs installed on the M2 drive where Windows is. Anything that can run without being installed, and data, on other drives.

After typing all this, making me wonder if using the Internet has anything to do with all this. I have 20M/2M.

Wonder if anyone reading this may have some thoughts to something I may not have thought of.

Thanks.

 

[TheBorgInva]

Definitely only while using the Internet, even web pages, crawl the system.
ISP is Spectrum, using 20M/2M. Speeds test within that range.
N600 WiFi Cable Modem Router.

 

[TheBorgInva]

Interesting though that even though the system will freeze trying to load a web page (especially Youtube), from any browser, it can play tubitv.com fine.

 

[TheBorgInva]

And only when any amount of data is being transferred with the Internet. I can play games like Horizon Zero Dawn with no problem. But loading a website or Epic Games, utorrent, etc. will cause problems. Again, funny I can play tubitv.com movies (my only source of free movie watching) but when I do anything else like loading another web tab, system studders, or crawls depending on what program is loaded.
Wondering if it is communication issues between router/modem and PC to cause these issues??

 

[neeyik]

Having checked the specs for your Dell machine, one component immediately stood out as being something worth investigating -- the Killer E3100G Ethernet controller. The software for it is known to cause performance issues (Intel has a pretty long list of support for all kinds of issues).

If following Dell/Intel's guides doesn't help, I'd get in touch with Dell directly, as the machine should still be under warranty.

 

[TheBorgInva]

Having checked the specs for your Dell machine, one component immediately stood out as being something worth investigating -- the Killer E3100G Ethernet controller. The software for it is known to cause performance issues (Intel has a pretty long list of support for all kinds of issues).

If following Dell/Intel's guides doesn't help, I'd get in touch with Dell directly, as the machine should still be under warranty.

My gosh, I totally did not even think about the network card!
I will give that a look over!!

 

[TheBorgInva]

Long journey but issue solved (for now). I was plagued by the Intel Killer network software and Window$ incompatibility, and corruption. The only way to solve it eventually was a reload of the OS in the end. So at some point some update months ago, from either/both vendors, caused the problem and no amount of playing around with software/drivers helped.

Reloaded last weekend after all other fixing attempts failed. Did a lot of testing for the past week and even now I am typing this while both Epic Games is downloading games and got Linux distributions and public domain torrents running, and my CPU is under 6% and RAM under 55%. No system slow downs or lag. Roblox and Riot games load fast again too.

Help from Dell was... time wasting. They refused to do a data collection and analyze system logs. They did not research the issue even when I told them about the Killer conflict. Many of them were soooooooooooo focused on my WIFI connections, even thought I am using Ethernet only for the system in question. I had to repeat myself a dozen times on several things with them because no one reads what I say. Outsourced tech support at its finest!

Thank you. Your suggestion is what led me to troubleshooting that and finding out it was in fact the cause for months. You helped me fix this.

A woot woot!

Will see how it goes from here...