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Lenovo laptop with Intel i7 7700HQ, 24 GB RAM, 2TB 5400 HDD(OS hard and Data, 400 GB used only), 1 TB 970 EVO NVMe SSD(for work, 500 GB used), 1060 6GB MaxQ, Windows 10 Pro licensed, bought in 2018.

For the last 1.5 years, I experience a huge problem. If I do not use the laptop for a week, when I start it, it becomes unresponsive for 30min to 3h, depending on what updates it tries to retrieve. It is impossible to do anything during that time. Any action takes up to 5 min to complete(even right click on desktop). Task Manager shows minimal usage of anything except HDD, which stays 100% with average response time most of the time being 1000ms and with +- spikes. After this blackout time, it starts working perfectly well.

I have tried:

  1. Disable all Windows services, like Search, Optimized defrag, Automatic Updates(through policy editor), telemetry and many others that I already don't remember.
  2. Checked HDD for bad sectors, scanned with checkdisk, with sfc, checked SMART. All good.
  3. Checked the laptop for viruses, with Avast, Kaspersky and Bitdefender and Spybot Search&Destroy
  4. Analyzing Resource Monitor shows windows services killing the HDD I/O. Sometimes update services, sometimes NTFS master table. A lot of different Windows services.

I am a Software Engineer and I have 15+ years of experience with PCs. This is something which I already have no clues how to fix. Never experienced something like this. Tried everything. I have an additional Windows 8.1 laptop bought in 2013, with 7200RPM drive, which runs better than this one, and never had issues like that.

Any suggestions what can I do more to identify the real issue with this HDD and Windows Update?

Basically at the moment I'm thinking to buy an SSD and reinstall the OS, but because I have so many things configured for DEV environment, I look with horror to this idea, because I will spend another week to configure stuff to work as I expect. Yesterday it took 13h to update from 1909 to 2004 Windows 10 version... At the end, even windows update wrote on the screen that this is taking longer than usual.

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  • The hard drive is very slow. Is it trying to update Windows? Let the complete. "Disable all Windows services, like Search, Optimized defrag, Automatic Updates(through policy editor), telemetry and many others that I already don't remember." <-- I do not have to do this to make a machine work well.
    – anon
    Commented Jun 7, 2021 at 12:25
  • Does this happen with and without internet/LAN connectivity? If it only happens after a week may be there is an scheduled Anti Virus full scan running? Open Resource Monitor and check what processes access the HDD when it is that slow.
    – Robert
    Commented Jun 7, 2021 at 12:31
  • I removed all antiviruses. Regarding leaving it complete, yes, I understand, but I cannot every time wait 3h to complete, every 1-2 weeks, and also, as I mentioned, I set auto updates to false in group policy. I also looked today, and saw FontCache Obsolete process draining the HDD. I disabled it and also removed manually all font cache files, and I have a feeling it is going better, but I shall see with time
    – XMight
    Commented Jun 7, 2021 at 12:39
  • also right now, NTFS Master table drains the HDD, with some guid files from system volume information, also WinSxS Manifests, NTFS Volume Log. HDD is 100% at the moment, after update.
    – XMight
    Commented Jun 7, 2021 at 12:42

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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After a lot of time of investigation and countless neurons being spent, I have found that if I disable:

  1. SysMain from Services and Task Scheduler
  2. Windows Defender scheduled run which was set to execute at user log in, in Task Scheduler
  3. Application Experiente -> Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser, in Task scheduler

my laptop started to behave like a normal laptop, the 5400 RPM HDD staying mostly at 0% with seldow spikes at 70% while I'm writing this.

I honestly do not understand these settings and the behavior of these apps. This default is literally killing the whole PC making it simply unusable.

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