Suddenly getting super slow for no reason

i3 4160, 2x4gb RAM, GTX 1050, Seagate HDD 320.

Everything used to run perfectly fine. I was running Unity, 3ds Max, and Photoshop all at once, and it worked great for months.

But then, just a few days ago, my PC slowed down by like half, and I honestly have no clue why. I tried deleting all the apps I don't use, ran some cleaners for viruses, Trojans, and registry junk, you know the drill. I'm using 360 Total Security as my antivirus, and I even turned off the Bitdefender part so it wouldn't slow things down further.

Now, when I open 3ds Max, it takes like 5 to 10 minutes just to load. Once it's open, it's okay, but if I switch over to Unity to get some work done, my RAM just hits the limit, the hard drive goes absolutely nuts, and everything just freezes up.

I tested the RAM using the Windows memory diagnostic, and it passed. I checked the HDD using those built-in Windows tools too, and that passed as well. All my component temperatures seem totally normal, and the fans aren't making any weird noises.

The weirdest thing is, I tried playing Fallout 4—which is pretty much the only game I have—and it runs on High settings without any issues, like nothing is wrong at all.

I'm starting to feel like 3ds Max is just being buggy, because if I don't launch it, everything seems fine, but once I do, it’s like total chaos.

So, question—is there a specific tool I could use to stress test my components? I really want to make sure everything is actually working right and maybe check if there's some weird voltage issue going on.
Or maybe I just caught some nasty virus.

It’s likely just some macOS updates running in the background. My advice? Just let it ride. Leave the computer powered on overnight to let everything finish up. Then, give it a quick restart first thing in the morning just to be safe, and see if things are back to normal...

You’re running all this software on a pathetic Seagate HDD 320. You don't really have much storage to work with for those programs.

Check how much free space you actually have left. And for heaven's sake, defrag the drive—it looks like you haven't touched it in ages. It’s incredibly fragmented; your models are scattered across a billion different sectors, so it’s no wonder everything is crawling.

Get a new, larger drive immediately and reinstall everything from scratch. I know it's a pain, but honestly, after what you've put this old thing through, I wouldn't trust its longevity for a second...

And don't bother partitioning the new drive. Just leave it as one single volume. Use folders to stay organized instead.

EDIT:

Just a heads-up: defragging is probably going to take a loooong time. Your best bet is to let it run overnight. If it looks like nothing is happening, don't assume it froze; just leave it alone so it can finish. Force-stopping a defrag can absolutely wreck your data.

Jeffrey Allen92 said:It’s likely just some macOS updates running in the background. My advice? Just let it ride. Leave the computer powered on overnight to let everything finish up. Then, give it a quick restart first thing in the morning just to be safe, and see if things are back to normal...

Nah, it's not an update, I'd know because it always tells me when it's updating, and I see the status during the reboot.

Now, whenever my computer starts lagging, hitting restart takes like 10 minutes, even though a regular shutdown happens instantly.

darkowl72 said:You’re running all this software on a pathetic Seagate HDD 320. You don't really have much storage to work with for those programs.

Check how much free space you actually have left. And for heaven's sake, defrag the drive—it looks like you haven't touched it in ages. It’s incredibly fragmented; your models are scattered across a billion different sectors, so it’s no wonder everything is crawling.

Get a new, larger drive immediately and reinstall everything from scratch. I know it's a pain, but honestly, after what you've put this old thing through, I wouldn't trust its longevity for a second...

And don't bother partitioning the new drive. Just leave it as one single volume. Use folders to stay organized instead.

EDIT:

Just a heads-up: defragging is probably going to take a loooong time. Your best bet is to let it run overnight. If it looks like nothing is happening, don't assume it froze; just leave it alone so it can finish. Force-stopping a defrag can absolutely wreck your data.

It says it was defragged a week ago, it's supposed to happen automatically.

I'm also thinking it might be the hard drive, because games always ran fine, but things start acting up only when I open 3ds Max or Unity.

I guess I'm just pushing it too hard with 3ds Max since that program is such a beast.

If you're running on a ten, nobody’s even going to bother reaching out to you. Honestly, macOS is so automated these days that even the engineers at Apple don't really have a clue what's happening under the hood. You'll get an error message that just says "something happened," and that's it. Even the OS doesn't know what actually went wrong. If you caught some piece of malware, it'll just send out emails to whatever targets it needs to and move on—you don't need to sweat that. But if none of those things fit, then there's a real chance your hard drive is just dying on you.

Just tell me which version of macOS you're running and how much free space is left on your drive.

Is automatic defragmentation turned on? 🤷

Jessica Murphy61 said:i3 4160, 2x4gb RAM, GTX 1050, Seagate HDD 320.

Everything used to run perfectly fine. I was running Unity, 3ds Max, and Photoshop all at once, and it worked great for months.

But then, just a few days ago, my PC slowed down by like half, and I honestly have no clue why. I tried deleting all the apps I don't use, ran some cleaners for viruses, Trojans, and registry junk, you know the drill. I'm using 360 Total Security as my antivirus, and I even turned off the Bitdefender part so it wouldn't slow things down further.

Now, when I open 3ds Max, it takes like 5 to 10 minutes just to load. Once it's open, it's okay, but if I switch over to Unity to get some work done, my RAM just hits the limit, the hard drive goes absolutely nuts, and everything just freezes up.

I tested the RAM using the Windows memory diagnostic, and it passed. I checked the HDD using those built-in Windows tools too, and that passed as well. All my component temperatures seem totally normal, and the fans aren't making any weird noises.

The weirdest thing is, I tried playing Fallout 4—which is pretty much the only game I have—and it runs on High settings without any issues, like nothing is wrong at all.

I'm starting to feel like 3ds Max is just being buggy, because if I don't launch it, everything seems fine, but once I do, it’s like total chaos.

So, question—is there a specific tool I could use to stress test my components? I really want to make sure everything is actually working right and maybe check if there's some weird voltage issue going on.
Or maybe I just caught some nasty virus.

Look, just download Hard Disk Sentinel and scan the drive like a normal person.

Windows 7, C drive has 40 GB free out of 200, D drive has 59 GB free out of 97

So, I was working on a scene in 3ds Max earlier today—just using that one app—and man, everything just totally tanked.

It seems like as soon as I try to run anything else demanding alongside 3ds Max, the whole system starts lagging hard, and even if I close the programs, nothing speeds back up unless I restart.

I think I'm gonna go ahead and download that program.

You’re working with pretty tight storage here, but I guess it is what it is.

Running 3ds Max alongside other heavy apps messes with your allocated memory. 3ds Max doesn't always "release" certain memory blocks, leading to fragmentation—kind of like how a hard drive gets cluttered. When you launch a new app, it tries to load into that fragmented mess, which forces a massive spike in your macOS pagefile and application swapfiles. That ends up choking your slow drive, and there's your headache right there...

It's honestly a bad move to run multiple high-demand apps when your disk space is this low. It might not feel small to you, but once you factor in the pagefile, swapfiles, and all those temporary or scratch files applications create on the fly, that extra space vanishes instantly.

The root of your specific issue is that even after you close 3ds Max, certain RAM partitions stay allocated instead of being freed up for other tasks. 3ds Max is complex software and prone to bugs; these memory leaks and its tendency to generate massive, unnecessary files are well-documented issues.

Check out this forum thread and the discussion here:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-ma...es/m-p/4921192

Specifically, this should probably help you out:

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/sc...free-memory-v1

...or something similar. Just run it after you exit 3ds Max and things should stabilize. If that one doesn't work, just find another memory cleaner tool.

...plus, what if there’s just a bunch of dust gunked up on the CPU heatsink and the AMD chip is throttling because it's overheating?

Look, I get it. The stock cooler on this CPU isn't exactly a masterpiece of engineering, but does it really need to be? We’re talking about a chip that pulls a measly 54W under load. You’d have to dump a bag of flour directly onto it before you even started seeing dust issues.
The i3 just loves to throttle its own clock speeds, doesn't it? It basically tries to downclock itself whenever it gets the chance. I have the exact same processor, and at idle, it sits right at 0.76 GHz, occasionally jumping up to 1.33 GHz. Just now, with maybe 4 or 5 apps open, I tasked it with generating a report—about 600 pages so far, and it hasn't stopped. Only then did it finally kick up to 3.6 GHz, even though usage was under 40% across my 1730 threads... okay, maybe that's not the best benchmark, but it didn't even break a sweat while crunching those numbers. As soon as it finished? Right back down to 0.76 GHz.

He makes a good point: the real headache starts when your memory fills up and the system begins swapping to the disk, or if it's just slow program loading. This is the perfect scenario for an upgrade to more RAM and an SSD, especially since the current setup is probably ready for retirement.

I mean, I'm pretty sure it's a massive headache, because once the audio starts glitching and the speed drops, everything just goes completely south.

Maybe I'll give those 3ds Max plugins a shot; hopefully they actually do something for me.

Also, how much faster are SSDs compared to an old Seagate HDD 320? I'm wondering if it makes sense for my 3D rendering and digital art setup to grab a smaller SSD for macOS and my apps, then just dump everything else onto the HDD?