I've been using my partner's older PC for working from home, but over the past few weeks it has become increasingly unstable. Now it freezes roughly every five minutes. The mouse still moves and buttons highlight when hovered over, but clicking causes everything to hang and the cursor changes to an hourglass until the computer is restarted.
Task Manager shows the SSD sitting at a low usage level after startup, then suddenly jumping to 100% even when no applications are open. My partner has already tried several troubleshooting steps without success. I'm considering resetting or reinstalling Windows because taking it to a repair shop isn't currently affordable. Is there a way to determine whether the SSD is failing, and what should I try before replacing it?
5 Answers
Check the SSD’s health and SMART information with a tool such as CrystalDiskInfo. You can also run Windows checks from an administrator Command Prompt, including sfc /scannow and chkdsk, but back up important data first if the drive may be failing. Repeated heavy disk activity can make a failing drive deteriorate further.
In Task Manager’s Performance tab, look at the actual read and write speeds while usage is at 100%. High active time with almost no throughput can indicate a failing or severely stalled drive. Also check how much free space is available; a nearly full drive can become extremely slow. If the SSD is counterfeit, damaged, or dying, replacement is usually the practical solution.
The amount of RAM and the SSD’s capacity would also help narrow this down. As a quick diagnostic step, try starting Windows in Safe Mode. If the freezing stops there, a driver or startup program may be responsible; if it continues, hardware or the storage device becomes more likely.
Before doing a factory reset, prioritize copying work files and anything important to another drive or cloud location. A reset can fail or make recovery harder if the SSD is already unstable. If the drive health test is poor or the live USB test also freezes, replacing the SSD and performing a fresh installation is safer than continuing to troubleshoot the old one.
Test the drive outside the normal Windows installation if possible. Using another computer, create a bootable USB with a live operating system or recovery environment, then see whether the drive is still slow or locking up there. If it behaves badly in that environment too, the SSD is probably failing and reinstalling Windows will not fix it. If it works normally, back up your important files and consider a clean Windows installation, deleting the existing partitions during setup rather than relying on a basic reset.
Exactly—if the same problem happens from a live environment, that strongly points to the drive itself rather than Windows.