I've been using my partner's older PC for working from home, but over the past few weeks it has become increasingly unstable. Every few minutes, the system stops responding: the mouse still moves and items highlight when hovered over, but clicks do nothing, followed by the cursor turning into an hourglass and the computer becoming completely frozen.
Task Manager suggests the SSD is involved. Disk usage is usually low after startup, then suddenly jumps to 100% even when no applications are open, which is when the freezes occur. My partner has already tried several troubleshooting steps without success, though I'm not sure exactly which ones. A factory reset or clean reinstall is being considered, but I'd rather avoid wasting time if the SSD itself is failing. What should I check first, and is there a way to confirm whether the drive needs replacing?
4 Answers
You can also test whether Windows or a startup program is responsible by booting into Safe Mode. If the issue disappears there, investigate drivers, background services, malware, or recently installed software. If it still freezes in Safe Mode, hardware—especially the SSD—becomes more likely.
First, back up any important files while the computer is still usable. Then boot from a USB live environment or diagnostic tool and see whether the drive remains extremely slow or unresponsive there. If it behaves badly outside Windows too, the SSD is probably failing and reinstalling Windows will not fix it. If it works normally, a clean Windows installation could be worth trying; a standard reset does not always resolve storage or system-file problems.
Check the SSD’s health and SMART information with a tool such as CrystalDiskInfo, and look at the actual read/write speed in Task Manager rather than just the percentage. A drive can show 100% active time while transferring very little data, which often points to errors or a failing drive. Also check how much free space remains, since a nearly full drive can perform poorly. Avoid repeatedly stressing the drive if important data has not been backed up.
The amount of RAM and the SSD’s capacity would help narrow this down, but the symptoms are consistent with a storage problem. If diagnostics report warnings, the drive is almost full, or the computer locks up during disk checks, replace the SSD and restore your files from a backup rather than relying on a reset.
If the same slowdowns happen in a live environment, that’s a strong indication the drive itself—not Windows—is the problem.