After turning on my Windows 11 PC, the system became extremely slow—each click takes roughly 15 seconds to respond, and almost nothing is usable because the system drive is showing 100% activity. I already tried disabling SysMain and a few other services, but it did not help. PowerShell reports that the SSD health is good, so I'm unsure whether this is a Windows process, a recent update, or a failing drive. The SSD is the Windows install drive, while a separate HDD remains at 0% usage. What should I check next?
3 Answers
Open Task Manager, go to the Disk column, and sort by usage so you can identify the process actually causing the activity. It could be SearchIndexer, Defender, a recent Windows update, or another application. If indexing is responsible, try switching Windows Search from Enhanced to Classic mode or temporarily stop the Windows Search service. Also check Event Viewer under Windows Logs > System for disk warnings around the time this started. A SMART status of “healthy” is useful, but it does not rule out every kind of SSD problem.
Since the SSD is the system drive and the other hard drive is idle, the drive itself is still worth investigating. SSDs can begin failing while basic health checks continue to report that everything is fine. If the computer is responsive enough, back up important files first, then inspect the drive with CrystalDiskInfo or the manufacturer’s diagnostic tool. Look for warnings, increasing error counts, or a degraded health status.
If this began immediately after an update or startup, Windows may be performing a large indexing operation, Defender scan, or update cleanup. It can sometimes settle down after the process finishes, but don’t wait indefinitely if the system remains unusable. Check which process is active and make a backup before doing anything involving disk repairs or BIOS settings.
I already disabled SysMain, but I’ll check Task Manager, indexing, and the event logs to see which process is actually responsible.