Troubleshooting PC Slowdowns: A Personal Journey to a Faster Machine

In early 2020, I built a powerful PC with the intention of using it for video editing and gaming. Recently, however, I noticed a significant decline in its performance—so much so that it felt slower than my grandmother’s old computer! With nothing particularly unusual to explain this slowdown, I found myself feeling frustrated and a bit lost in how to diagnose the issue.

To start, I made sure to verify that my system wasn’t overloaded with files and that I wasn’t engaging in activities like torrenting that could slow it down. While I consider myself somewhat tech-savvy, I still wanted to be cautious and ensure all my drivers were up to date before delving deeper into the problem.

After running UserBenchmarks when I initially built my PC, I had received a respectable score, though I had lost the original link and didn’t capture the report. Determined, I ran the benchmark again to see how my current setup was performing. The results were shocking: my computer’s performance had dropped dramatically compared to its initial state.

Among the results, my scores were as follows:
– CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X – 21.1%
– GPU: Nvidia RTX 2080-Ti – 57.6%
– SSD: Intel 660p NVMe PCIe M.2 1TB – 96.5%
– RAM: Kingston HyperX DDR4 3200 C16 2x16GB – 50.7%
– Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS (WI-FI)

As I pondered my dismal scores, I sought help from the community. Thankfully, after some input from fellow tech enthusiasts, it became clear that a crucial motherboard update had been overlooked. After quickly applying the necessary update, I took a much-needed rest, planning to rerun tests the following day.

When I revisited my computer about 24 hours later, I was thrilled to find that everything had returned to normal. Boot speeds were significantly improved and applications opened almost instantaneously rather than taking an agonizing 20 to 30 seconds to load.

In sharing my experience, I hope to encourage anyone facing similar issues to consider checking for motherboard updates and to not hesitate in reaching out for help. The tech community is full of knowledgeable individuals willing to assist, and sometimes, a small oversight