I did a fresh install a couple of months ago, reinstalled everything, and computer was running super smoothly and snappy on Windows 11. However, past few days, my drives seem to have slowed down to the point where file transfers are sometimes only kb/s rather than MB/s.

This mainly seems to be happening to my mechanical drives, and mainly my external USB drives. There haven't been any updates installed for the USB drivers or chipsets or anything of the like recently to trigger this.

I have tried using CCleaner Pro to do a clean of anything that may be stifling the data transfers etc. I have also run a CHKDSK on the drives and all are healthy and good, and also defrag the drives regularly.

Anything I could be missing, or anything I can try to do to speed anything up? Any hidden caches or files that can be deleted or cleaned to help with anything?

 

Several things

-Monitor disk access first
https://www.xda-developers.com/how-monitor-disk-usage-windows-11/

If there is nothing special in this domain, no process "eating" bandwidth :
-disable ANY antivirus/malware/whatever protection and test file transfert.
Sometimes, they are so intensive on file scanning they almost freeze computer.

If it still slow, time for a real bandwidth test :
https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskmark/
Post the results here (saved from the app)

I suspect a process scanning all files, like Win Defender or any antivirus.

 

Didn't the clocks go backwards last night where you live? That might explain it

 

Is this machine on the internet and is it running win update and any other autonomous updater's to vital system software? If you answered YES to those questions you now have the answer why you are experiencing anomalous behavior.

Suggestion:
rebuild the machine again and this time disable win update or anything else that updates autonomously. If this is a internet access box then run a third party firewall (shitcan the defender fw) and block everything except for the most needed things. Turn OFF the POS mickeysoft A/V and get something that YOU have control over. MS puts "controls" on defender, but it still acts way too much on it's own taking liberties that remain behind the curtain.
IF this is a machine that you are intending as a audio or video production machine forget every thing I just said. Rebuild it with a optimized OS (win10 or win11, ghostspectre or equivalent type build) and remove the internet completely and you should be pretty well setup with a killer production platform.

 

I remember when you had to re-install everything, that was about 5 months ago. Do you have defraggler as part of the Ccleaner Pro package? if so use it to see how badly fragmented this drive has become, (because I do not trust the standard one, despite the fact you say you defrag regularly).. and also tell me how much of the hard drive you've used! We can go from there.

Oh and also, I need to know exactly the last few things you've re-installed since you noticed the slow down.. You can send me a message if you don't wanna post in here all the stuff you've put back on..

 

Last edited: Oct 30, 2023