Windows 11/Alienware PC: Slowed/Non-Functionality in Various Tasks

[u/HandOfLogan]

The Story: Close to two weeks ago my file explorer opened randomly and showed my relatively new HDD was no longer showing the blue/white bar indicating storage space. Double clicking on it resulted in file explorer showing the loading icon and my cursor changing to the hourglass while hovering.

The Symptoms: The troubleshooting rabbit hole led me to discover that the Disk Management window kept saying it was “connecting to virtual disk service”, the Microsoft Defender Antimaleware Service was permanently at the top/second from top of the task manager memory usage, my Dell Support Assist could not check for updates because my “PC is busy right now…” and other scans kept failing/running for hours without completing, my shutdown button took minutes to actually shutdown, and my (now) slow startup occasionally entered a black screen with my cursor visible (that I solved by restarting file explorer and waiting a few minutes for everything to load in). And finally, there is a dull, slow thump coming from the computer, like a heartbeat every 4 seconds (looked inside and didn’t see any fans spinning nor how they could be knocking into wires or stuff). Other than a slow file explorer, everything else responds as usual: Firefox, Excel, Adobe, VLC, video games/launchers.

What I have tried: Turn off/unplugged/replugged/turn on. Checked for Windows update; there were a few recent windows October updates that I uninstalled, checked, and then reinstalled. Tried to download any drivers/updates from Dell Support Assist; it could not check my system to provide updates. I’ve unplugged and replugged the missing drive; no effect. I’ve gone through my startup apps but nothing stands out as problematic, just like driver checks for audio and adobe.

I finally got Dell Online Support to do a quick hardware scan followed by telling me to do a F12 boot diagnostic, which said I needed to replace my hard drive and they gave me a quote to ship and replace the part. I doesn’t seem like my SSD has an issue since a lot of other applications still seem to work. So I had Dell run the online hardware scan again and this time it passed everything. I suspect there was lag in the initial scan that gave a false negative. So I had it check for driver updates and it got to 90% and it said service was busy with current install/download.

Do y’all think this looks like a hardware issue or a software issue? I’ve googled some of the symptoms but can’t find a match that fits all/most of the issues; file explorer does seem to be related to a lot of the issues though. I’m also suspicious of these issues appearing after a recent Windows security update, which might explain why the windows defender is running above normal. Do y’all have any suggestions of more troubleshooting? Or do I have some crazy malware poking at things?

Specs: Alienware Aurora Ryzen R10
AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12 Core processor;
32GB RAM;
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 10GB graphics card.

I will try to answer any questions/provide more info. Thanks in advance!

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[u/Celebrill]

Bottom line up front: probably try a windows repair first. Make sure to ask AI how to do it while keeping your data. If that doesn't work, maybe replace the hard drive.

One thing stands out to me: the thump! You mention that you have an ssd? Are you absolutely certain its an ssd and not a spinning hard drive? Back in the day, spinning hard drives used to click (or kind of thump) as they were starting to go bad. Something about the arm movement (they had a little arm with a laser, kind of like a record player).

Honestly, I would take a look at "Event Viewer" logs. I think explorer is in the windows and then application logs and see if you can filter for critical errors. Search the error details online.

Explorer doesn't just run the folder thing, explorer is actually the entire graphical shell. It runs your desktop, taskbar, start menu, AND the folder thing. The behavior where your entire screen blacks out is because you restarted explorer. But explorer doesn't usually take that long to restart, usually like literally one second or less.

Explorer sounds unstable. You could attempt an in place windows repair. Probably would be best run from an external hard drive or a large enough USB drive.

Also, let me tell you the IT secret that no one on here wants to admit: we all just use Google and more recently AI to troubleshoot everything. Heck, I've loaded huge event viewer exports into Copilot, described the symptoms, and it reads through the logs and pulls out a d presents the smoking gun. You do have to be careful about AI though because it will low key just make things up, so you may want to ask another AI for a second opinion.

Copilot is Microsoft's AI, so it's decent at digging through windows logs. Gemini seems a little more able to fix the problems that Copilot identifies, and Claude is pretty good all around, but is the absolute master of coding/scripting (way better at powershell than Copilot, even though Copilot and powershell are both Microsoft products).

If you do end up replacing the hard drive, its actually not really scary to do yourself. A couple of notes: before doing anything, check if bitlocker is running and make a not (use your ohone to take a picture of) your botlocker key just in case your TPM looses it and you end up having to manually unlock your drive. Laptop hard drives are fit into really tight tolerances AND the specifics of the HD are built into the overall thermal management system. All this is to say, make sure it'll fit (be mindful of heatsinks) and make sure its not going to roast in there (keep the power draw similar or lower than what youre using now). Watch teardown videos on YouTube to get an idea of how to open the laptop. If you take out screws, make sure to note what corner you start in and lay the screws out in a line in order. Because modern laptops are slightly curved, some of the screws are like the tiniest bit longer or shorter and if you screw a long screw in a short hole, you bottom out and can crack the motherboard. Put them back in the same hole they came from.

I would probably use an external enclosure and some free cloning software to clone the existing drive to the new hard drive before replacing it.

Dont worry about antistatic bracelets/mats or whatever. Those are a scam. Be reasonable. Do wash and completely dry your hands before touching the components and dont be rough with them, but they're not really THAT delicate.

How much was Dell going to charge for the replacement and whats the capacity of the hard drive? Did Dell provide a part number and is that part number pulling much cheaper results on google?