You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
So i have a 2018 Dell XPS desktop running W11, 32Gb RAM, i7, decent nVidia graphics card, running mostly office and O365, but also Mindmanager, Lightroom. C: is a 250Gb SSD, which is a getting a bit full.
Last week it has started sleeping every 30 seconds or so and I am effectively unable to use it. I can't even run any diagnostics as it sleeps before anything like CHKDSK starts. I can't find much on the web, and not sure what might be causing the change.
I did try and install some Topaz imaging software unsuccessfully as it needs too much disk space to run.
Can anyone give me some pointers of what to do? Try hardwired keyboard and mouse potentially? Uninstall the Topaz?
I know some of you middle-aged IT managers that are sposed to make up the majority of the forum will say FFS what a gimp, but I know that already.......
Any help gratefully received.
Cheers
Simon
(in before the experts)
Is it overheating? Try cleaning out any fluff
In fact, check that the fans are even spinning
250Gb SSD, which is a getting a bit full
Define 'a bit full' - SSD drives (especialy the drive the operating system resides on) really start crapping out at 80/90% capacity.
That can cause a lot of weird issues, so 1st things 1st.. free up some space, preferably at least 25% of the drive capacity.
Then see what happens.
Overheating can cause these types of issues. As above, check the fans. If it’s a desktop take the lid off and clean it out. Dried out thermal paste on the CPU is also a potential culprit.
What's the condition of the battery like?
Try running it with the battery removed.
Thanks guys, it started during the heatwave, so maybe that overheating thing is an issue. I'll get the hoover out. And the SSD was fine, but it seems to fill up out of nowhere, and i can delete some file and then it fills up again. But not 25% clear - do i need to clone it to a bigger one, but where would i look for crap that windows creates in the background.
What's the condition of the battery like?
Try running it with the battery removed.
It's a desktop, no battery, but it is connected to a APC UPS - but that doesn't seem to be giving any gip - it had a new battery pack a year or so ago....
i can delete some file and then it fills up again.
Malware / hijack of the drive?
IANA IT person.
(in before the experts)
Is it overheating? Try cleaning out any fluff
Almost certainly.
Buy a can of compressed air. I'd avoid a hoover if at all possible, waving a bloody great electrical motor around near sensitive electronics probably won't kill it but...
Unplug PC from UPS. Press power button to discharge any residual electrickery. Remove case / side of case depending on design. Take air duster and blast eight years' worth of dust bunnies out of it paying particular attention to anywhere with fans or heatsinks (CPU, PSU, graphics card...)
Reassemble, rejoice.
If that doesn't work we can worry about other potential issues. The SSD thing is likely a red herring, it might have been the case 15 years ago but technology moves on and you going off randomly deleting things you don't understand (on an already unstable machine) is likely to cause more harm than good. Fans not spinning could be normal behaviour if they're connected to a temperature sensor; they should still spin freely by hand (again, with the power off) though.
Oh, also,
Is it actually "sleeping," you're sure it's not hibernating or powering off?
Thanks guys, it started during the heatwave, so maybe that overheating thing is an issue. I'll get the hoover out. And the SSD was fine, but it seems to fill up out of nowhere, and i can delete some file and then it fills up again. But not 25% clear - do i need to clone it to a bigger one, but where would i look for crap that windows creates in the background.
Some SSDs have issues when full, although I've not seen this sort of issue widely reported & mine is perpetually at 95%+ capacity without issues. I certainly wouldn't be doing anything with it to solve your current issue as there's much more likely causes but if you want more space then crack on.
In terms of filling up on it's own, the biggest culprits on mine are Windows updates & any backup / restore 'snapshots'.
Thanks guys, went in and got rid of some dust - not too bad it must be said. But Cougar's comment on sleeping was the thing - it wasn't sleeping - it was the screen lock, activating every 30 secs or so. So I turned that off and we seem to be in a good place! Probably a flag that as it's a work PC and it's probs 7 years old i should look to have a replacement up and running before i have a crisis on my hands.
Thanks guys, it started during the heatwave, so maybe that overheating thing is an issue. I'll get the hoover out. And the SSD was fine, but it seems to fill up out of nowhere, and i can delete some file and then it fills up again. But not 25% clear - do i need to clone it to a bigger one, but where would i look for crap that windows creates in the background.
Some SSDs have issues when full, although I've not seen this sort of issue widely reported & mine is perpetually at 95%+ capacity without issues. I certainly wouldn't be doing anything with it to solve your current issue as there's much more likely causes but if you want more space then crack on.
In terms of filling up on it's own, the biggest culprits on mine are Windows updates & any backup / restore 'snapshots'.
How much of a problem it is depends how much (if any) the drive space is over provisioned. Many quality SSDs have a decent size chunk of space that is hidden from the operating system, for example if this buffer was 5%, when the OS says it's 95% full, it may in reality be 90% full.
That said it's always better to keep a significant chunk of space free if you can on SSDs because otherwise you can/will end up with write amplification which causes rapid wear (e.g. 1MB write results in 3/4/5MB of actual writes).
How much of a problem it is depends how much (if any) the drive space is over provisioned. Many quality SSDs have a decent size chunk of space that is hidden from the operating system, for example if this buffer was 5%, when the OS says it's 95% full, it may in reality be 90% full.
That said it's always better to keep a significant chunk of space free if you can on SSDs because otherwise you can/will end up with write amplification which causes rapid wear (e.g. 1MB write results in 3/4/5MB of actual writes).
It sounds like an old wives' tale but this is absolutely correct. Whilst I'm less convinced about modern drives (from quality manufacturers) "wearing out" under normal usage, running out of space on a solid state drive can cause potentially large performance issues.
NAND-based drives (ie, SSD and the newer M.2 drives) differ from traditional spinny HDDs in that areas of memory called "pages" can have three states: holds data, used to hold data, or erased. When data is written to (for the sake of brevity let's just say an SSD) it has to go to an erased page, so the entire page including the changed data is written to a new page. The old page is marked as abandoned, but it cannot be reused until it is erased.
Here's the kicker. You cannot just erase a page, you have to erase the entire block in which that page resides and for the OPs 256GB drive that's likely 256 pages per block. So as the number of now unusable "used to hold data" pages increase over time, the drive moves "holds data" pages out of that block and into erased space so that the entire original block can then be erased. Rinse, lather and repeat.
This is why when a drive is "nearly full" you can start hitting problems - you're running out of erased blocks to move pages into. Overprovisioning is one solution to this - basically the drive lies to the controller about how much space it has and keeps some spare blocks back for itself to use.
This may be a problem which will go away or at least be reduced with newer drives, there's a thing called "Flexible Data Placement" which basically exposes the drive's topology to the host so that the OS can write data in a more sensible manner. But it's new and, of course, optional. And probably expensive. 😁
running out of space on a solid state drive can cause potentially large performance issues.
Is this the same for cell phones? The missus' phone is perennially shit. And also at near storage capacity. I've been suggesting she delete or move the photos etc. but I didn't know for sure if that would resolve her issue.
I didn't know for sure if that would resolve her issue.
I don't know for sure that it would resolve her issue either, but it's the same technology so certainly plausible.
There's one way to find out though, and in any case if it's full of photos and shite and hasn't been backed up in the last five years then moving the data off to a PC and / or cloud storage can only be a good thing.
I didn't know for sure if that would resolve her issue.
I don't know for sure that it would resolve her issue either, but it's the same technology so certainly plausible.
There's one way to find out though, and in any case if it's full of photos and shite and hasn't been backed up in the last five years then moving the data off to a PC and / or cloud storage can only be a good thing.
I'd agree... It certainly won't do any harm as a decluttering exercise anyway.
Cheers. Sorry for the little hijack.