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December 22nd, 2025 01:29
XPS 8940 - Windows Responsiveness Degradation
What is occurring with my XPS 8940 (Windows 10) is that, eventually, after a few months, Windows responsiveness will degrade to the point where, during boot, the CPU will reach 100% and stay there for a while.
However, even after the computer is done booting, certain actions will trigger a high CPU load and freeze the system for a while. Examples:
- Visiting certain websites in my Chrome browser. Both Yahoo! and BoredPanda cause my system to lose responsiveness. I must close the tabs and wait for the mouse click to be recognized and the tab closed before responsiveness returns.
- My weekly antivirus system scan will go from taking around 2 hours to over 8 hours to complete.
If I perform a factory reinstallation of my system, then everything runs super well with no slowdown at all (including the aforementioned websites and antivirus system scan). In my mind, this excludes any hardware issues. (I am prepared to be wrong.)
What causes the system responsiveness to degrade? More importantly, is there anything that I can do to "refresh" the system, short of doing another factory reinstall?
Thanks.
Tesla1856
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December 22nd, 2025 05:17
Most likely a hardware problem.
Is your bootable C-Drive a SSD (NVMe or at least SATA)?
Have you checked the SMART status of all drives with something like Crystal's Disk-Info? (or PassMark's DiskCheckup).
As for Windows-10, not sure why you are still running that. But that aside, try running this to see what process is using up all your CPU cycles:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer
And finally, something like CPU-ID's HW-Monitor ( or another similar one is HWinfo64 ) and check things like voltages, core utilizations, and temps.
Oh, and check your System Reliability Report and check for any (red) critical errors.
LeftShoe
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December 22nd, 2025 05:31
@Tesla1856 thanks for the reply.
My C drive is an SSD (NVMe) drive set to SATA.
I remember having downloaded a piece of software, months ago, that tested SMART status. I will try again with the names that you suggested.
(I am still with Windows 10 because Windows 11 is not yet ready for prime time.)
I do have Process Explorer and have used it during boot. I have used it in the past. The processes that are using up all of the CPU cycles during sludge pump time also are also visible after the Dell factory reinstall, but the CPU percentage is a reasonable amount.
I will perform the actions that you suggested and report back here.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that before I do a Dell factory reinstallation, I take note of all software that is installed. After the Dell factory reinstallation, I reinstall all of my software yet the boot process is relaxed and does not use up all CPU.
(edited)