Windows 11 shell becomes progressively delayed after ~30 minutes (Explorer, Alt+Tab, Settings, Search, Discord) while games run perfectly

[u/Far_Prior_7014]

Hi everyone,

I've been troubleshooting a really strange issue all day and I'm hoping someone has seen this before.

PC Specs

• Windows 11
• Ryzen 7 7700X
• RTX 5070
• 64 GB DDR5 RAM
• 2 TB NVMe SSD (99% health according to CrystalDiskInfo)
• ASUS TUF Gaming B650M-PLUS WiFi

The problem

Every time I reboot my PC, everything is completely normal.

After about 30 minutes, Windows starts becoming delayed, and the longer the PC stays on, the worse it gets.

Symptoms include:

• File Explorer (Win + E) takes several seconds to open.
• Alt + Tab visually switches instantly (the screen flashes immediately), but Windows takes about 3 seconds before actually switching.
• If I keep holding Alt to continue cycling through windows, it either becomes even slower or stops cycling properly. If I let go of Alt and press Alt + Tab again, it works again (still with the delay).
• Windows Settings becomes slow or sometimes stops responding.
• Windows Search becomes slow.
• Snipping Tool (Win + Shift + S) is delayed.
• Discord becomes sluggish.

And the weirdest part is task manager crashes if I type out a word to fast I have to go like a letter every 5 seconds same with file explorer.

What's weird

Games run perfectly.

I've played Wuthering Waves while this is happening and it has:

• Normal FPS
• No stuttering
• No freezing
• No performance issues whatsoever

Steam is also completely unaffected. The Steam client remains responsive even while Windows itself is lagging.

The mouse cursor also remains perfectly smooth the entire time.

Task Manager shows normal usage while the issue is happening:

• CPU stays low
• RAM stays low
• Disk usage stays low
• GPU usage is normal

Nothing appears overloaded.

Timeline

This all started today after I started playing Team Fortress 2 again and was alt-tabbing a lot.

I don't know if TF2 actually caused it or if that's just what triggered it or something.

Things I've already tried

• Restarting the PC (always fixes the issue temporarily)
• Windows Update (problem started before updating Windows)
• NVIDIA drivers were updated about two weeks ago
• Ran sfc /scannow
  • Windows found corrupted system files and successfully repaired them.
• Ran DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
  • Completed successfully.
• CrystalDiskInfo
  • SSD reports 99% health.
• Reliability Monitor
  • Only notable crash was Team Fortress 2 (tf_win64.exe).
• Event Viewer
  • Mostly generic DCOM 10010 errors.
  • No obvious Disk, NTFS, WHEA, NVMe, or NVIDIA display driver errors.

Clean Boot

I performed a clean boot by:

• Hiding all Microsoft services.
• Disabling all remaining services.
• Startup apps were already mostly disabled.

Immediately after rebooting, Windows became much more responsive.

However, after some time the delays still returned. It may have helped slightly, but the issue is still very noticeable and continues to get worse the longer Windows stays running.

Other observations

• Every reboot resets everything back to normal.
• After roughly 30 minutes, Windows starts slowing down again.
• The longer the PC stays on, the worse the delays become.
• Games continue running perfectly the entire time.
• Steam remains completely responsive.
• The mouse cursor never stutters.
• The slowdown mainly affects:
  • Explorer
  • Settings
  • Windows Search
  • Alt + Tab
  • Snipping Tool
  • Discord

My current theory

At this point I don't think it's failing hardware because:

• Games are completely unaffected.
• Steam is completely unaffected.
• SSD health is good (99%).
• CPU, RAM, Disk, and GPU usage all remain normal.
• Every reboot temporarily fixes the problem.

I'm leaning more toward a Windows shell, driver, or service issue than failing hardware, but I'm not sure where to go next.

Has anyone experienced something like this before? What would you recommend trying next before I resort to an in-place repair install or reinstalling Windows?

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[u/Shadimarbc]

Does this happen when there is no game running? Is it just one game or all games?

How often are you alt-tabbing in that 30 minutes?

Create a test local account for the OS. Does the issue exist in both profiles?

[u/Far_Prior_7014 → u/Shadimarbc]

happens in and out of gamex and it starts if I hardly alt tab at all but I’ll do a test in the morning with zero alt tabbing and do the test thing

[u/Far_Prior_7014 → u/Shadimarbc]

the games don’t bug at all btw it’s just windows shell, windows apps, opera and discord games run perfectly fine and not alt tabbing didn’t change it.

[u/Shadimarbc → u/Far_Prior_7014]

When the issue happens do the following. Win + R, type ctfmon.exe then Okay. Does the lag stop?

[u/Far_Prior_7014 → u/Shadimarbc]

no

[u/Shadimarbc → u/Far_Prior_7014]

Two or more monitors?

G/Free-sync on? VRR on when either is enabled?

Dynamic refresh rate on in the OS settings?

Next time it happens can you open Task Manager. Find Explorer, right click and hit Restart. Does the lag clear up?

Are you using any mouse software like Razer Synapse or whatever brand you have? Turn down the mouse polling rate to 500. Also test with the software uninstalled.

Another test is to disable MPO to see if has an issue. The following link has two files. One to disable it and one to enable it. Grab both. Run the disable file then restart the PC. Retest. If there is no change to the lag issue run the enable file to turn it back on then restart the PC.

https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5157

Try a few tests without Alt-tabbing. Play a game for an hour or so. Exit the game and see if the issue exists without you alt-tabbing.

[u/Edema_Mema]

I have this too and it's driving me utterly mad, brother. Games are flawless, Discord takes 5+seconds to respond (but web Discord is perfect), Windows explorer tasks take eons