Is my laptop breaking down?

[Noxonius]

For the past month my laptop has been acting quite strangely. Sometimes, at least once a day, it gets really slow and all browser tabs, folders and programs that were not open already get stuck. My processor also stops making the usual noise, but makes it only every 3 seconds, when normally it makes it all the time or not at all.

This whole session takes about 2-5 minutes and everything goes back to normal.

What could be the problem and how to fix it if it's even possible?

[SmellyJelly]

1) Check for overheating - temperatures
2) Scan your HDD with HD Tune and see if there are any bad blocks/post a screenshot of smart data

It's unlikely that it's cpu's fault in general.

[Noxonius]

It does not overheat, I have proper management to prevent that from happening, and it happens when performing the most simple tasks.

I have pushed my laptop to it's limits though, might be because of that.

Im scanning the HDD atm.

[funnyfarm]

your processor makes noises ???? O_O
anyway check with process explorer if theres something eating your resources.
maybe also check out with malwarebytes.
could still be bad sectors on your hdd, especially if its old.

[Night1301]

If you see your hard drive light flashes without blinking, and there is the sound, and you are not at 100% CPU load, it means your problem is with the HDD.