I was just chugging along using my laptop with manjaro kde like i do every day, and then for no apparent reason it has become incredibly slugish. Can anyone help me troubleshoot it. I restarted and checked top but i don’t know what else to try.
is it still slugish after reboot?
… to expand on what @brahma asked:
is it still sluggish when you have shut it down and have given it some time …?
I’m currently experiencing some similar symptoms - but am not on KDE
I have decided that my (~10 years old) laptop hard drive is starting to give up the ghost
and will replace it as soon as I can.
I’m currently in the process to finish a backup of what is on there - which does not go very smoothly 
I will try that, however this laptop is only ~3-4 months old so that wouldn’t be the problem
… so you likely do not need to try that
unless there is actual evidence for the drive starting to fail
although - and I really like this “joke”
NEW is an acronym for: Never Ever Worked
it’s a reasonable assumption, but … just because it’s practically new …
You can try two things to rule them out:
-
go to system settings > startup and shutdown > session. Select “Start a new empty session” upon authentication. Reboot and check if it is still sluggish. Note I don’t use Plasma in English, so the “wording” may be a bit off.
-
create a new user and login with that user.
If number 1 solves the problem, you can change the setting again, if you prefer a different option. If it doesn’t solve the problem but number 2 does, try to disable all effects and remove all plasmoids and reboot to see if the problem is solved in your original user session.