Disk usage 100%, stuttering games, less FPS...

[bubyy]

Hello.

 

So recently my PC has been doing this really weird thing.

Sometimes the disk spikes to 100% and the PC completely freezes for a few seconds, in the same time CPU usage drops. Here is a picture from Task Manager when that happens:

 

 

This happens when I play Modern Warfare the most. It spikes every 30sec-1min and the PC completely freezes for 20 seconds. It started happening in GTA V too but less than in MW, and the FPS is not like it used to be before, it started dipping below 60 FPS. I always had 90 FPS+ though.

In Rise of the Tomb Raider, the FPS is also not like it used to be before, it has also started to dip below 60. In Modern Warfare, even though the disk spikes happen the most in it, I have good FPS (80+).

The only games that I play that work normally are CS:GO and Minecraft.

 

I also noticed that, for some reason, the GPU usage is 1-10% when I play the games in which I have started to have problems.

When I play CS:GO, the GPU usage is fine, just like it used to be before.

Also, when I stress the GPU, Task Manager says it's between 1-10% too. How is this even possible? Is Task Manager bugged?

 

My PC:

i5 7500

2x4GB RAM

GTX 1660

120GB SSD

2TB HDD

 

Does anyone know what is causing this? I have tried a lot of fixes, but none of them seem to work. I doubt that my SSD is failing because every software says that it's healthy, and this issue doesn't happen in every game. I've installed all the latest drivers for everything.

 

Thanks in advance.

[TheBahrbarian]

My first guess is you don't have enough RAM. You are pretty clearly maxed out on available RAM (your at 94% usage in this screenshot). As far as I know your PC as a last resort will try to use hard disk storage when your RAM is full (which does not work at all since it is so slow), and than your PC freezes/stutters as its waiting for your slow storage to catch up. That looks like what's happening here, 8gb just isn't enough anymore.

[bubyy]

But my PC was completely fine until like two weeks ago. But for Modern Warfare, yes, I think 8GB RAM is not enough for it. For other games though, it's fine, because they ran butter smooth before this crap started happening.

Also, some processes like Service Host ones and e.g. "Microsoft Compatibility Telemetry" have been jumping in usage to as much as 30%.
I have ran a Malwarebytes scan and it detected no malware. I haven't downloaded anything since the PC was fine too.

[TheBahrbarian]

Just now, bubyy said:

But my PC was completely fine until like two weeks ago. But for Modern Warfare, yes, I think 8GB RAM is not enough for it. For other games though, it's fine, because they have been butter smooth before this crap started happening.

Also, some processes like Service Host ones and i.e. "Microsoft Compatibility Telemetry" have been jumping in usage to as much as 30%.
I have ran a Malwarebytes scan and it detected no malware. I haven't downloaded anything since the PC was fine too.

The problem is, when you are running so close to max capacity, it only takes one program in the background to use a little more RAM and hit your capacity to bring the whole thing toppling down.

 

As a sort of stop gap solution, I would try using a program like Razer Cortex that limits background processes to free up some RAM while you are playing a game. Give that a try and see if there is any noticeable improvement (and see if task manager reports the same behavior you described above). Programs like these are not a complete solution, they can only really free up <1GB of ram, but it might be enough.

[aDoomGuy]

Open Task Manager and sort processes list by memory, highest on top.. you should see what is using your memory. What is using the most or what is using much?

[KenjiS9965]

3 hours ago, bubyy said:

Hello.

 

So recently my PC has been doing this really weird thing.

Sometimes the disk spikes to 100% and the PC completely freezes for a few seconds, in the same time CPU usage drops. Here is a picture from Task Manager when that happens:

 

 

This happens when I play Modern Warfare the most. It spikes every 30sec-1min and the PC completely freezes for 20 seconds. It started happening in GTA V too but less than in MW, and the FPS is not like it used to be before, it started dipping below 60 FPS. I always had 90 FPS+ though.

In Rise of the Tomb Raider, the FPS is also not like it used to be before, it has also started to dip below 60. In Modern Warfare, even though the disk spikes happen the most in it, I have good FPS (80+).

The only games that I play that work normally are CS:GO and Minecraft.

 

I also noticed that, for some reason, the GPU usage is 1-10% when I play the games in which I have started to have problems.

When I play CS:GO, the GPU usage is fine, just like it used to be before.

Also, when I stress the GPU, Task Manager says it's between 1-10% too. How is this even possible? Is Task Manager bugged?

 

My PC:

i5 7500

2x4GB RAM

GTX 1660

120GB SSD

2TB HDD

 

Does anyone know what is causing this? I have tried a lot of fixes, but none of them seem to work. I doubt that my SSD is failing because every software says that it's healthy, and this issue doesn't happen in every game. I've installed all the latest drivers for everything.

 

Thanks in advance.

I second what others are saying. You probably need more ram, 8gb is minimum required for MW, 12gb is recommended

 

An option would be to completely clean install windows and install as few things that run in the background as possible, But honestly I'd lean more towards try to grab yourself some more RAM, either used or new, a quick look at Newegg shows you could get another 8gb for around $40 USD depending on speed and stuff (And if you care about matching)

[Underi]

8GB really is too small for modern games. I have 16GB and am running at  ~13GB usage when playing Battlefield V. The disk usage spikes are most likely page file being used and this is what causes freezing. The SSD is way slower than RAM, so the computer is waiting for the SSD.

[BlackManINC]

@TheBahrbarian

 

Yet we are still told by these developers that 8gbs meets the minimum required when it clearly should be 16gbs.

[LogicalDrm]

9 hours ago, bubyy said:

But my PC was completely fine until like two weeks ago. But for Modern Warfare, yes, I think 8GB RAM is not enough for it. For other games though, it's fine, because they ran butter smooth before this crap started happening.

Also, some processes like Service Host ones and e.g. "Microsoft Compatibility Telemetry" have been jumping in usage to as much as 30%.
I have ran a Malwarebytes scan and it detected no malware. I haven't downloaded anything since the PC was fine too.

There could be multitude of reasons why it started just happening. Windows updates or game updates are the top guess. The system is accessing pagefile when you see these jumps. I used to have similar issue back in the day with BF3. Got microstutters which were gone when I went from 4gigs to 8gigs with upgrade. The CPU is another thing. It looks like its bit bittlenecking since its peaking at 100% on just gaming load.

[bubyy]

So, upgrading to 16 GB will solve this issue? I just don't understand how I never had problems running games before, and now I do... Probably a Windows update, but oh well, I can't revert because it's too late.

[xAcid9]

Can you show how many GB MW actually use while gaming? 

[BlackManINC]

6 hours ago, bubyy said:

So, upgrading to 16 GB will solve this issue? I just don't understand how I never had problems running games before, and now I do... Probably a Windows update, but oh well, I can't revert because it's too late.

Assuming everything else is up to date, your bios, GPU drivers, operating system. This also depends on where you have your operating system and games installed. Are they on the SSD, or HDD?

[TheBahrbarian]

6 hours ago, bubyy said:

So, upgrading to 16 GB will solve this issue? I just don't understand how I never had problems running games before, and now I do... Probably a Windows update, but oh well, I can't revert because it's too late.

Modern games are going to use more and more ram as time goes on. Only a couple years ago 8gb was plenty. I only upgraded to 16gb when I noticed Overwatch started to stutter, especially if I had chrome open in the background. Now, I regularly see 12-13gb usage. 

 

The fact is with only 8gb you will inevitably eventually start to see performance issues as background programs, windows, and games all start to use more memory. But yes, it seems as though 16gb of RAM should solve your issue.

[bubyy]

4 hours ago, BlackManINC said:

Assuming everything else is up to date, your bios, GPU drivers, operating system. This also depends on where you have your operating system and games installed. Are they on the SSD, or HDD?

OS and program are on the SSD, games and other data on the HDD.

 

5 hours ago, xAcid9 said:

Can you show how many GB MW actually use while gaming? 

 

It looks like my PC has gone completely mad yet again. Now I don't have the SSD 100% usage problem, nor is my RAM being fully used, now my HDD is on 100% and spiking and the game is completely unplayable with massive sutters?!?!?!

Here are some screenshots:
 

 

 

 

 

[BlackManINC]

6 minutes ago, bubyy said:

OS and program are on the SSD, games and other data on the HDD.

 

 

It looks like my PC has gone completely mad yet again. Now I don't have the SSD 100% usage problem, nor is my RAM being fully used, now my HDD is on 100% and spiking and the game is completely unplayable with massive sutters?!?!?!

Here are some screenshots:
 

 

 

 

 

You should install your games on your SSD. Where ever your O.S is, that's where your applications also need to be. 

[bubyy]

That has literally nothing to do with this. Most people store their games on the HDD and I NEVER HAD PROBLEMS WITH GAMES until a few weeks ago.

[BlackManINC]

Just now, bubyy said:

That has literally nothing to do with this. Most people store their games on the HDD.

It just might actually. If you bought the SSD for performance reasons, it won't do anything for you if the applications you are using aren't on it along with the operating system. Its based on how fast it can read and write data to and from the RAM. Having it on two different devices isn't helping that cause. You can call up any experienced computer technician worth his salt and they will tell you the same thing. 

[KenjiS9965]

2 hours ago, BlackManINC said:

It just might actually. If you bought the SSD for performance reasons, it won't do anything for you if the applications you are using aren't on it along with the operating system. Its based on how fast it can read and write data to and from the RAM. Having it on two different devices isn't helping that cause. You can call up any experienced computer technician worth his salt and they will tell you the same thing. 

He has a 120gb SSD, Modern Warfare is over 100gb with patches lol, my MW folder is 163gb, even the base pre-warzone game was about 80 which, if you have anything installed on a 120gb SSD isnt happening..

 

That said, on my laptop, installing anything on the HDD it has DEFINITELY bottlenecks things. BUT thats a 5400rpm drive...

 

I do, in general, however agree games go on the SSD, This is why I have 2tb of SSDs just for my game library right now...

 

OP, Perhaps you can try a clean install of windows first and see if that alleviates your issues. But I'd still say getting another 8gb of ram would be a good start, followed by grabbing yourself a 512gb class SSD... 

 

The HDD utilization could, again, be windows trying to do a page file to compensate for not having enough ram, its using all of your ram and then some most likely, its claiming MW is using 70+ percent of your ram, Which in your case is over 6gb just for Modern Warfare, Even a light windows 10 install can easily do 1-2gb by itself. Thats assuming nothing else in the background like Discord or anything else youd likely use or have on your system

 

From experience, dont go by "minimum" specs, Go for Recommended and exceed, because most of them are incredibly poor estimations of what you'll need... You can probably run MW on 8gb of ram, at 720p, low settings..

[BlackManINC]

1 hour ago, KenjiS9965 said:

He has a 120gb SSD, Modern Warfare is over 100gb with patches lol, my MW folder is 163gb, even the base pre-warzone game was about 80 which, if you have anything installed on a 120gb SSD isnt happening..

 

That said, on my laptop, installing anything on the HDD it has DEFINITELY bottlenecks things. BUT thats a 5400rpm drive...

 

I do, in general, however agree games go on the SSD, This is why I have 2tb of SSDs just for my game library right now...

 

OP, Perhaps you can try a clean install of windows first and see if that alleviates your issues. But I'd still say getting another 8gb of ram would be a good start, followed by grabbing yourself a 512gb class SSD... 

 

The HDD utilization could, again, be windows trying to do a page file to compensate for not having enough ram, its using all of your ram and then some most likely, its claiming MW is using 70+ percent of your ram, Which in your case is over 6gb just for Modern Warfare, Even a light windows 10 install can easily do 1-2gb by itself. Thats assuming nothing else in the background like Discord or anything else youd likely use or have on your system

 

From experience, dont go by "minimum" specs, Go for Recommended and exceed, because most of them are incredibly poor estimations of what you'll need... You can probably run MW on 8gb of ram, at 720p, low settings..

From my own experience, the speed of the HDD doesn't matter all that much, they just plain suck ass for gaming. I had a Western Digital 7200 RPM HDD on my old computer and its usage rate still hit 100% routinely whenever I played a game. The stuttering in 'Squad' for instance was so bad that it basically forced me to buy an SSD earlier than I was planning to do. For ram, the true recommend amount should be 32 gbs, not 16gbs. This became abundantly clear to me after playing games like Squad that will swallow up to 14 gbs of ram without fail. This is despite me having DDR4. While Squad is not the most optimized game, you'll see other games like DCS World recommending no less than 16gbs on low settings, and 32 gbs on high settings in "heavy missions". 

[xAcid9]

4 hours ago, bubyy said:

Here are some screenshots:

Yeah you ran out of RAM and probably VRAM as well and it start using HDD swap files. Add more RAM. 

[KenjiS9965]

3 hours ago, BlackManINC said:

From my own experience, the speed of the HDD doesn't matter all that much, they just plain suck ass for gaming. I had a Western Digital 7200 RPM HDD on my old computer and its usage rate still hit 100% routinely whenever I played a game. The stuttering in 'Squad' for instance was so bad that it basically forced me to buy an SSD earlier than I was planning to do. For ram, the true recommend amount should be 32 gbs, not 16gbs. This became abundantly clear to me after playing games like Squad that will swallow up to 14 gbs of ram without fail. This is despite me having DDR4. While Squad is not the most optimized game, you'll see other games like DCS World recommending no less than 16gbs on low settings, and 32 gbs on high settings in "heavy missions". 

In the case of my laptop, its probably a "i havnt used any HDD for gaming in so long I forgot" as my old laptop was -entirely- SSD, but my new one has an SSD and a HDD in it and the SSD isnt that large (I was planning to swap the HDD for one of my spare 2.5" SSDs but the laptop has some other problems that means its currently just sitting over there waiting for me to feel like trying to fix it)

 

Also, Im a rediculous multitasker, So I've had 32gb in two systems now. I frequently go over 16gb because im running a bunch of stuff at the same time and also when I go to do photo editing I can easily chew 20+gb really fast for processing... I even ponder if I shouldn't have opted for 64gb on this thing for a little future proofing but I digress...

 

Most people would likely just stick to recommending 16gb now for most gaming systems. 32 is probably overkill right now for just gaming. But I wouldn't go under 16 anymore, except maybe in the absolute lowest end bare budget rigs

 

 

[bubyy]

Reinstalled Windows, everything is working perfectly fine now, even MW

Thanks for all the answers, I appreciate the help.