Steam Download 100% disk usage although SSD is healthy.

[MightyJoe]

When downloading games on steam or epic games the disk usage stays at 100% and download eventually comes to a crawl. Tried everything. Drivers are up to date. Turned it off and on. Took it to best buy as well, they couldn't fix it. Hopefully someone on here can help.

OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro 64 bit (Version 10.0.22621)

MOBO: ASUS Prime Z690-P

CPU: Intel i7-12700KF

GPU: GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 8GB

CPU cooler: ibuypower AIO liquid cooler

RAM: XPG 16GB DDR4

Storage:  ADATA Swordfish 1TB 3D NAND PCIe Gen3x4 NVMe M.2

Case: iBUYPOWER Slate 5 MR Tempered Glass ARGB

PSU: 750watt 80+ gold

BIOS Version: 1620

 

 

[jkr4m3r]

SSDs get weird when they are getting full. How much free space?

[Zando_]

Looks pretty normal tbh. Steam absolutely chokeslams the drive and CPU when downloading and decompressing (it does both at the same time) games. 

[jaslion]

9 minutes ago, Zando_ said:

Looks pretty normal tbh. Steam absolutely chokeslams the drive and CPU when downloading and decompressing (it does both at the same time) games. 

Don't forget it's also installing and thus generating data so that makes it even more intense.

 

It also is a dram less drive with a smaller slc cache than others and very slow mlc so basically the cache has been filled and now it's struggling.

 

[Zando_]

15 minutes ago, jaslion said:

It also is a dram less drive with a smaller slc cache than others and very slow mlc so basically the cache has been filled and now it's struggling.

Ahhhhh that'd make sense. I have an old Crucial MX300, I believe those do have DRAM but the SLC cache is small, it'll write at 300MB/s or a bit faster for like 10-15GB, then absolutely faceplants down to a similar 40-ish like OP's. 

[jaslion]

7 minutes ago, Zando_ said:

Ahhhhh that'd make sense. I have an old Crucial MX300, I believe those do have DRAM but the SLC cache is small, it'll write at 300MB/s or a bit faster for like 10-15GB, then absolutely faceplants down to a similar 40-ish like OP's. 

Yup it has a 1gb lpddr3 cache with a dynamic slc cache (it has slc on each nand chip but it fills that up when the chip is full) so at best it has 16gb of slc cache I think on the 2tb model and it goes down the lower capacity it gets.

 

Which honestly for a more budget but performant drive from 2016 is pretty darn good

[problemsolver]

3 hours ago, MightyJoe said:

When downloading games on steam or epic games the disk usage stays at 100% and download eventually comes to a crawl. Tried everything. Drivers are up to date. Turned it off and on. Took it to best buy as well, they couldn't fix it. Hopefully someone on here can help.

OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro 64 bit (Version 10.0.22621)

MOBO: ASUS Prime Z690-P

CPU: Intel i7-12700KF

GPU: GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 8GB

CPU cooler: ibuypower AIO liquid cooler

RAM: XPG 16GB DDR4

Storage:  ADATA Swordfish 1TB 3D NAND PCIe Gen3x4 NVMe M.2

Case: iBUYPOWER Slate 5 MR Tempered Glass ARGB

PSU: 750watt 80+ gold

BIOS Version: 1620

 

 

The other posters are all correct.  However, in the very unlikely event that you've upgraded OS multiple times and somehow TRIM is disabled, it could make performance worse than normal.  Another possibilty is SSD firmware that isn't super performant, or your OS is lacking the IO chipset drivers thus slowing down performance.  I've outlined how to check all 3 below.

 

#1:  Run the following from PowerShell or command prompt.  You should receive back NTFS DisableDeleteNotify=0 which means TRIM is running.

 fsutil behavior query disabledeleteNotify

 

#2:  Then (assuming TRIM is running) I would download ADATA's SSD Toolbox and make sure your drive has the latest firmware.

 

#3:  Lastly, I would make sure I have all the latest Chipset drivers from your motherboard's website.  Or, if you want to use Armory Crate, make sure that's all the way-up-to-date.

[MightyJoe]

Quote

23 hours ago, Zando_ said:

Looks pretty normal tbh. Steam absolutely chokeslams the drive and CPU when downloading and decompressing (it does both at the same time) games. 

 

23 hours ago, jaslion said:

Don't forget it's also installing and thus generating data so that makes it even more intense.

 

It also is a dram less drive with a smaller slc cache than others and very slow mlc so basically the cache has been filled and now it's struggling.

 

 

On 3/7/2023 at 1:35 PM, jkr4m3r said:

SSDs get weird when they are getting full. How much free space?

 

Sorry this might be a better picture, I have 590 GB free on my ssd. I never ran into this problem with my old pc so not sure why its happening now. In addition, steam will automatically update or download things while I am playing a game and my computer will blue screen.

[MightyJoe]

20 hours ago, problemsolver said:

The other posters are all correct.  However, in the very unlikely event that you've upgraded OS multiple times and somehow TRIM is disabled, it could make performance worse than normal.  Another possibilty is SSD firmware that isn't super performant, or your OS is lacking the IO chipset drivers thus slowing down performance.  I've outlined how to check all 3 below.

 

#1:  Run the following from PowerShell or command prompt.  You should receive back NTFS DisableDeleteNotify=0 which means TRIM is running.

 fsutil behavior query disabledeleteNotify

 

#2:  Then (assuming TRIM is running) I would download ADATA's SSD Toolbox and make sure your drive has the latest firmware.

 

#3:  Lastly, I would make sure I have all the latest Chipset drivers from your motherboard's website.  Or, if you want to use Armory Crate, make sure that's all the way-up-to-date.

Also I updated chipset drivers

[jaslion]

12 hours ago, MightyJoe said:

Also I updated chipset drivers

Yeah it's small cache is just full and is strugggggling.

[MightyJoe]

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

Yeah it's small cache is just full and is strugggggling.

So new ssd recommendations? lol

[problemsolver]

14 hours ago, MightyJoe said:

Sorry this might be a better picture, I have 590 GB free on my ssd. I never ran into this problem with my old pc so not sure why its happening now. In addition, steam will automatically update or download things while I am playing a game and my computer will blue screen.

I believe you when you say you didn't have this problem on the old PC.  There's a few different reasons it could be happening now and wasn't before, but the fact the new PC is getting BSOD from lots of SSD activity sounds like there is something else going on.

 

Did you install the SSD Toolbox and did you verify TRIM was enabled?

[jaslion]

9 minutes ago, MightyJoe said:

So new ssd recommendations? lol

I wouldn't bother with that your ssd is fine just give it a bit to install games.

 

however since it's bluescreening due to this I wouldn't be too surprised if it's either overheating or defective.

 

[MightyJoe]

44 minutes ago, problemsolver said:

I believe you when you say you didn't have this problem on the old PC.  There's a few different reasons it could be happening now and wasn't before, but the fact the new PC is getting BSOD from lots of SSD activity sounds like there is something else going on.

 

Did you install the SSD Toolbox and did you verify TRIM was enabled?

Yes I did. I updated everything on the ssd toolbox and trim is enabled.

[MightyJoe]

38 minutes ago, jaslion said:

I wouldn't bother with that your ssd is fine just give it a bit to install games.

 

however since it's bluescreening due to this I wouldn't be too surprised if it's either overheating or defective.

 

Yeah steam will download updates while playing games which tanks performance and blue screens on occasion so I might switch for the samsung 970 evo in that case. Thoughts? Btw thanks for all the help I appreciate it! 

[problemsolver]

8 minutes ago, MightyJoe said:

Yes I did. I updated everything on the ssd toolbox and trim is enabled.

Alrighty... might want to look into the BSOD posting instructions if you want to troubleshoot that.  Or, if you're looking at getting a new NVMe drive anyway (like the 970 evo), than you may just want to do that first and see what happens.

 

Another even faster, simpler thing to try is put a fan blowing on the SSD and see if that removes the issue.  If that works, it likely means the SSD is overheating.

[MightyJoe]

21 minutes ago, problemsolver said:

Alrighty... might want to look into the BSOD posting instructions if you want to troubleshoot that.  Or, if you're looking at getting a new NVMe drive anyway (like the 970 evo), than you may just want to do that first and see what happens.

 

Another even faster, simpler thing to try is put a fan blowing on the SSD and see if that removes the issue.  If that works, it likely means the SSD is overheating.

Thanks for all of your help!

[jaslion]

1 hour ago, MightyJoe said:

Yeah steam will download updates while playing games which tanks performance and blue screens on occasion so I might switch for the samsung 970 evo in that case. Thoughts? Btw thanks for all the help I appreciate it! 

Decent srive send yours in for warranty then after!