Windows 11 Slows Down Significantly on "High" Disk Usage

[Altefier]

EDIT: I BUMPED THIS AND I'M SORRY BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO HELP ME ANYMORE, I FOUND THE CAUSE OF MY PROBLEM, THANK YOU!

 

 

This only started happening when I updated to Windows 11 last year. Didn't experience it on Windows 10 and I'm not seeing this issue on my Linux installation either

 

Windows is installed on a 1TB NVMe. Whenever I'm downloading something or copying files and the disk usage goes over ~30%, I notice Windows slowing down significantly, where programs may take several seconds to respond after switching to them, just like Windows itself. For example, right click on desktop will only bring up the context menu after seconds rather than instantly.

 

I have an AMD CPU and due to the general performance issues with AMD on Windows 11 at the beginning, I always assumed this was related and something that would be fixed eventually. But more than a year later, the problem persists

 

I searched the web for this problem occasionally, every two months or so, but it always comes up with irrelevant results. Perhaps I should have asked way sooner... though it is not a massive problem, just an annoyance. Still, I'd like this to go away eventually and it doesn't look like it will. I have no idea what might be causing this and where to start looking for potential fixes

Edited June 14, 2023 by Altefier
Found the solution but thread is somewhat old, trying to prevent people from trying to help me

[GuiltySpark_]

These issues are why I never suggest major windows updates vs a clean install. Ensure your drive is healthy with the manufacturers utility or crystaldiskinfo and I suggest a clean wipe and reinstall. Nothing feels better then a freshly installed OS. 

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

I agree with the above. A fresh install is always best.

 

I'll just add that if you have a spare drive, you could try a fresh install before you nuke your existing one.

[SpookyCitrus]

I'd also recommend a fresh install. I'd also like to know the make and model of the Nvme drive Windows is installed on.

[Altefier]

If I reinstalled it and reimported everything to the registry and reinstalled the same drivers, wouldn't I be right back to where I'm now? What does a reinstall change?

 

The NVMe is a Crucial P1. "CT1000P1SSD8"

[GuiltySpark_]

12 minutes ago, Altefier said:

If I reinstalled it and reimported everything to the registry and reinstalled the same drivers, wouldn't I be right back to where I'm now? What does a reinstall change?

 

The NVMe is a Crucial P1. "CT1000P1SSD8"

You wipe out the however many years since you did the original Windows 10 install and all the crap that gets installed along the way. 

[tkitch]

16 minutes ago, Altefier said:

If I reinstalled it and reimported everything to the registry and reinstalled the same drivers, wouldn't I be right back to where I'm now? What does a reinstall change?

 

The NVMe is a Crucial P1. "CT1000P1SSD8"

What do you mean reimported the registry?

 

Why would you do that?  NOBODY does that!

 

You install windows, you install the current drivers, and then you install the software you need.

 

done.  Everything old and messy in the back bowels of the system?  GONE!

[Altefier]

17 hours ago, tkitch said:

What do you mean reimported the registry?

 

Why would you do that?  NOBODY does that!

 

You install windows, you install the current drivers, and then you install the software you need.

 

done.  Everything old and messy in the back bowels of the system?  GONE!

I do that because tons of my settings and data is in the registry. I do not want to get rid of that

 

17 hours ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

You wipe out the however many years since you did the original Windows 10 install and all the crap that gets installed along the way. 

What crap though? I manage my system quite thoroughpy, there is no service and no software running or installed that I don't want. And my system latency is nice and low during normal tasks and gaming. So I have my doubts that a reinstall would do anything because I would just get everything back to what it is now

 

 

 

I was hoping someone knew the root cause for this or get me started on where to look, but I'm not gonna reinstall Windows and proceed to wipe my setup from the registry which isn't even guaranteed to fix this, for a minor annoyance once every two months when I actually download or move something large to my C drive while working on my computer. That's definitely not worth the effort

[GuiltySpark_]

Then it seems we can’t help you. We know from experience a clean install will greatly speed up what now sounds like an old install of 10 that was updated to 11 which is usually a recipe for disaster. 
 

Heck I do wipes and reinstalls once a year, takes me 30 minutes start to finish if you prep. 
 

 

[Altefier]

I wouldn't call this disaster. I mean I thought I explained what's happening and there's a reason why it took me over a year to ask, because it's really just a minor annoyance. Also this is an install that was already upgraded from Windows 7 to 10, lol

 

From my experience, systems slow down because users keep installing things that keep adding new things that run in the background, like services and auto-start programs. But I have a pretty good overview over what's running and I keep it clean. My system is running wonderfully up until disk usage is maxed out. Which makes sense except that didn't happen on Windows 10 and Linux, so maybe the problem is that there's no cap to allow for the OS to breathe and use the disk for other tasks?

 

To me, the only logical thing that could be causing this is drivers or system settings. After reinstalling, I'd put everything back to how it is now, drivers and system settings included, so that wouldn't help; I need to know what configuration is causing this.

[GuiltySpark_]

7 minutes ago, Altefier said:

To me, the only logical thing that could be causing this is drivers or system settings. After reinstalling, I'd put everything back to how it is now, drivers and system settings included, so that wouldn't help; I need to know what configuration is causing this.

And that's where the confusion is. You're overthinking it. This is a common issue with a common resolution but until you can mentally be OK with that, you're going to have this issue. 

 

Frankly, a system that's so much of a bear to get back up and running again is the largest problem. You should be able to throw drivers/utilities on a flash drive, wipe and reinstall, then just go down the list of drivers/utilities to get them installed again. You should want to get comfortable with this. 

 

In the event something catastrophic does happen to your OS/storage, it will be less daunting. 

[Altefier]

If this is a common issue then there would be a solution that isn't "just reinstall windows lol" because "just reinstall windows lol" could be used as a fix to every PC issue that isn't hardware-based

 

This is an OS that was already installed on two SSDs and now an NVMe. I have backups of my system and I simply clone it. I really don't know what you people want from me, I was just wondering if anyone knew this issue and "just reinstall windows lol" isn't very helpful

[GuiltySpark_]

54 minutes ago, Altefier said:

If this is a common issue then there would be a solution that isn't "just reinstall windows lol" because "just reinstall windows lol" could be used as a fix to every PC issue that isn't hardware-based

 

This is an OS that was already installed on two SSDs and now an NVMe. I have backups of my system and I simply clone it. I really don't know what you people want from me, I was just wondering if anyone knew this issue and "just reinstall windows lol" isn't very helpful

 

Then we're at an impasse. You believe there is just some setting you can go in and change and its suddenly going to make everything better. We know from experience that from time to time you simply need to wipe and start over. It sounds like you've installed Windows 11 and have been cloning it between multiple drives now for probably years without a clean install and to me, and those that work with Windows know that sounds like a terrible idea if this system is used daily. Has this single install moved between hardware upgrades as well?  If so its completely clear to me why its not working as well as expected. 

 

If you don't want to fix it because you feel it would be too much work to reinstall Windows, that's fine. I really don't want anything of you, we just tried to reason with you to which you've rejected. That's fine, you will still continue to have this problem. 

[Altefier]

I have yet to hear a single reason as to why reinstalling Windows would magically fix this issue. I know from experience that all a "fresh" Windows install does is reset the confiuguration to default because at the end of the day, everything Windows is is just the data on my drive. Since I like my OS config a certain way and I would get things back to what they are now after the install, there is a very high chance this issue would just come back and I'm not into wasting my time like that anymore.

 

So reinstalling Windows should be last resort. I was really just curious if anyone knew this issue and what causes is, is all

 

And as I explained, even if a reinstalling was the only solution somehow, I wouldn't do it. It's too rare that I use my computer while copying or downloading large files and even when that happens, having to wait a few seconds for a program to respond is not the end of the world. I just felt it wasn't normal since I've only seen this with Windows 11.

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

The best way to discover what your esoteric issue is, is to reinstall windows. If with a fresh install of Windows the issue is gone, then go ahead and start installing drivers and software until the issue does or does not return. If it doesn't return, problem solved. If it does return, and you were testing for it as you installed your drivers and software and settings, then you will now know what the source of the problem is.

 

Troubleshooting 101.

[Altefier]

Sorry for bumping this after two months, but I found the culprit and maybe this will help someone who's having the same issue with their Windows 11 install. It was ExplorerPatcher, a small project that aimed to return the Windows 10 taskbar and start menu to Windows 11

 

I removed it like two weeks ago because project updates had gotten very slow, the developer disinterested, and I always had to wait to install Windows updates until ExplorerPatcher was updated to avoid having it break entirely. But I decided to do away with this mess and use the not-so-great Windows 11 taskbar instead (Why can't I have it on a different monitor than my main one?) At the very least there's Start11 so I still have a Windows 10 start menu.

 

Realizing that the PC no longer slowed down when installing games to my main drive or doing other large file moving tasks, I am confident in saying that ExplorerPatcher was causing this issue. This also explains why the issue started with Windows 11 as I found and used Explorer Patcher on day one of upgrading

 

 

 

 

^To the latest reply: I am of course perfectly aware you can troubleshoot like this, installing everything one by one and testing. But as I said multiple times, the issue wasn't a big disruption and just a minor annoyance. Since I would have gotten my Windows install back to exactly as it is, it would have either taken much longer than the common user, or the very act of importing my registry and other settings could have brought it back. It simply wouldn't have been worth the time investment as well as the potential risk of not helping. But thank you anyway