Storage Problem!

[ForeverZero]

So every now and again, my HDD shoots up to 100% usage causing nothing to load at all, and even taking task manager to take several minutes to even pop up, as of right now it's working fine, but sometimes it starts acting up even between boots and I've no bloody idea why. I'm going to give my specs from speccy, also bare in mind this pc was given to me. So it might be a mistake by the one who made it. I don't know, any questions directed at me might take me a bit to reply to unfortunately. But I should get back to them in a timely manner.

BRANDON-PC.speccy

[ProjectBox153]

It’s probably Superfetch. What’s using the disk in Task Manager?

[ForeverZero]

Nothing really, is the problem, I've tried disabling superfetch but CMD or Powershell? I think say it doesn't exist. IT doesn't matter what process it is, sometimes it's at 1mb/s and it's using 100% disk. Doesn't matter what it is. I'll see if I can get a screenshot next time it happens. I'll see if I can disable superfetch in the meantime.

[ForeverZero]

Nothing really, is the problem, I've tried disabling superfetch but CMD or Powershell? I think say it doesn't exist. IT doesn't matter what process it is, sometimes it's at 1mb/s and it's using 100% disk. Doesn't matter what it is. I'll see if I can get a screenshot next time it happens. I'll see if I can disable superfetch in the meantime. 

 

Edit: So got the picture, all was fine till I boooted up CS:GO went to a comp, map didn't load got a ban, and for the next 10 ish minutes I had the disk useage you see in the picture, it went back down, but now I can't get back to normal disk useage ( round 30mb/s or so ) it's annoying, I had a n old hard drive and it did same thing, components maybe? But this time it's happening more often.It's annoying. 

[ForeverZero]

Still no help? darn.

[ForeverZero]

I'm getting kind of desperate. Any help would be lovely.

[Luc401]

Honestly.. When I have issues with window machines having high harddrive usage, I just reformat them. It might be good to check out resource monitor and check out some stats in there.

[ForeverZero]

Was hoping to not have to reformat. I'm not exactly confident in doing it anymore haven't done it in ages.

[johnukguy]

Disabling superfetch won't help this issue and isn't generally a good idea as there is no real performance gain. Have you run a disk check on that HDD? Also software like the Razer Game Scanner that's working in the background there, tend to make this sort of thing worse and serve no useful purpose much of the time.

http://blog.ultimateoutsider.com/2016/02/razers-terrible-game-scanner-service.html

[ForeverZero]

I ran chkdsk right when it the error occurred a while ago, it used to happen a lot, and had bad sectors at one point, but they were fixed and it helped for a while, then this happens, no bad sectors, but booting is kinda tedious sometimes.  Bout to go to work though, so likely won't reply for a while, disabled razer game scanner, will give feedback when I get back later.

[kirashi]

On 3/17/2018 at 3:52 AM, ForeverZero said:

BRANDON-PC.speccy

Specs not in an openly readable text format; please reply with specs in post format or text.

 

However, the only question I'll ask is regarding your OS drive: Is it an SSD or an HDD?

[ForeverZero]

If I recall correctly it's a Seagate Baracuda drive. Give me a sec, will get all my specs in a minute.

OS: Win 10 Pro 64 - bit

CPU: I5 2500 @3.3GHz

RAM: 6 gig ddr 3

Mobo: Dell inc. 0D6H9T ( speccy says ) pc was made by someone else, i just happend to get it from them, so I don't exactly have the box or whatnot.

GPU: 512MB ATI AMD Radeon HD 5450 (Dell)

Storage: 931GB Seagate ST1000DM003-9YN162 (SATA)

 

This is the only drive I have so it's also my OS device as well. 

[kirashi]

7 minutes ago, ForeverZero said:

If I recall correctly it's a Seagate Baracuda drive. Give me a sec, will get all my specs in a minute.

OS: Win 10 Pro 64 - bit

CPU: I5 2500 @3.3GHz

RAM: 6 gig ddr 3

Mobo: Dell inc. 0D6H9T ( speccy says ) pc was made by someone else, i just happend to get it from them, so I don't exactly have the box or whatnot.

GPU: 512MB ATI AMD Radeon HD 5450 (Dell)

Storage: 931GB Seagate ST1000DM003-9YN162 (SATA)

 

This is the only drive I have so it's also my OS device as well. 

Gotcha. Next time, be sure to tag me with @username or quote me so I see the post. Anywho, to resolve 100% disk use problems with modern OS's, such as Windows 10, 8/8.1, or MacOS 10.9 or newer, I only support my own IT clients having SSD's for their OS drives, so that's the first thing I'd do in your computer. Replace the HDD with an SSD, and your disk use will improve immensely, especially during updates or automated background maintenance.

[ForeverZero]

@kirashi Thing is, I'm gonna build a pc later, anyway, I got the money for a nice system, just need a car first. so.... yeah. Prolly gonna be a bit before then, but I want an SSD anyway, just not much time for what I want these days.

[kirashi]

13 minutes ago, ForeverZero said:

@kirashi Thing is, I'm gonna build a pc later, anyway, I got the money for a nice system, just need a car first. so.... yeah. Prolly gonna be a bit before then, but I want an SSD anyway, just not much time for what I want these days.

Totally hear you there, so maybe wait until you're ready to build that new PC before you throw an SSD in the existing machine. For the time being then, I'd recommend manually running the Windows Update Assistant and letting it complete fully, reboot, and run it again, repeating until it no longer finds updates. Read about it and download it below. AS ALWAYS, PLEASE BACKUP BEFORE RUNNING ANY UPDATES.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/3159635/windows-10-update-assistant

Download - https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=799445

 

The purpose is to force Windows to properly install all the updates it's (most likely) trying to install in the background, which it sometimes has a difficult time doing when other things are interfering with the process, or when it just decide to misbehave. Running the update assistance separately when you're not using the PC will hopefully get things updated fully, and clean things up so that you're not at 100% disk use as often.

[ForeverZero]

@kirashi The download is an upgrade isn't it?
 

[ForeverZero]

@kirashi So I've tried running CrystalDisk to check my disk, but uhh.. it doesn't finish, Twice it blue screened. I forgot the errors, I'll try again, later, but I'll see what I can do, I'd really rather not reformat. I don't really have time to. 

[kirashi]

54 minutes ago, ForeverZero said:

@kirashi So I've tried running CrystalDisk to check my disk, but uhh.. it doesn't finish, Twice it blue screened. I forgot the errors, I'll try again, later, but I'll see what I can do, I'd really rather not reformat. I don't really have time to. 

That would indicate either corrupt filesystem drivers (reinstall Windows) or a failing hard drive / SATA port or chipset on the motherboard. As for the Windows Update Assistant, it will allow you to create blank install media, or perform a clean installation, if you desire, but it should also let you just update to the latest Windows 10.

[ForeverZero]

@kirashi Finally got CrystalDiskInfo to run I understand a bit of it, and it seems like my Disk is failing. I'll post the screeny, tell me what you think. 

[ForeverZero]

@kirashi Hmm, tagging you isn't working all the time.

[kirashi]

1 hour ago, ForeverZero said:

@kirashi Hmm, tagging you isn't working all the time.

All good - I think for tagging to work you have to @NAME the user, and click on the name that comes up - simply typing it like you would on Twitter doesn't do it.

 

Anywho, that SMART status is just telling you that there were some failed sectors on the drive, but it was able to remap them. Always backup of course, but it's not immediately failing at this time. However, I'd still swap it out for an SSD if it continues to do 100% disk use occasionally, or attempt reinstalling Windows with all the latest updates to see if Windows is just being silly.

 

In my years working on computers, I've had ASUS gaming laptops with an i7 CPU, 12GB RAM, and dedicated GPU slow to a crawl because the hard drive inside limited the IOPS whenever Windows 8/8.1/10 decided it was time to update or perform background maintenance. This only seems to happen with newer versions of Windows (or MacOS 10.9 and higher) probably due to the way they handle maintenance in the background now. (since users never update or defrag on their own usually.) It's annoying, but is why I push for SSD's in all computers running modern OS's - I even have an SSD in my Dell "server" (a refurbished Intel E7500 based USFF business PC) because the 7200 RPM 2.5" disk was too slow for Windows 10. However, I totally understand again that you might not do this until you build a new PC. Keep in mind that you could buy an SSD for now, install Windows on it in your current PC, then wipe it and use it in the new PC later.

[mariyaminks]

Remove unnecessary files from drive

[ForeverZero]

@kirashi Yup, gotta click the name, thanks. Also, guess I'll do a factory reset and wipe everything, see how it works, I'll get back to you when I have time.

[kirashi]

30 minutes ago, ForeverZero said:

@kirashi Yup, gotta click the name, thanks. Also, guess I'll do a factory reset and wipe everything, see how it works, I'll get back to you when I have time.

Sounds good. I know this is a big process, but it eliminates software / filesystem drivers / Windows being the cause. If you perform a full nuke and reinstall of Windows, including all current Windows updates and drivers for your system, and it still frequently hits 100% disk use for long periods of time, that points to hardware being the issue. At that point, it's either a failing drive, or the drive and/or SATA port/chipset on the motherboard is not fast enough to keep up with things. Let us know how it goes though.