diagnosing 100 percent disk usage in windows 10

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Since updating to win 10, I'm experiencing issues with my disk usage. From time to time (sometimes every 10 minutes, sometimes once every few hours) my system becomes unresponsive because the disk usage is 100%. It usually takes one or two minutes for this blocking to be resolved.

If I have the task manager open, it says the read and write speeds are 0, but still my disk is being used for 100%. I'd expect there's some process blocking IO access to all the others, so I've tried watching the performance monitor for heavy processess, but since I can only see the current read/write speed of each process/service, I haven't been able to pinpoint any abnormal behavior.

Can anyone show me how to diagnose this kind of issue please? As you can imagine it does reduce my productivity, and to be honest I hate it when my pc behaves unexpectatly :p

Regards, klmdb

PS: I've googled 100% disk usage issues and came across many different suggestions (like disabling some windows services), but to be honest I'd prefere not to 'solve' the problem by cutting off pieces of the intended operation of my OS.

klmdb

Posted 2015-08-19T11:42:48.403

Reputation: 321

Do you have any 3rd party antivirus installied? If yes try to uninstall it – Ivan Viktorovic – 2015-08-19T11:44:51.673

No I only have windows defender. – klmdb – 2015-08-19T12:27:08.397

Have you tried to stop it Windows Defender for a while to see if the situation would improve. Also check the system event logs for Event ID129 as per this Microsoft KB.

– Techpumpkin_WD – 2015-08-19T14:14:51.263

Awesome! I did check the system events and found the exact issue that you linked. I applied the provided solution. Hopefully that does the trick. Thanks very much! If you provide your tip as a solution, and maybe describe how you knew what to look for, I can accept it and you get your hard earned credit :) – klmdb – 2015-08-19T14:58:38.953

hmmm still getting the same behavior (maybe a little less frequent), and also still getting id129 events. Investigating the event id further... – klmdb – 2015-08-20T18:10:36.470

Windows 10 starts to compress all files on your hard drive after upgrade! Just let your computer run idle for a few hours, depending how much data you have... it will just churn the HDD. Also, it does a ton of Indexing for searches. I had this sympton for first week... where I left the PC idle and then the HDD started doing a ton of work. It shouldnt really block your machine, just make it a bit slower. – Piotr Kula – 2015-08-30T17:59:03.680

Hi, could you try running Process Monitor while you experience the problem. Once you gather enough events during the problematic period, stop the capturing Ctrl+E, go to Tools > File summary.... Examine each column for excessive values, especially the Read bytes and Write bytes. You can share screenshot with us, or even all the captured system events, but it may leak some private information (name, file paths etc.).

– Vlastimil Ovčáčík – 2015-12-07T11:10:20.877

I assume you've tried turning Cortana off? – Zibbobz – 2018-04-04T23:12:12.790

Answers

5

This is a known issue with certain ACHI devices. Microsoft has provided a solution: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3083595

If you follow these steps (taken from the article) your problem should be resolved.

  1. Identify if you are running the inbox AHCI driver (StorAHCI.sys):

    1. Open a command prompt with administrator privileges. Then type the following command in the command prompt window and hit Enter: devmgmt.msc

    2. Under IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers right-click on the AHCI controller node and select Properties. This node is usually called “Standard SATA AHCI Controller.”

    3. Navigate to the driver tab and click Driver Details.

    4. If you see “StorAHCI.sys” in the list, you are running the inbox driver.

  2. Disable MSI for the controller in the registry:

    1. In the same properties window opened in step 1.2, navigate to the Details tab and select Device instance path from the Property drop-down menu. Note this path.

    2. Open the registry editor by typing regedit in the previously opened command prompt.

    3. Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Enum\PCI\<AHCI Controller>\Device Parameters\Interrupt Management\MessageSignaledInterruptProperties, where <AHCI Controller> refers to the device instance path you noted in step 2.1.

    4. Change the value of the MSISupported key from 1 to 0.

    5. If you don’t know which controller your boot device is attached to, repeat steps 2.1 through 2.4 for all AHCI controllers found under 1.2.

  3. Reboot the machine.

Persistence

Posted 2015-08-19T11:42:48.403

Reputation: 289

3Not only did this not help. But, I tried out over a dozen other solutions from around the web. I'm going to have to revert back to Windows 7. – ADH – 2016-05-15T01:59:45.393

1I'm in the same boat as @ADH. The issue sounds exactly what's described in that M$ article (no tasks or services are doing anything, or using any disk, but the disk is still at 100%), but this definitely didn't fix it. – John Chrysostom – 2017-01-04T19:26:05.760

After devmgmt.msc, in 1.1 I get: /c/WINDOWS/system32/devmgmt.msc: line 1: syntax error near unexpected token \newline'/c/WINDOWS/system32/devmgmt.msc: line 1: `<?xml version="1.0"?>'` Any help? – Web_Designer – 2017-01-18T00:07:58.853

Asked: 2015-08-19T11:42:48.403

Viewed: 72 956 times

Active: 2016-04-07T16:59:08.910