Harddrive usage constantly at 100%

[DennisvdG]

The harddrive usage on my pc is constantly at 100% and it's causing the pc to be really slow. Surely this is not normal right? I can't find a solution anywhere... If someone can help me that would be amazing!

Specs: i5-4670K, 8GB RAM, 500GB HDD, GTX780

 

[gpobernardo]

That happened to my hard drive a few months before I finally decided to replace it - it started to fail but I managed to extend its life over several months.

There can be at least three causes for constant high disk activity, however:
1. Your file system is highly fragmented - action: defragment your hard drive. You can check the fragmentation status of your PC using the Windows defrag utility.

2. Your system is actively copying files, such as when installing an application or when something is heavily being downloaded. Action - check if your system is downloading something... or just simply restart your PC.

3. Your hard drive is starting to fail. You can check this with Command Prompt* - Action: if bad sectors are detected, backup all your files and replace the hard drive as soon as you can.

*- Type chkdsk for a quick scan or chkdsk /r for a full scan and attempt recovery of bad sectors. The second option will take a lot more time (several hours) and will require you to restart your PC before being able to run a full disk scan.

 

[heickelrrx]

What is your HDD type? I'm using Seagate disk With SATA 3 and run great. I wouldn't recommend WD Green for system drive and if you go for blue I would prefer Seagate over WD disk. If you plan to get get jump right away to black for system one.

I wouldn't recommend Samsung, Hitachi and Toshiba Disk for system they have bad performances

 

[pankaj981]

Check out any programs that are using the hard drive continuously, task manager is a good starting point

 

[DennisvdG]

That happened to my hard drive a few months before I finally decided to replace it - it started to fail but I managed to extend its life over several months.

There can be at least three causes for constant high disk activity, however:
1. Your file system is highly fragmented - action: defragment your hard drive. You can check the fragmentation status of your PC using the Windows defrag utility.

2. Your system is actively copying files, such as when installing an application or when something is heavily being downloaded. Action - check if your system is downloading something... or just simply restart your PC.

3. Your hard drive is starting to fail. You can check this with Command Prompt* - Action: if bad sectors are detected, backup all your files and replace the hard drive as soon as you can.

*- Type chkdsk for a quick scan or chkdsk /r for a full scan and attempt recovery of bad sectors. The second option will take a lot more time (several hours) and will require you to restart your PC before being able to run a full disk scan.

1. Only 4% fragmented, is this bad?

2. I'm not downloading anything, doesn't matter how mant times I restart it, the problem persists.

3. No bad sectors detected.

 

[DennisvdG]

What is your HDD type? I'm using Seagate disk With SATA 3 and run great. I wouldn't recommend WD Green for system drive and if you go for blue I would prefer Seagate over WD disk. If you plan to get get jump right away to black for system one.

I wouldn't recommend Samsung, Hitachi and Toshiba Disk for system they have bad performances

Thanks for the advice.

 

[DennisvdG]

Check out any programs that are using the hard drive continuously, task manager is a good starting point

That's what I've been doing, can't figure out what's causing the problem though...

 

[gpobernardo]

1. Only 4% fragmented, is this bad?

2. I'm not downloading anything, doesn't matter how mant times I restart it, the problem persists.

3. No bad sectors detected.

1. 4% fragmentation isn't bad.
2. Okay.
3. That's good... but what did you type in cmd? "chkdsk" or "chkdsk /r"

 

[pankaj981]

That's what I've been doing, can't figure out what's causing the problem though...

When you click on Processes and Sort by Disk Usage what programs/services to do you see with the highest usage?

 

[DennisvdG]

1. 4% fragmentation isn't bad.
2. Okay.
3. That's good... but what did you type in cmd? "chkdsk" or "chkdsk /r"

Chkdsk /r

 

[hotphil]

I wouldn't recommend Samsung, Hitachi and Toshiba Disk for system they have bad performances

Put simply, no they don't.

If you're running any of those brands, the brand name isn't going to be the cause of any noticeable performance issue.

 

[Angry_Mushroom]

Put simply, no they don't.

If you're running any of those brands, the brand name isn't going to be the cause of any noticeable performance issue.

If I remember correctly. Hitachi now falls under the Western Digital brand umbrella as HGST. Samsung's drive division was gobbled up by Seagate. Toshiba, Western Digital, and Seagate are the final 3 major players on the market right now. A lot of consolidation went on around 2011.

Personally I'll continue working with WD and HGST drives as they tend to have excellent marks in terms of reliability. If you are looking to upgrade your harddrive for your PC, I'd recommend you jump straight to a SSD.

 

[DennisvdG]

here's a screenshot:

The process that's causing so much disk usage switches constantly, often it's ''system'' or ''svchost.exe''.

 

[gpobernardo]

here's a screenshot:
View attachment 102744
The process that's causing so much disk usage switches constantly, often it's ''system'' or ''svchost.exe''.

Oh... if that's the case, have you checked your computer for viruses? or rather, what anti-virus software do you have installed?

OR, here's a solution I've found over the internet. (I may or may not post the link due to forum rules).

Posted on April 13, 2014 6:17:16 AM by numair94, voted as the "best solution"
Hi,

I have been searching for a solution for over a month now and have finally solved the issue:

Go to charms bar and press search, then type view local services.
Once here, stop and disable BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service). Also, set windows update checks to manual.
Chrome also seemed to be a factor so uninstall that too.

I hope this helps you out

But I'll go ahead and suggest not uninstalling Chrome first... but rather you can try disabling the Google update service.

 

[hotphil]

Use Process Explorer or similar to dig deeper and find out which service.
Or use msconfig to boot with minimal services active, and turn them on one by one.
If you think it may be malware, adwcleaner is a good, fast but aggressive cleaner to try. Mbam's cool, but doesn't get everything/is a bit slow.

 

[DennisvdG]

Oh... if that's the case, have you checked your computer for viruses? or rather, what anti-virus software do you have installed?

OR, here's a solution I've found over the internet. (I may or may not post the link due to forum rules).


But I'll go ahead and suggest not uninstalling Chrome first... but rather you can try disabling the Google update service.

I use Avast!. It's indeed reporting that there's some bad programs on my pc but I can't remove them without paying... What anti-virus software should I use to clean up?

I'll try out that other possible solution btw!

 

[DennisvdG]

Use Process Explorer or similar to dig deeper and find out which service.
Or use msconfig to boot with minimal services active, and turn them on one by one.
If you think it may be malware, adwcleaner is a good, fast but aggressive cleaner to try. Mbam's cool, but doesn't get everything/is a bit slow.

Thanks, I'll try out adwcleaner!

 

[gpobernardo]

I use Avast!. It's indeed reporting that there's some bad programs on my pc but I can't remove them without paying... What anti-virus software should I use to clean up?

I'll try out that other possible solution btw!

Hmm, I got rid of Avast! back in my XP days since it was very troublesome - couldn't uninstall it without using their separate uninstaller which one should download, and then it keeps on interrupting me with pop ups rather than performing a "silent scan".

Windows Defender may be a good start. You may also try other freeware anti-virus programs, such as AVG or Comodo Anti-virus. I personally used these two simultaneously in an older PC, but it seemed that some viruses were not being detected (compared with what I'm currently using). Now I'm using Bitdefender 2014, which I would say is very very effective against viruses - but it's not free.

Let us know what happens with that other solution.

 

[DennisvdG]

Hmm, I got rid of Avast! back in my XP days since it was very troublesome - couldn't uninstall it without using their separate uninstaller which one should download, and then it keeps on interrupting me with pop ups rather than performing a "silent scan".

Windows Defender may be a good start. You may also try other freeware anti-virus programs, such as AVG or Comodo Anti-virus. I personally used these two simultaneously in an older PC, but it seemed that some viruses were not being detected (compared with what I'm currently using). Now I'm using Bitdefender 2014, which I would say is very very effective against viruses - but it's not free.

Let us know what happens with that other solution.

That solution didn't work

 

[gpobernardo]

Thanks, at least we've narrowed down our choices.

How about the Windows Defender-Comodo method?