Question 100% disk usage all of a sudden??

[Allisonmo22]

[Moderator edit to break up solid paragraph of text.]

Older (spec'd) gaming pc (the actual pc itself is only a year old more or less). Core i7-4790, win10, 32gb ddr3, gtx1660s, 1tb sata ssd. only used for Forza Horizon 4 and 5.

For months I have had 0 issues playing either game. Over past week now my disk usage has spiked to 100% while playing causing textures to completely stop loading and the game to crash. GPU drivers updated, windows updated.

So far I have re-installed both games, reinstalled windows, created a sep partition in my ssd to move the games to, tried turning off all background processes, turned off windows defender (to test only), run checkdisk and other tools that all return no issues with drive itself, set frame rates to cap at 60fps on nvidia control panel, didsabled all startup apps, and probably a bunch of other ideas i've found on the web.

The most baffling part is the fact that everything worked fine for so long then out of nowhere it failed. No new programs downloaded, no new hardware, didn't happen after a windows update. My cpu usage varies while playing from 60-80%, memory never goes above 20%, and gpu hovers around 50-70% mostly while playing.

I have not touched the SATA cable at all to loosen it or anything like that. I guess the ask is, how do I definitively figure out what happened or what is causing this all of a sudden? I don't want to throw $$ at an older set up, and I'm not really in the position to drop a couple grand on a new set up.

Another odd issue, maybe related, maybe not, is with Horizon 4. When I am loading the game, as the loading screen is playing the animation, it will spike the disk usage to 100% and it causes my pc itself to reboot. Horizon 5 will load fine and play for a while until the disk spikes and then it may freeze the game, but never reboots my pc.

I'll take any ideas or thoughts you guys may have. I'm at a loss at this point of where to turn next. At this point I just have a colorful paperweight since the only thing I need the pc for is those 2 games. Everything else works fine. All programs and apps run great. Thank you!

 

[Ralston18]

There is quite a lot going on.

The disk activity shown by Resource Monitor needs a much closer look.

"Processes with Disk Activity" and "Disk Activity" via the Disk tab.

Watch what is Reading and/or Writing.

Are you able to see the graphical views? If not, click the Views ">" in the upper right margin of Resource Monitor disk.

= = = =

FH4 seems to maxing on disk activity.

As in Process Explorer you can click the Resource Monitor column headers to sort results.

= = = =

Also in Process Explorer note the small > icons at the far left.

For example: "Forza Horizon 4 (2). Click to expand/contract into what is below.

= = = =

I am really wondering about the overall drive(s) situation. @SkyNetRising has posted about that.

Open the Disk Management Window, expand so all can be seen and read. Post via imgur.

 

[Allisonmo22]

There is quite a lot going on.

The disk activity shown by Resource Monitor needs a much closer look.

"Processes with Disk Activity" and "Disk Activity" via the Disk tab.

Watch what is Reading and/or Writing.

Are you able to see the graphical views? If not, click the Views ">" in the upper right margin of Resource Monitor disk.

= = = =

FH4 seems to maxing on disk activity.

As in Process Explorer you can click the Resource Monitor column headers to sort results.

= = = =

Also in Process Explorer note the small > icons at the far left.

For example: "Forza Horizon 4 (2). Click to expand/contract into what is below.

= = = =

I am really wondering about the overall drive(s) situation. @SkyNetRising has posted about that.

Open the Disk Management Window, expand so all can be seen and read. Post via imgur.

I reread skynets reply and saw I missed the move sata cable ask. I turned off my pc entirely, moved the cable from sata 1 to sata 2, and now when I turn on my pc I'm at the Aptio setup utility. I am assuming I need to tell my pc which sata port to boot from, but nothing under boot seems to just say "boot from port 1, or 2 etc.." and no matter how much I hit exit I'm still on this screen. Any thoughts on how to get it to see my ssd?

 

[Allisonmo22]

I reread skynets reply and saw I missed the move sata cable ask. I turned off my pc entirely, moved the cable from sata 1 to sata 2, and now when I turn on my pc I'm at the Aptio setup utility. I am assuming I need to tell my pc which sata port to boot from, but nothing under boot seems to just say "boot from port 1, or 2 etc.." and no matter how much I hit exit I'm still on this screen. Any thoughts on how to get it to see my ssd?

https://imgur.com/a/MItQ87J

View: https://imgur.com/a/MItQ87J

https://imgur.com/a/pQa03Ya

View: https://imgur.com/a/pQa03Ya

https://imgur.com/a/TLdes0J

View: https://imgur.com/a/TLdes0J

 

[Allisonmo22]

https://imgur.com/a/MItQ87J

View: https://imgur.com/a/MItQ87J

https://imgur.com/a/pQa03Ya

View: https://imgur.com/a/pQa03Ya

https://imgur.com/a/TLdes0J

View: https://imgur.com/a/TLdes0J

I didn't want to touch anything I didn't know so powered off again and moved sata cable back to the first port. All good on the boot front

 

[Allisonmo22]

There is quite a lot going on.

The disk activity shown by Resource Monitor needs a much closer look.

"Processes with Disk Activity" and "Disk Activity" via the Disk tab.

Watch what is Reading and/or Writing.

Are you able to see the graphical views? If not, click the Views ">" in the upper right margin of Resource Monitor disk.

= = = =

FH4 seems to maxing on disk activity.

As in Process Explorer you can click the Resource Monitor column headers to sort results.

= = = =

Also in Process Explorer note the small > icons at the far left.

For example: "Forza Horizon 4 (2). Click to expand/contract into what is below.

= = = =

https://imgur.com/a/0wYWhdp

View: https://imgur.com/a/0wYWhdp

 

[Ralston18]

SATA ports.

Go to the motherboard's manufacturer's website and find the applicable User Guide/Manual

The documentation should provide details about supported SATA and PCIe configurations.

Do be careful about "manual websites". Just because the motherboard's manufacturer's name appears in the URL does not necessary mean that the website is truly the manufacturer.

Some of those websites will trigger fake AV and/or malware alerts that are difficult to break out of and want you to call some number - DON"T.

That said, seeing the Disk Management window will be very helpful.

 

[Ralston18]

Update: seeing Disk Management window now.

What is SunriseBase?

 

[Allisonmo22]

Update: seeing Disk Management window now.

What is SunriseBase?

Never heard of it. Google says it's some part of forza horizon 4's files

 

[Allisonmo22]

SATA ports.

Go to the motherboard's manufacturer's website and find the applicable User Guide/Manual

The documentation should provide details about supported SATA and PCIe configurations.

Do be careful about "manual websites". Just because the motherboard's manufacturer's name appears in the URL does not necessary mean that the website is truly the manufacturer.

Some of those websites will trigger fake AV and/or malware alerts that are difficult to break out of and want you to call some number - DON"T.

That said, seeing the Disk Management window will be very helpful.

And motherboard is gonna be a toughy. If I understand correctly STG Aubron makes their own. I'm guessing some Chinese wholesaler provides to them. The model is b85m-v35 if that is at all helpful. I have struck out looking for anything online.

 

[SkyNetRising]

I reread skynets reply and saw I missed the move sata cable ask.
I turned off my pc entirely, moved the cable from sata 1 to sata 2, and now when I turn on my pc I'm at the Aptio setup utility.

Angled connector is meant for HDD/SSD side.
On motherboard side you use straight connector.

Probably angled connector doesn't fit properly, when you try to insert it into "SATA2" port.

 

[Allisonmo22]

Angled connector is meant for HDD/SSD side.
On motherboard side you use straight connector.

Probably angled connector doesn't fit properly, when you try to insert it into "SATA2" port.

Is it possible that even though checkdisk says the drive is fine, that it is fact not? I'm thinking about just buying another. Sata is cheap enough.

I only say this as I had 0 issues for months running these programs simultaneously, then out of nowhere these disk usage spikes.

 

[Ralston18]

The question becomes what is "out of nowhere"?

What changed?

A new drive may or may not resolve the problem. There must be some definitive proof that the drive is either the cause or otherwise somehow a factor.

Look back in Reliability History/Monitor and Event Viewer if at all possible to discover when the problem first began.

I am, full disclosure, leaning towards some software conflict.

As for "Sunrise" - does FH4 say that it is part of its' files?

Disable anything that you use to capture, record, edit game play.

System stability being the end objective without any 100% disk usage.

 

[Allisonmo22]

The question becomes what is "out of nowhere"?

***** I have been livestreaming on Youtube both Horizon 4 and 5 for about a year now. I had an unrelated issue (motherboard failed) with my last pc but thank god for warranties! Got a replacement tower and all was fine for about a month. Last Saturday I was 6 hours into a stream on YouTube, streaming from OBS, chrome open as well, and I received a low streaming bandwidth error, my game textures stopped rendering. I pulled up task manager and my disk was pegged at 100%. Usual max was spikes to 80-90% when loading the game, outside of that about 50-60% while playing. I hadn't touched a thing. No new programs, no settings changes, nothing.*****

What changed?

A new drive may or may not resolve the problem. There must be some definitive proof that the drive is either the cause or otherwise somehow a factor.

*****Agree*****

Look back in Reliability History/Monitor and Event Viewer if at all possible to discover when the problem first began.

I am, full disclosure, leaning towards some software conflict.

As for "Sunrise" - does FH4 say that it is part of its' files?

***** I just googled sunrisebase and every result said fh4 file*****

Disable anything that you use to capture, record, edit game play.

***** With game loaded and idle disk is about 5%. As soon as I start moving and it's rendering about 30% was normal, 50-60% connected to an online session. Adding OBS barely had an impact. Now when I start moving I'm already pushing 70-80 % disk, and open OBS, immediately pegs at 100%*****

System stability being the end objective without any 100% disk usage.

Fact. I'd be fine if I'm pushing my system capabilities close to max, but still need it to be functional. At the moment it's not even functional. I can play fh4 all day long, but I can't stream. Fh5 which is a lot more demanding, I can no longer even play. Disk pegs at 100% as soon as I move.

 

[Ralston18]

OBS being Open Broadcaster Software - correct?

When I look at Disk Activity there are quite a number of processes trying to read and write to the disk.

Yes OBS (or whatever) may appear not to be an issue and is not an issue while idle. Once any given app or apps start trying to read and write to the disk drive - there is simply too much for system to keep up with.

The build may meet or exceed the hardware requirements for any given/individual application but simply cannot handle the cumulative impact of all the apps at once. I.e., movement. Lots to process, read, write, etc..

[Side note: confirm the installed RAM and RAM configuration. Watch what RAM is doing as well.]

And, looking back, I do not see a separate partition for games in the Disk Management window (Post #30, Image #3) I only see one drive C: listed. No partitions for games on C: nor any other drives. Something amiss there or I have miss read something. There are two system partitions on Disk 0 - both should be left alone.

I really do not know why all changed all of sudden but that is not uncommon. Software developers do what they need to do (or think they need to do) with little regard for other applications that are "not their problem".

Likewise even Microsoft may have made some change: security reasons, implement AI, remove some unused/obsolete process (from their viewpoint) who knows....?

Perfect Storm effect.

For the most part all I can suggest is to continue using Resource Monitor and Process Explorer to watch what the system is doing or trying to do as Disk activity increases and peaks.

Basically some methodical testing to identify and eliminate (as least temporarily) possible software causes.

Check Task Manager > Startup and Task Scheduler for unneeded apps being launched at startup or later on via Task Scheduler. Objective being to reduce the overall load on CPU, GPU, RAM, and disk drive.

Make changes: test and try only one thing at a time. Keep notes. Think thresholds.

Thresholds being something "X" = OK. X+1 = Disk at 100%. Like a shower knob that either freezes you or scalds you with the slightest touch/adjustment.

In the meantime, someone who plays FH4, streams, records, etc. may have discovered some cause and a fix as well.

 

[Allisonmo22]

OBS being Open Broadcaster Software - correct?

When I look at Disk Activity there are quite a number of processes trying to read and write to the disk.

Yes OBS (or whatever) may appear not to be an issue and is not an issue while idle. Once any given app or apps start trying to read and write to the disk drive - there is simply too much for system to keep up with.

The build may meet or exceed the hardware requirements for any given/individual application but simply cannot handle the cumulative impact of all the apps at once. I.e., movement. Lots to process, read, write, etc..

[Side note: confirm the installed RAM and RAM configuration. Watch what RAM is doing as well.]

And, looking back, I do not see a separate partition for games in the Disk Management window (Post #30, Image #3) I only see one drive C: listed. No partitions for games on C: nor any other drives. Something amiss there or I have miss read something. There are two system partitions on Disk 0 - both should be left alone.

I really do not know why all changed all of sudden but that is not uncommon. Software developers do what they need to do (or think they need to do) with little regard for other applications that are "not their problem".

Likewise even Microsoft may have made some change: security reasons, implement AI, remove some unused/obsolete process (from their viewpoint) who knows....?

Perfect Storm effect.

For the most part all I can suggest is to continue using Resource Monitor and Process Explorer to watch what the system is doing or trying to do as Disk activity increases and peaks.

Basically some methodical testing to identify and eliminate (as least temporarily) possible software causes.

Check Task Manager > Startup and Task Scheduler for unneeded apps being launched at startup or later on via Task Scheduler. Objective being to reduce the overall load on CPU, GPU, RAM, and disk drive.

Make changes: test and try only one thing at a time. Keep notes. Think thresholds.

Thresholds being something "X" = OK. X+1 = Disk at 100%. Like a shower knob that either freezes you or scalds you with the slightest touch/adjustment.

In the meantime, someone who plays FH4, streams, records, etc. may have discovered some cause and a fix as well.

Thank you again for your input! Yes, OBS is the open broadcast software. I'll keep resource monitor and task manager open, what I'm struggling with is even knowing what a lot of the running processes actually are so I have to fire everything up, make it fail, see what's running high, then Google it to see what "it" is. Sometimes hard to do all at once.

I did shrink my drive and set a 400gb partition and moved fh4 to that partition but it made no difference, still spiked to 100% almost immediately. So as it didn't seem to matter I deleted the game, removed the partition and downloaded game again. Just to get back to the known starting point.

 

[Ralston18]

Regarding "I did shrink my drive and set a 400gb partition and moved fh4 to that partition but it made no difference, still spiked to 100% almost immediately."

I am not seeing that 400GB partition in the Disk Management window. I only see one drive - C:

Please take another current Disk Management screenshot - I may have missed something.

Another late thought: did you make any changes to Virtual Memory (Paging)?

 

[Allisonmo22]

Regarding "I did shrink my drive and set a 400gb partition and moved fh4 to that partition but it made no difference, still spiked to 100% almost immediately."

I am not seeing that 400GB partition in the Disk Management window. I only see one drive - C:

I removed the partition already so back to the open entire c drive. Originally I used shrink to free up the separate 400gb to put the 2 game onto. When that had no effect I deleted the game, resized the c drive to one open drive, then re-downloaded the game to c.

Please take another current Disk Management screenshot - I may have missed something.

Another late thought: did you make any changes to Virtual Memory (Paging)?

As to the virtual memory, I don't recall touching it, but i have to be honest, I have touched and fiddled with so much ...
That's why Monday I had entirely reinstalled windows. I went scorched earth to get back to day #1 starting point. I literally only use this pc for streaming those 2 games so it was a no brainer.




Is there a way to remove basically everything that isn't forza, obs, browser? I don't need office suite, I don't need defender, I don't need 90% of what's there and probably running in the background.

And as to background programs at startup, I have about 12 things that are all turned off. Not sure at all how I have so many processes and programs that run all the time.

 

[Allisonmo22]

I removed the partition already so back to the open entire c drive. Originally I used shrink to free up the separate 400gb to put the 2 game onto. When that had no effect I deleted the game, resized the c drive to one open drive, then re-downloaded the game to c.

As to the virtual memory, I don't recall touching it, but i have to be honest, I have touched and fiddled with so much ...
That's why Monday I had entirely reinstalled windows. I went scorched earth to get back to day #1 starting point. I literally only use this pc for streaming those 2 games so it was a no brainer.




Is there a way to remove basically everything that isn't forza, obs, browser? I don't need office suite, I don't need defender, I don't need 90% of what's there and probably running in the background.

And as to background programs at startup, I have about 12 things that are all turned off. Not sure at all how I have so many processes and programs that run all the time.

And throwing into the mix me learning Linux, probably isn't the best idea, lol

 

[Ralston18]

How was Windows reinstalled?

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/windows-11-clean-install-tutorial.3831442/

A clean install followed by a few days of allowing Windows to update, etc. before adding any other applications. Which should be added one by one with time between addtiions.

One game at a time. Not two. True for any software installs. Too many changes can mask what is happening.

You do need Windows Defender/Security.

Office should not have installed unless you inadvertantly chose to do so. Not a default installation to my knowledge.

What runs at startup is determined by Task Manager > Startup or perhaps later via Task Scheduler and established rules to trigger launching other apps and utilities when certain conditions occur.

Many applications take it on themselves to update, backup, or simply "phone home". May or may not suceed for one reason or another and simply flounder as some running background process. Wreaking general havoc.

Programs need to be uninstalled versus deleting some file or folder. A proper uninstall removes application related entries from the registry and other folders used by by the application. Not all programs include or have a thorough uninstall. Third party tools can make it all worse.

Very much most of what is installed by Windows/Microsoft should be left alone - with exceptions for One-Drive, etc. where (if possible) you can simply disable the "service". With no guarantees that it will not be reabled with some future fix or update.



Requires time and effort to identify and sort out the running processes. What they are and what they do (or may be doing).

Do-over (no Linux - ? required).

Objective is to install Windows and achieve stable performance without Disk % going to high or maximum.

Then slowly install other applications one by one allowing time between installs. Be very careful about any options presented during downloads and installs. There may be something "extra" coming along.

Ensure that all applications are legal and truly from the manufacturer's website.