Question 100% HDD usage causes game/software to freeze completely ?

[not.Puffer]

Hello, recently for the past couple of days I've been experiencing this issue: Game would randomly freeze completely while I was playing, I can still alt tab out and use chrome, etc, but if I try to launch new app it wouldn't open the app, and the game would stay that way for a while until it return to normal again or if I was playing a multiplayer, in most case I would get disconnected from the match.

So I did what I could trying to monitor the problem, it was easy finding out what is causing it. While the game froze, I noticed that my HDD usage would spike all the way up to 100% usage and stayed at 100% until everything return to normal. I checked for task trying to find which one was eating up all of the disk usage and was unable to find anything. After that I checked the Event Viewer and found that this Warning message in the log that line up with each time this problem occurs:

Event ID is: 129, here is the log info:

Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort0, was issued.

The source of the message was iaStorAC, a quick google search came up as Intel Rapid Storage Technology.
I checked Device Manager/Storage Controllers but I didn't have IRST in the list, only Microsoft Storage Spaces Controller.
Here is the spec of my computer

• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro(10.0.19042 Build 19042)
• Physical Memory (Installed): 8 GB
• Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-8100 CPU @ 3.60GHz
• System Type: x64-based PC
• Total Installed Updates: 29 Updates
• Display Adapter(s): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 27.21.14.6663
• System Manufacturer: ASRock
• System Model: H310M-HDV
• Disk(s):
  • SSD: P3-128 14,53 GB (available) 10.0.19041.789
  • HDD: WDC WD20EZAZ-00GGJB0 897,86 GB (available) 10.0.19041.789

Speccy: http://speccy.piriform.com/results/La5fiZWZkIBNwQgT56QJFqA

I'm not sure how to fix the problem, as this is getting more and more frustrating for me, so I would gladly take all the help I can take. If you need more infos, please tell me, I will try my best to provide them as much as I could.

 

[not.Puffer]

Things to try.
Swap the sata port on the mobo between the ssd and the hdd.
Swap the sata cable between the ssd and the hdd.
Swap the power plug between the ssd and the hdd.
Clean off the hdd....partition/format....load one of the problem games to the hdd.

Thanks for the suggestion, I will try those but I don't think it's a hardware related problem...
As for the hdd, I can't format it because it holds many of the work, and since it's nearly 2tb backing up all of them to cloud isn't feasible for me

 

[DRagor]

IRST is not a device, it is motherboard driver that manages disks. Since your machine was prebuilt I assume it was already installed as you got it. It may be that Windows update made it not working properly so the first step would be to install newest version of it.
https://www.asrock.com/MB/Intel/H310M-HDV/index.asp#Download
"Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver and utility ver:17.5.0.1017_PV " seems to be most recent one. Check out if yours is older and if yes install new one.

 

[not.Puffer]

IRST is not a device, it is motherboard driver that manages disks. Since your machine was prebuilt I assume it was already installed as you got it. It may be that Windows update made it not working properly so the first step would be to install newest version of it.
https://www.asrock.com/MB/Intel/H310M-HDV/index.asp#Download
"Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver and utility ver:17.5.0.1017_PV " seems to be most recent one. Check out if yours is older and if yes install new one.

My IRST driver is at 17.9.1009 since june 2020. It seems to be the latest version because I can't update anymore. Should I uninstall it and download the one from asrock instead?

 

[DRagor]

My IRST driver is at 17.9.1009 since june 2020. It seems to be the latest version because I can't update anymore. Should I uninstall it and download the one from asrock instead?

It seems to be the most recent one for 8th gen motherboard. Still, the driver files might be corrupted. I'd say it is worth a try to reinstall either 17.9.1 1009 or try the one from Asrock page. Note however that IRST driver is not like other drivers - uninstalling it can cause problems. Please follow the instructions from this page https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...intel-rapid-storage-technology-intel-rst.html when uninstalling the driver.

 

[not.Puffer]

It seems to be the most recent one for 8th gen motherboard. Still, the driver files might be corrupted. I'd say it is worth a try to reinstall either 17.9.1 1009 or try the one from Asrock page. Note however that IRST driver is not like other drivers - uninstalling it can cause problems. Please follow the instructions from this page https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...intel-rapid-storage-technology-intel-rst.html when uninstalling the driver.

I tried to follow the instruction but I couldn't uninstall it for some reason, if I select uninstall device, it will run normally but after the restart I can still find the iastorac.sys and the intel ahci listed in device manager. But if I tick the uninstall driver software when it ask me when I choose uninstall device, then after a restart, my computer will stuck in a bsod loop and I have to do a system restore point to get to work again :/

 

[not.Puffer]

Things to try.
Swap the sata port on the mobo between the ssd and the hdd.
Swap the sata cable between the ssd and the hdd.
Swap the power plug between the ssd and the hdd.
Clean off the hdd....partition/format....load one of the problem games to the hdd.

update: I tried all the swap and the problem still there 🙁 im getting desperate . This happen out of nowhere and I have no idea what causes it

 

[xMarkersHD]

Hey I was wondering if you had any luck since then. I'm having the exact same issue 🙁

 

[not.Puffer]

Hey I was wondering if you had any luck since then. I'm having the exact same issue 🙁

Yes actually. First I uninstall my intel SATA driver so that it will reverse back to the old windows one (be careful while doing this, I recommend you have some restore point ready since I messed up a lot and met with BSOD loop and had to use restore point to get it back to work again), after that, I install the driver from my motherboard manufacture. And after it was done it seem to be gone, but I was met with another problem, that instead of my hard drive getting frozen from those spike to 100%, it would reach 100% usage without any reading/writing whatsoever. I was really frustrated by it and I tried to do everything to fix it, but turn out the problem was with the hardware itself. As a last resort, I tried switching the cable of my hdd and ssd (both sata and power supply cable) to a different one (I think it might be the power supply cable that causes the issue, since I only have 2 sata cable and switch them between 2 drive would only mean that the problem would transit to a different drive, but it didn't, and the power supply cable I used a unused one that was left hanging inside my case)
Hope this help!