100% Load of HDD, what is the problem?

[merlinside]

Hey there!

I bought a new pc a few months ago, everything is brand new except the RAM, and the HDD.
They are 2 years old.
The problem is that my HDD load jumps to 100% quite often, and when it happens, everything which is on the HDD (e.g. a game) freezes for 5-6 seconds, making me disconnect, or ".exe stopped working".

Here are some pictures its in hungarian language ask me if you don't get something. The hdd is : Western Digital black caviar 1tb
PICTURES

Pc comp:
Asus z97 pro gamer
i7 4790
gtx 960
Kingston 2x4gb 1866mhz
G650M
Samsung 850evo 250gb (system).

 

[SkyNetRising]

Launch resource monitor, go to Disk section and see witch programm causes this 100% disk activity.

 

[merlinside]

Here Another However it is totally random, sometimes it has no problem during a 6-7 hour of session, sometimes it is doing this every 5 min, but a restart usually solve the problem. I started hearthstone, which is an online card game... it can be runned on a pentium 4 computer shouldn't cause any problem. The next time i open both panel.

The other thing is, i have experienced a problem which was there on the previous computer so ram or hdd could be the problem, because the problem is persisting in this new comp too. The computer in like every every hour freezes for 1-2 seconds. The voice the sound, the skype, the video, the music, the screen everything freezes for 1-2 second and it keeps repeating the very last sound before the freeze for that 1-2 second. I don't know if wether Ram or HDD cause this.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, merlinside.

I'm sorry to hear about the problems you're experiencing with your drive. Have you had any issues prior to that?
First, I'd recommend that you backup any important data which you might have on that HDD, just to be on the safe side. After that you could try the drive with a different SATA port and different cables, or even better - with a different computer, to see if the same thing happens. Go ahead and try out @SkyNetRising's suggestion to see if you're able to find out what's going on. Another option would be to disable BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service) and SuperFetch (those are OS services which could be responsible for higher drive usage sometimes).
You should also download DLG (Data Lifeguard) and run both tests on the drive (Quick and Extended), to see if anything out of the ordinary pops-up. Here's how to do it: How to test a drive for problems using Data Lifeguard Diagnostics for Windows.

Edit: Didn't notice you've already posted another answer, just go ahead and try out the viable suggestions. And if you thing there might be an issue with your memory module/s, download a RAM diagnostic tool and try testing it, to see what comes up.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD

 

[SkyNetRising]

I see SearchIndexer and uTorrent doing a lot of disk activity.
uTorrent propably downloading a lot of files and indexer indexing on those new files.
I'd suggest that you keep torrent downloads and games on different physical hard drives.

And check your hard drive with hdtune (health section).

 

[merlinside]

I am not going to modify the basic system services as something about i don't know anything, moreover 99% of people has no problems with their HDD. I bought a new computer as i mentioned so the cables are new and different, the slot and the computer is different too. As you suggested I downloaded the "DLG", and the quick test passed, the smart is passed. The extended takes 2 hours so I will do it late night, I will get back with the resolution tomorrow, but I think that will pass too. Now the other question is, is this considered as some sort of problem with the HDD, which means i can return to the retailer in exhange for another non Western Digital hdd?

 

[merlinside]

I see SearchIndexer and uTorrent doing a lot of disk activity.
uTorrent propably downloading a lot of files and indexer indexing on those new files.
I'd suggest that you keep torrent downloads and games on different physical hard drives.

And check your hard drive with hdtune (health section).

uTorrent has 100 files in it, and have an average total of 5 kb/s download and 5-600 kb/s upload speed. My internet speed is somewhere around 980 mb/s / 200 mb/s.

HERE is the Hd tune screenshot.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

I see. Well, it difficult for me do determine if it's an HDD related issue. So far the tests show that everything seems to be OK. The Extended test really takes a long longer than the Quick test, as each sector of the drive is scanned individually. Even if the computer is brand new, there's always a possibility that there might be a faulty component (e.g. a SATA cable or SATA port) just as a drive. I know it's a rare and unfortunate situation, but it happens. It could even be a simple connection issue and everything might be fine after you reseat the cables to the motherboard, the drive and the PSU. That's why I recommended that you try different ports and cables, as well as a different computer if possible, to determine if the same issue persists, but since you've had that problem before it might not be due to those components. Try out your RAM as well.
As for the drive being at fault here - yes, if it has issues it should be replaced by the vendor you got it from or by us. You contact our customer support from here and ask about RMA: WD SUPPORT PORTAL.

edit: If you have CRC errors, you might try the chkdsk command:
Open CMD as administrator and type in chkdsk X: /r /f and press "enter" (where X is the letter of the drive you wish to check so don't forget to change it). Wait for the process to finish and see if that fixed things up.

I'll make sure to check your post tomorrow. Please keep me updated.

 

[sancho_mic]

hi, for me such freeze moments were a sign that hdd was having problems, e.g. bad sector or one that would soon become bad.

So first, do backup as suggested by boogieman...

S.M.A.R.T. monitoring is enabled? does it report anything?

Indeed if hdd is bombarded by i/o operations, then OS will stutter. Try also uninstalling some of the applications, disable indexing. But in normal situations, just by playing games or downloading, such issues should not occur.

Maybe a virus, that you are caring with you from one system to another?
Also, do you have anything on the USB that is slow? Try taking all usb devices out. Even changing the keyboard, mouse, if you can...

Ultimately, try different hdd and see if issue persists.

I also doubt this issue is caused by RAM.
(sorry, not able to see the screenshots due to some gateway issue with imgur domain)

 

[dudeman509]

Keep utorrent closed for a bit and see if you still run into issues. It can be a massive disk hog.

 

[merlinside]

The extended test was "PASS". Now im trying to disable utorrent it takes some time to test.

sancho_mic, Where to enable this SMART monitoring? Virus is off the table, since I deleted the whole partition of ssd and hdd at the last time (2-3 weeks ago).

Sadly I don't have the opportunity to use another hdd, but the freezes are exsisting when I play games from the SSD.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Do you have a different computer with which to try the just the drive, to see if the same thing happens.
Other than that if your RAM is on 2 separate modules I'd suggest that you try hearthstone with each one separately, to see if anything changes. I know the game (I really love playing it actually) and I know it shouldn't be too demanding when it comes to RAM. Just run it on low specs, to see if the freezes continue.

If your system still hangs when you play from your SSD, you might also want to check out the GPU's driver and try a newer (or older version) to see if that changes anything.

Also, try out the chkdsk option and let me know how it goes.

 

[sancho_mic]

SMART is enabled from BIOS and is a method to indicate various statistics of the drive, including temperature, bad sector count and other stuff.
It will record events even if your drive appears to work normal, so if receiving specific smart failure, it's a sign that you need to do backup and you might have to consider for drive replacement.

The mobo should not cause such issue like you have and that hdd is very good (i personally have 2 blue). I can only imagine that there is an imminent drive failure/bad sector causing delays in the writing/reading. OR so many writes/reads that cause the OS to stutter.

Since you didn't mention about removing the usb devices, I assume it's not the case...
Viruses can carry forward via your apps that you installed in both the systems.

-s

 

[dudeman509]

Do you have a different computer with which to try the just the drive, to see if the same thing happens.
Other than that if your RAM is on 2 separate modules I'd suggest that you try hearthstone with each one separately, to see if anything changes. I know the game (I really love playing it actually) and I know it shouldn't be too demanding when it comes to RAM. Just run it on low specs, to see if the freezes continue.

If your system still hangs when you play from your SSD, you might also want to check out the GPU's driver and try a newer (or older version) to see if that changes anything.

Also, try out the chkdsk option and let me know how it goes.

Different computer won't work with that Windows installation.

Personally, if it is not a program causing high disk activity, I would blame a driver (are current mobo drivers installed?) or disk controller (mobo or disk itself).

 

[merlinside]

Do you have a different computer with which to try the just the drive, to see if the same thing happens.
Other than that if your RAM is on 2 separate modules I'd suggest that you try hearthstone with each one separately, to see if anything changes. I know the game (I really love playing it actually) and I know it shouldn't be too demanding when it comes to RAM. Just run it on low specs, to see if the freezes continue.

If your system still hangs when you play from your SSD, you might also want to check out the GPU's driver and try a newer (or older version) to see if that changes anything.

Also, try out the chkdsk option and let me know how it goes.

All GPU and other drivers are up to date. I looked into this check disk thing, and I see it takes a quite time 2,5 hours, so I will be back with the result in 12 hours. Also i have decided to reinstall windows, clean all the programs but i highely doubt that something will change. However these freezes happening since at least 6 months, do the older-newer driver should have been changed during this time.

 

[merlinside]

SMART is enabled from BIOS and is a method to indicate various statistics of the drive, including temperature, bad sector count and other stuff.
It will record events even if your drive appears to work normal, so if receiving specific smart failure, it's a sign that you need to do backup and you might have to consider for drive replacement.

The mobo should not cause such issue like you have and that hdd is very good (i personally have 2 blue). I can only imagine that there is an imminent drive failure/bad sector causing delays in the writing/reading. OR so many writes/reads that cause the OS to stutter.

Since you didn't mention about removing the usb devices, I assume it's not the case...
Viruses can carry forward via your apps that you installed in both the systems.

-s

I have looked into this smart function but I couldn't find it anywhere in the BIOS, I have asus uefi bios, if you tell me where it is it would be good, also it is may enabled by default so if you could tell me the location of the "log" file or something?

 

[SkyNetRising]

You can see SMART parameters in hdtune health section - that means SMART is turned on. Don't worry about that.

Just stop your torrenting while gaming or make sure torrent downloads are on separate disk (I mean separate physical disk) - not on system disk and not on games disk .

BTW - intensive long term torrenting tends to kill your download disk. Have lost 2 disks to torrents already.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hi @dudeman509.

I'm well aware of that, mate. I was referring to just trying the drive with a different computer as a secondary HDD and run a game off of it or a video, not to boot from it or anything like that.

@merlinside, hey again. I'm not really sure that reinstalling your OS will fix things up, but if you are up for it, you can try it out. As for the drivers, sometimes the newest version of a driver might be buggy and you might find an older version, which works better with your configuration and OS. @skynet's suggestion about torrenting while gaming is a viable one, but I'm not sure this would have anything to do with this case as you seem to have the same issues when you run games from your SSD as well, unless it's a RAM problem.

If reinstalling everything from scratch doesn't help, perhaps it would be best if you could take your computer to a computer service shop and let the guys there run full diagnostics to find out if there's an issue with any of the components.