Hey all,
Been having this issue for the last 7-8 months, where almost any time I download anything off steam, my disk usage will immediately hit 100% and sit there for the entire download. While this is happening, my game download itself starts going in bursts (downloading in tiny chunks) - this ends up leading me to having to verify the game files after every install, to reinstall missing files that were lost during the download. Also, while this is happening, my PC will have quick lock-ups that only seem to last a few seconds, but lock-ups none-the-less. I should add that this issue seemed to come out of nowhere, some time around the creators update (I believe that was the big update that happened around the same time as these issues starting to pop up). Before that I could download whatever, with zero issues. Large or small games, didn't matter, zero issues. Now, I'm lucky if any games will download smoothly.
I've been searching for solutions to this since it began, nearly every google link is now purple whenever I try to switch up my search criteria, so I'm totally lost...thus now I'm making my own thread in hopes of solving this issue, and hopefully helping anyone else who has been stuck with this issue (I've found countless threads on steam with the exact same issues, but unfortunately all of them have no responses, or solutions).
I've tried everything I can seem to find - Swapping SATA cables/ports, Checking SSD health (both show zero problems upon testing), changing power options, disabling fast boot, checking the AHCI driver, updating all drivers for the mobo along with making sure the BIOS is up-to-date, etc... I even upgraded my old setup (i5 4690k/ASUS Z97-a) to my current build, thinking I potentially had a MOBO on it's way out...which doesn't seem to be the issue, but at least I've moved my build on to more current hardware, so I guess that's a bit of silver lining to my issue. I've also done about 5 or 6 fresh windows installs within the last 2 months while trying to solve this.
PC specs:
Win10 Home 64bit
Mobo - MSI z270 SLI
CPU - i7 7700k
GPU - EVGA 1070 FTW
RAM - Hyperx 16gb (single stick)
Samsung 860 evo SSD (500gb) - C drive
Samsung 850 evo SSD (500gb) - D drive
A couple observations I've made while trying to solve this:
-Seems to be only steam causing the issue, downloads using other clients are fine (origin/uplay/oculus). Can't confirm it's 100% a steam issue, which is what I'm hoping we may be able to uncover.
-When downloading, and the disk usage spikes to 100%, the network monitor in the task manager shows network usage as "spikes" (picture below)
-Disk transfer rate is also in "spikes" during this as well (not sure if this is totally normal, or abnormal behavior for both disk and network showing as spikes)
-As the spikes are happening, both network and disk will drop to zero kbps/mbs respectively and then jump back up, then back to zero. Again, not sure if this is normal behavior, or an issue (pictured below).
My network speeds are fine - 300/down 30/up, and I've disabled AV, added permissions, etc. with no luck.
In the task manager during the 100% usage spikes, Steam and "system" are at the top - usually steam is using the most resources, however it's only using 15-40 MB/s, and sometimes dropping to less than 1 MB/s. I feel like this is way far off from being too much for these SSD's to handle...maybe I'm wrong though?
Ultimately, I'm left banging my head against the wall at this point trying to find the culprit of this 100% disk usage issue. Is it hardware? Is my MOBO faulty? (Bought/installed MOBO about 3-4 months ago). Are both of my SSD's actually faulty? Is there an issue with steam?
Apologies for the lengthy post, after reading so many threads of potential fixes, I've tried to include as much info as I can remember to add in to help anyone with potential answers have a better understanding of my issue and system. Thank you to anyone who attempts to help me solve this conundrum, I appreciate it!
I should also note, both of these screenshots were taken while trying to install a game on steam earlier today.
Been having this issue for the last 7-8 months, where almost any time I download anything off steam, my disk usage will immediately hit 100% and sit there for the entire download. While this is happening, my game download itself starts going in bursts (downloading in tiny chunks) - this ends up leading me to having to verify the game files after every install, to reinstall missing files that were lost during the download. Also, while this is happening, my PC will have quick lock-ups that only seem to last a few seconds, but lock-ups none-the-less. I should add that this issue seemed to come out of nowhere, some time around the creators update (I believe that was the big update that happened around the same time as these issues starting to pop up). Before that I could download whatever, with zero issues. Large or small games, didn't matter, zero issues. Now, I'm lucky if any games will download smoothly.
I've been searching for solutions to this since it began, nearly every google link is now purple whenever I try to switch up my search criteria, so I'm totally lost...thus now I'm making my own thread in hopes of solving this issue, and hopefully helping anyone else who has been stuck with this issue (I've found countless threads on steam with the exact same issues, but unfortunately all of them have no responses, or solutions).
I've tried everything I can seem to find - Swapping SATA cables/ports, Checking SSD health (both show zero problems upon testing), changing power options, disabling fast boot, checking the AHCI driver, updating all drivers for the mobo along with making sure the BIOS is up-to-date, etc... I even upgraded my old setup (i5 4690k/ASUS Z97-a) to my current build, thinking I potentially had a MOBO on it's way out...which doesn't seem to be the issue, but at least I've moved my build on to more current hardware, so I guess that's a bit of silver lining to my issue. I've also done about 5 or 6 fresh windows installs within the last 2 months while trying to solve this.
PC specs:
Win10 Home 64bit
Mobo - MSI z270 SLI
CPU - i7 7700k
GPU - EVGA 1070 FTW
RAM - Hyperx 16gb (single stick)
Samsung 860 evo SSD (500gb) - C drive
Samsung 850 evo SSD (500gb) - D drive
A couple observations I've made while trying to solve this:
-Seems to be only steam causing the issue, downloads using other clients are fine (origin/uplay/oculus). Can't confirm it's 100% a steam issue, which is what I'm hoping we may be able to uncover.
-When downloading, and the disk usage spikes to 100%, the network monitor in the task manager shows network usage as "spikes" (picture below)
-Disk transfer rate is also in "spikes" during this as well (not sure if this is totally normal, or abnormal behavior for both disk and network showing as spikes)
-As the spikes are happening, both network and disk will drop to zero kbps/mbs respectively and then jump back up, then back to zero. Again, not sure if this is normal behavior, or an issue (pictured below).
My network speeds are fine - 300/down 30/up, and I've disabled AV, added permissions, etc. with no luck.
In the task manager during the 100% usage spikes, Steam and "system" are at the top - usually steam is using the most resources, however it's only using 15-40 MB/s, and sometimes dropping to less than 1 MB/s. I feel like this is way far off from being too much for these SSD's to handle...maybe I'm wrong though?
Ultimately, I'm left banging my head against the wall at this point trying to find the culprit of this 100% disk usage issue. Is it hardware? Is my MOBO faulty? (Bought/installed MOBO about 3-4 months ago). Are both of my SSD's actually faulty? Is there an issue with steam?
Apologies for the lengthy post, after reading so many threads of potential fixes, I've tried to include as much info as I can remember to add in to help anyone with potential answers have a better understanding of my issue and system. Thank you to anyone who attempts to help me solve this conundrum, I appreciate it!
I should also note, both of these screenshots were taken while trying to install a game on steam earlier today.
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