[SOLVED] HDD spikes to 100% and CPU usage decreases for a second while gaming

[Streamer123]

Hello everyone.

I just bought a new laptop (Acer Nitro 7; i5-9300h, 8GB RAM, GTX 1650, 256 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD), and it runs fine except for one thing: my games occasionally freeze for about a second. It doesn't matter which game - this happened while playing more demanding titles like Monster Hunter World to less demanding titles such as Terraria or Team Fortress 2. These games are all installed on my HDD, while Windows is installed on my SSD.

So, I went on Task Manager and continued playing, and noticed that my HDD spiked to 100% for that split second when the game froze. Here's an image of that (the post didn't allow me to add an image directly, sorry):

https://imgur.com/a/9t285v1

View: https://imgur.com/a/9t285v1


At that same time when the HDD spiked to 100%, I think that my CPU usage went down a lot... at least that's what the screenshot suggests.

Is this possible because of undervolting? I'm using a ThrottleStop preset for an i5-8300h from here: https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/577183/throttlestop-undervolt-profiles-pre-made/p1?new=1

I ran CrystalDisk and it told me that both my HDD (32 degrees celsius) and my SSD (38 degrees celsius) have a health status of 'Good'.

Is there anything I can do? I don't really want to return this laptop as everything else works fine... the game freezes and continues immediately, and with the whole COVID situation, it would be a pain to get a replacement.

Any help is appreciated, thank you

EDIT: Sorry, I forgot to mention that I ran Terraria without ThrottleStop active (because it's not demanding), and this issue still arose - doesn't seem like undervolting has anything to do with this.

 

[boju]

Hmm

Try disable any overlays ie Steam
Try disable fullscreen optimisation in the game's exe/app compatibility tab
And see if disabling User Account Control (UAC) does anything to help. https://articulate.com/support/article/how-to-turn-user-account-control-on-or-off-in-windows-10

 

[Streamer123]

Still happening. Is there some sort of more detailed disk report that I can send over to show you what goes on while its playing? And do you think its worth reformatting the drive?

@boju

 

[Streamer123]

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/100-hdd-usage-spikes-for-no-apparent-reason.2575980/

This guy has the same issue it seems like but he couldn't solve it either?

 

[Streamer123]

I got this issue just by simply right clicking files within the HDD, so it isn't an issue with the games but Windows 10 or my HDD itself.

 

[boju]

See if changing 'turn off hard disk' to 0 in Windows power plan helps

Control Panel\System and Security\Power Options\Edit Plan Settings > Hardisk

 

[Streamer123]

Just did that, and I thought it was working but it still happens occasionally:

https://imgur.com/a/ZlORYa4

View: https://imgur.com/a/ZlORYa4


Still the CPU dipping and HDD spiking... Is there any way to make a HDD report while I'm playing?

 

[TerryLaze]

Get process explorer or process hacker and add I/O total rate and/or disk read/disk write columns,then order the lists by usage of these while playing a game so you can see what's spiking your disk usage.
https://documentation.help/Process-Explorer/Columns_and_Column_Sets.htm

You could also try running DPC latency monitor this tool will try and see if there is any driver issue.

 

[Streamer123]

Okay, will do. I reset Windows and it still happens, so clearly it must be a drive issue?

 

[Streamer123]

@TerryLaze @boju

Some of them are less accurate than the others as I couldn't alt-tab and windows+prtsc quick enough, but hopefully this should tell you guys something, right? This is with Terraria.

https://imgur.com/a/353uWvW

View: https://imgur.com/a/353uWvW

 

[Streamer123]

@TerryLaze @boju

For Team Fortress 2:

https://imgur.com/a/yftPj3R

View: https://imgur.com/a/yftPj3R

 

[boju]

Looked at the screenshots. Nothing really pops out at me with the graphs and processes besides maybe pagefile.sys.

Maybe you do need more ram.

You could muck around with the pagefile and see what happens. Maybe try increase size.

Control Panel\System and Security\System > Advanced system settings > Advanced tab. Click settings under Performance then advanced again.

Virtual Memory

Uncheck Automatically manage to customize your own amount.

Initial size (Minimum amount), put 1024
Maximum, try something big like 20480. Next time try smaller, 1.5x ram amount, maybe even less. System might be unstable if go too low but wont harm the system and can always undo changes by checking Automatically manage box.

It'll ask to restart the system after change.

 

[FoxVoxDK]

@Streamer123 If you remove that HDD, physically, install a game on any other HDD/SSD, are you still getting the hangs?

 

[Streamer123]

@FoxVoxDK Unfortunately, I don't have another SSD nor an HDD.

@boju I set the pagefile max limit to just 12288 MB (google says that's what I should ideally set it to if I have 8 GB of RAM) and so far, I haven't had any issues. It's been 10 minutes though, so I'll keep you updated after I find the time to play for a solid hour or two.

Thanks!

 

[FoxVoxDK]

Fingers crossed that fixed it!

 

[boju]

Hmm. It's possible the way Win10 constantly changes pagefile size is affecting performance. Might not notice it as much with more ram. Anyway good luck, hopefully it helps having pagefile a fixed size.

 

[Streamer123]

@boju @FoxVoxDK I played TF2 for over an hour, and it happened 4 times. It didn't happen at all while I played Monster Hunter World for an hour.

I think I'll just deal with it for TF2. It's an old game and it happens rarely anyway, and this didn't happen in newer games. Oh well. At least it's pretty much non-existent now though.

Thanks for the support guys

 

[boju]

No problem, all the best. Put some more ram in it when you get a chance. Some games may not seem like using much but Windows can already tax 3GB for itself leaving it to manage pagefile. Entirety of ram doesn't need to be used before this happen. More ram allows more game data flowing in ram.

 

[Streamer123]

@boju @FoxVoxDK @TerryLaze

Well, it hasn't really been fixed. I ran an ETW and have this data on the Windows Performance Analyzer... I'm not really able to understand this information and figure out what's the root of this issue, but I'm hoping any of you guys could?

The freezes happen towards the end of the time the ETW was ran for.

Sorry for the request but I don't know what else to do:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jb2vuadlD50mqnWPva-Rh6YL2GKJbXBI/view?usp=sharing

Thanks again everyone.

 

[boju]

We've pretty much exhausted software, think it's time to look at the hardware aspects. More ram first and then look at swapping the hdd out for an ssd.

 

[Streamer123]

Oh okay. Can that report not isolate the issue somehow?

 

[boju]

Tried looking at it. The loading symbol just goes round and round and says format not supported. This is on phone and PC, not sure what the go is there.

 

[Streamer123]

@boju Do you have Windows Performance Analyzer installed?

 

[Streamer123]

@boju I exported it into a different file format if it helps, but I think you'd still need Windows Performance Analyzer:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/windows-performance-analyzer/9n0w1b2bxgnz

Different file format: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Mi3Vr3SuERTtxnaEG63rNZNMLrHDyRDc/view?usp=sharing

 

[boju]

Sorry for the delay I'll check when i get a chance. Watching a movie on tv lol checking toms during ad breaks 🙂

 

[Streamer123]

Sorry for the delay I'll check when i get a chance. Watching a movie on tv lol checking toms during ad breaks 🙂

No worries! Just an update: I didn't notice the issue when playing COD: Warzone for a couple hours, so I figured that it's possibly a Steam issue. Looking it up, I saw that Steam used to have issues with it being installed on a different drive than the games way before. It's just a stretch, but I'm trying the games now that I have installed Steam itself on the HDD along with the games. Will you keep you posted