[SOLVED] SSD constantly running at 100% and system keeps hanging frequently

[Genralkidd]

I upgraded my laptop from an HDD to an SSD awhile ago but every now any then (more recently lately) the SSD just suddenly spikes to 100% usage and every application I'm on including the OS itself just seems to hang or freeze for a minute. The CPU isn't even being maxed out during these freezes either. Is something wrong with my system or is the SSD just bad?

Specs:
Laptop - Dell Inspiron 5559
CPU - Core i5 6200U
RAM - 16 GB DDR3
SSD - 1 TB Teamgroup GX2 T253X2001T

If this is just simply a case of the SSD naturally having poor performance, what's a decent but cheaper 1 TB or even 2 TB SATA SSD?

 

[Colif]

try downloading the ssd smart tool from here and test drive - https://www.teamgroupinc.com/en/support/download.php

 

[Co BIY]

I have seen similar behavior in an HDD when the Windows index search software gets corrupted. Easy to spot in the task manager, the index search was using 100% of the drive's capability.

Unfortunately, I don't know a good fix. The solution for my office IT was to replace the entire computer.

 

[Genralkidd]

I have seen similar behavior in an HDD when the Windows index search software gets corrupted. Easy to spot in the task manager, the index search was using 100% of the drive's capability.

Unfortunately, I don't know a good fix. The solution for my office IT was to replace the entire computer.

Well according to Task Manager it seems the task that's using the most of my SSD when it freezes the system is just "System" but "Windows Modules Installer" is up there too. I did have this issue on my laptop's original HDD and I just assumed it was a combination of Windows 10 running poorly on hard drives and the hard drive itself being extremely slow. The experience was unbearable so I got that cheap SSD, cloned the hard drive to it and for awhile everything was fine but recently the freezes have happened more frequently again.

 

[Genralkidd]

try downloading the ssd smart tool from here and test drive - https://www.teamgroupinc.com/en/support/download.php

Tried it and everything seems to check out, shows about 99% health remaining. CrystalDiskInfo confirms as well.

 

[Co BIY]

... I did have this issue on my laptop's original HDD and I just assumed it was a combination of Windows 10 running poorly on hard drives and the hard drive itself being extremely slow. The experience was unbearable so I got that cheap SSD, cloned the hard drive to it and for awhile everything was fine but recently the freezes have happened more frequently again.

I doubt the SSD is the problem if it happened prior to the SSD being installed.

Clean Windows install would be my next step. On the theory that Windows problems are more common than hardware issues.

 

[Genralkidd]

I doubt the SSD is the problem if it happened prior to the SSD being installed.

Clean Windows install would be my next step. On the theory that Windows problems are more common than hardware issues.

So I haven't quite narrowed down the exact cause of the issue yet, but I found that closing out most of the programs I have running (MS Edge, explorer windows, etc) seems to fix the issue and performance goes back to normal. In the past, I'd usually leave all these programs running, sometimes with a lot of tabs open in Edge, and just leave it like that between sleep mode cycles. And rebooting would fix the issue too but this time I tried just closing everything and waiting a bit to see what happens and so far performance is fine again. So it's possible one of the programs I use has a memory leak or some other performance degradation issue.