Question SSD Spiking to 100% Usage while playing games.

[xSolo]

Screen Grab of Hardware Usage

So I have been playing Escape from Tarkov recently, and have been getting a lot of 1-3 second freezes & a hand full of stutters. When I pulled up Task Manager real quick, I saw that one of my SSD's was maxing at 100% usage, leading me to believe this is causing said freezes. I changed some game settings and the problem persisted, so I did a fresh install of the game on my second SSD. First raid in and the problem happened again, so I popped open Task Manager expecting to see my second SSD maxing out, but saw instead that the same drive (Now NOT the drive the game was installed on) as before was hitting 100% usage. I have checked the integrity of the drive, and this is the only game I have ever had this issue with, and now I'm sort of at a loss of what to try from here. I have checked and made sure CPU and GPU drivers are all up to date, and have run a dism & scannow which came back with no integrity violations.

Full System Specs

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5600X
Motherboard: ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming 4S AM4 AMD X570 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard
Ram: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin SDRAM (PC4-28800) DDR4 3600 CL16
SSD/HDD: 1x Crucial P5 1TB 3D NAND NVMe (E: Drive aka Problem Drive) 1x WD_BLACK 250B SN750 NVMe SSD (Boot Drive, but also tried having the game installed on this drive) 1x SeaGate Barracuda 2TB HDD
GPU: EVGA RTX3080 FTW3 Ultra
PSU: Dark Rock Pro 850W Platinum
Chassis: Fractal Meshify C
OS: Windows 10 Version 21H2
Monitor: ASUS TUF Gaming 27" 165hz

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Might want to see if your motherboard is pending any BIOS updates. Also, when idle, what sort of drive usages do you see on your OS GUI? You might also want to use Crucial's Storage Executive app and see if the culprit drive is pending any firmware updates.

 

[xSolo]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Might want to see if your motherboard is pending any BIOS updates. Also, when idle, what sort of drive usages do you see on your OS GUI? You might also want to use Crucial's Storage Executive app and see if the culprit drive is pending any firmware updates.

BIOS was up to date, Drive did have a firmware update which did seem to fix the long freezes. There were still some small stutters and looking at Task Manager again the drive was still having spikes to 90+% usage, but they were much shorter and infrequent. I'm not sure if the small spikes are due to the game's poor optimization, or if there is still another problem with the drive itself/something else. But for the time being the long freezes seem to have stopped.

 

[Lutfij]

BIOS was up to date
BIOS version?

If the issue is memory leak, you will need to reinstall the OS.

 

[xSolo]

BIOS was up to date
BIOS version?

If the issue is memory leak, you will need to reinstall the OS.

BIOS version is 4.10, which is the latest listed on the MOBO Manu's website for that model. If that is correct though then there hasn't been a BIOS update for my model of MOBO in over a year. As far as reinstalling the OS, I have never done this before so would you happen to have a good video/resource outlining the best way to go about it? Also I appreciate the help you've given! 😊

 

[Lutfij]

^
Update AMD AM4 AGESA Combo V2 PI 1.2.0.3 Patch B
That's odd, pretty much all boards with that chipset had an A.G.E.S.A code update to 1.2.0.7

As for your OS reinstall;
https://www.techadvisor.com/article/726893/how-to-reinstall-windows-10.html

 

[xSolo]

^
Update AMD AM4 AGESA Combo V2 PI 1.2.0.3 Patch B
That's odd, pretty much all boards with that chipset had an A.G.E.S.A code update to 1.2.0.7

As for your OS reinstall;
https://www.techadvisor.com/article/726893/how-to-reinstall-windows-10.html

So at this point do you think I should just go ahead and do a reinstall of the OS? Like I said this is the only game that I've been having this problem with, but if you don't think it has anything to do with the game itself then I'll just go ahead and do the OS reinstall.

 

[Lutfij]

I tend to get to the bottom of the issue...meaning if it's not good for one game, it's not good for me. That's how I do my troubleshootings, mind you. Where did you source the installer for your OS, though?

 

[xSolo]

I tend to get to the bottom of the issue...meaning if it's not good for one game, it's not good for me. That's how I do my troubleshootings, mind you. Where did you source the installer for your OS, though?

I ripped the boot drive out of a pre-built from NZXT once I had accrued all the desired parts for my custom build, so OS was already installed by them.

 

[Lutfij]

Just the drive, not the innards like the board and such?

 

[xSolo]

Just the drive, not the innards like the board and such?

Just the drive. Pre-Built was mainly a placeholder for work/light gaming while I waited on parts for my actual build. Drive was the only thing taken out of the pre-built, and put into my current system.

 

[Lutfij]

Yeah that's where you started off with the issue...you are in dire need of reinstalling your OS, after creating your bootable USB installer using Windows Media Creation Tools.

 

[xSolo]

Yeah that's where you started off with the issue...you are in dire need of reinstalling your OS, after creating your bootable USB installer using Windows Media Creation Tools.

Will do, and will report back once I have! Thanks for all the info!

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome!

 

[xSolo]

Welcome!

Well I went to reinstall using the source you gave. However when I get to the recovery portion I am given the following: "Could not find the Recovery Environment - Insert your Windows Installation or recovery media, and restart your PC with the media" instead of being given the option between cloud/local install.

 

[Lutfij]

You didn't fabricate your bootable USB installer?