Windows 8.1 100% disk usage

[Zachary Roberts]

I've noticed my PC running at 100% disk usage on more than one occasion. AVG seems to always be at the top of the list of disk reads/writes. So maybe this is the culprit?

I'm pretty sure nothing is physically wrong with my computer as I had issues like this before on Windows 8 (on a laptop) and those issues weren't reproduced when I ran Windows 7 on that laptop.

It can't be a driver issue as the latest drivers (Windows 8 compatible) are all installed and operational. Today my disk ran to 100% shortly after startup and it was so busy doing "stuff" that my PC froze for a few seconds (not even the mouse could move) then it unfroze itself a few seconds later. Like I said, I've had these issues before on Windows 8. I've also googled around and found this is a common problem.

Does anyone know if there is a solution to this? When my PC isn't running at 100% disk usage it performs well.

 

[Rock__]

Dear Hariom,
I have been struggling with this problem for the last 3 months. I upgraded Windows 8.1 to 10, Uninstalled antivirus, disabled BITS to no avail. Guess what, your solution of changing the virtual memory solved my laptop's problem and restored my piece of mind. Thanks.

-Ajay

I have been using Windows 8 since its launch and I also came across the same issue.
Point is how did I resolved the issue ?

Windows8 automatically manages virtual memory and paging file size by default.
It doesn't sets virtual memory as per the internal recommendation. The virtual memory set by default is approximately 70% of the recommendation. E.g. For my laptop, it recommends 2003MB of virtual memory wherein each drive size is of 100GB & RAM is 3GB. By default it got set to 1403MB when Windows8 was installed.

You need to increase this virtual memory. Make it equivalent to your RAM size for the initial size and twice of the initial size in maximum size and make sure you have the same amount of free space in your hard drive in each drive.

To do this, follow the following steps:
1. Go to Control Panel> All control panel items > System
2. Click on Advanced system settings
3. Under performance, click on settings
4. Go to Advanced tab
5. Under Virtual memory, click on Change
6. UN-check "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives" check box
7. Select your windows drive (where OS is installed)
8. Click on Custom size radio button
9. Set Initial size equivalent to your RAM size in MB
10. Set Maximum size to twice of your RAM size in MB
11. Click on Set
12. Click on OK thrice
13. Restart your system

This should resolve this issue,

Regards,
Hariom Ahlawat

 

[Reis314]

As a lot of people here, I've tried almost everything written in this thread. Unfortunately I had no success. But today I solved my problem. Looking at my system config I found out that my PC was running with just 4 GB of RAM memory (it has 8 GB). That is why I was facing hard disk usage issues. Actually my PC was running just one RAM memory card. Somehow the other stopped working. So I opened my PC, cleaned my RAM memories cards and it fixed everything.

Hope it helps others.

 

[JOutterbridge]

Set virtual memory to custom size, equal to 1.5 times your actual memory. For example, 4 GB of actual ram, set virtual memory paging file to 6 GB minimum, and 6 GB maximum.

In my case, I tried every other solution described, but nothing else worked. ASUS laptop with 4 GB of RAM showed 100% disk use ALL the time, with about 50% of that by System. Interestingly, nothing else added up to nearly 100%. Nothing was being used, except idle processes, and the MB transfer rate was not even that high, yet HDD showed 100% regardless, never going below that. The automatic system-selected paging file was about 980 MB. The laptop was so ridiculously slow, it was completely unusable. I thought it might be hardware failure, such as the HDD itself.

The moment (after agonizing clicks and 5 min waits just to be able to get to virtual memory preferences) I changed virtual memory size as described above and restarted, the laptop is back to normal operation, and the disk usage no longer shows 100%, but hovers near 0% except when applications cause a momentary spike.

How do i access the virtual memory. I need to increase mine asap

 

[swagers2331]

I had searched a couple different solutions after many different things this is what I did and it finally worked.

1. Disabled the windows search and super-fetch.....NOTHING CHANGED
2. Go to Settings...System...Apps/Notifications and turned off show me updates about windows, and since I didn't look at them the app notifications.....Slight Change

FINALLY: Ran trouble shoot on System Maintenance and it found that my troubleshoot history was taking up disk space and fixed it. This is when I saw the immediate change to 1 and 2%
To do this: Control Panel>System and Security>Find and Fix Problems>System and Security>System Maintenance....tada

Hopefully this helps!!! GOod luck!

 

[swagers2331]

I had searched a couple different solutions after many different things this is what I did and it finally worked.

1. Disabled the windows search and super-fetch.....NOTHING CHANGED
2. Go to Settings...System...Apps/Notifications and turned off show me updates about windows, and since I didn't look at them the app notifications.....Slight Change

FINALLY: Ran trouble shoot on System Maintenance and it found that my troubleshoot history was taking up disk space and fixed it. This is when I saw the immediate change to 1 and 2%
To do this: Control Panel>System and Security>Find and Fix Problems>System and Security>System Maintenance....tada

Hopefully this helps!!! GOod luck!

 

[robrodp]

My PC was so slow that I couldn't do anything. Not even open a browser. I tried everything The culprit turned out to be a program I had recently installed, A pdf reader. Uninstalled it and all went back to normal, After a few hours of trial and error

 

[DVDplayerz]

Go to: Control Panel/Troubleshooting/System and Security
Run troubleshooters to resolve problems with: Windows Update, Search and Indexing, and System Maintenance.
Reboot - et voilà.

Please make sure to restore wrongly stopped services such as:
BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service)
Superfetch
Windows Search

I have no idea why and how... but troubleshooting windows update did it.. it didn't update or anything, stopped some services and then restarted others (BITS, Superfetch, Windows Search, and maybe others) and the disk usage instantly dropped to 0%. I have no clue... after 8+ hours trying to fix my pc. Mind=Blown

Thank you NorJP

 

[oftheunusual]

I have looked at several different system that had disk usage near 100% Problem is that each one ended up having a different cause so it is hard to say what the fix would be. But I can give you some ideas to help isolate the cause down.
...
sorry if this is not so helpful, it is hard to figure out some problems when you can not actually get your hands on the system.

I know this is an older thread and post, but I wanted to commend your explanation process. I benefit from answers like yours because then I understand WHY issues could be occurring rather than, "here's what you do, and you're done".

 

[Sirky]

I have looked at several different system that had disk usage near 100% Problem is that each one ended up having a different cause so it is hard to say what the fix would be. But I can give you some ideas to help isolate the cause down.


You start task manager, select the performance tab, open resource monitor, select disk tab

then open a cmd.exe as a admin (windows key+x+a)
now you stop various suspected services and watch how the system responds in resouce monitor.
for example:
net.exe stop superfetch (hit enter and see if your disk usage goes down after a min or two)
net.exe stop "Windows search"

I mention these two because I have seen disk corruptions that made these two services go nuts and take 100% disk bandwidth

I have also seen tasks in the task scheduler that did the same thing until you killed the task.

in all the cases you had to find out the cause of the problem and fix it and the service then worked as expected.

for example, one case had a filesystem corruption that made a loop in the directory structure such that when windows or any program scanning the files would never end and just continue scanning the same set of files forever. In one case it was building a search index and the database just kept growing and growing in size until all of the hard drive was used.

in most cases all you need to do is run cmd.exe as a admin then
chkdsk.exe /f /r on your drives and the condition that causes the problem gets fixed

there are also conditions where windows 8.1 will really use your disk while it is attempting to relocate data off of bad spots on your disk drives.
older versions of windows did not do this. windows 8 will attempt to read data from your disk drive even if you have not requested it. It is looking for errors during the read process so it can locate bad sectors before your data is lost. It will read, if it gets a read error, it will read the spot over and over and try to get a clean copy of the data, it will then move the data to a new good spot on the drive and mark the old spot as bad.

This process can take days on some drives and your system will seem to be at 100% disk used for no apparent reason. It will take much longer on a laptop it the laptop is allowed to sleep. This process is needed because a lot of OEMs do not format and install the os, they just plop a entire OS image on a drive with the assumption that all sectors of the drive are ok.

(I guess that is another point, turn your system to high performance and let it run at idle overnight and see if the disk is at 100% usage in the morning)

- there are also software bugs that will peg your disk access at 100 % but these almost always end up being bugs in 3rd party drivers. It is not because microsoft makes great drivers, it is because microsoft has windows update and when a microsoft driver breaks they get 100,000 automatic bug reports and then they put a fix in the windows update and you download the update and don't ever hit the problem. When the bug is in a 3rd party driver microsoft still gets the 100,000 bug reports but they tell the vendor of the driver, that vendor makes a fix and puts it on their website. Now you have to hit the bug, figure out the problem is caused by the vendor, look at the vendors website and hope they put the fix there. Not a fun process. After years of this problems and updates I find that about 95% of the problems are in 3rd party drivers, and you just have to figure out which one.

sorry if this is not so helpful, it is hard to figure out some problems when you can not actually get your hands on the system.

Can you please just say what I have to do I really can't make anything out of what you said but you are the best solution so....?

 

[johnbl]

this thread is 2 and a half years old, you should start a new one with a description of your problem and machine.
otherwise you can try one of the automated fixes that has been developed.

start control panel, select find and fix problems under the system and security section
see if "run maintenance tasks" helps fix your problem.

otherwise, update your bios and motherboard drivers from your motherboard vendors website if you have not already done so.

I have looked at several different system that had disk usage near 100% Problem is that each one ended up having a different cause so it is hard to say what the fix would be. But I can give you some ideas to help isolate the cause down.


You start task manager, select the performance tab, open resource monitor, select disk tab

then open a cmd.exe as a admin (windows key+x+a)
now you stop various suspected services and watch how the system responds in resouce monitor.
for example:
net.exe stop superfetch (hit enter and see if your disk usage goes down after a min or two)
net.exe stop "Windows search"

I mention these two because I have seen disk corruptions that made these two services go nuts and take 100% disk bandwidth

I have also seen tasks in the task scheduler that did the same thing until you killed the task.

in all the cases you had to find out the cause of the problem and fix it and the service then worked as expected.

for example, one case had a filesystem corruption that made a loop in the directory structure such that when windows or any program scanning the files would never end and just continue scanning the same set of files forever. In one case it was building a search index and the database just kept growing and growing in size until all of the hard drive was used.

in most cases all you need to do is run cmd.exe as a admin then
chkdsk.exe /f /r on your drives and the condition that causes the problem gets fixed

there are also conditions where windows 8.1 will really use your disk while it is attempting to relocate data off of bad spots on your disk drives.
older versions of windows did not do this. windows 8 will attempt to read data from your disk drive even if you have not requested it. It is looking for errors during the read process so it can locate bad sectors before your data is lost. It will read, if it gets a read error, it will read the spot over and over and try to get a clean copy of the data, it will then move the data to a new good spot on the drive and mark the old spot as bad.

This process can take days on some drives and your system will seem to be at 100% disk used for no apparent reason. It will take much longer on a laptop it the laptop is allowed to sleep. This process is needed because a lot of OEMs do not format and install the os, they just plop a entire OS image on a drive with the assumption that all sectors of the drive are ok.

(I guess that is another point, turn your system to high performance and let it run at idle overnight and see if the disk is at 100% usage in the morning)

- there are also software bugs that will peg your disk access at 100 % but these almost always end up being bugs in 3rd party drivers. It is not because microsoft makes great drivers, it is because microsoft has windows update and when a microsoft driver breaks they get 100,000 automatic bug reports and then they put a fix in the windows update and you download the update and don't ever hit the problem. When the bug is in a 3rd party driver microsoft still gets the 100,000 bug reports but they tell the vendor of the driver, that vendor makes a fix and puts it on their website. Now you have to hit the bug, figure out the problem is caused by the vendor, look at the vendors website and hope they put the fix there. Not a fun process. After years of this problems and updates I find that about 95% of the problems are in 3rd party drivers, and you just have to figure out which one.

sorry if this is not so helpful, it is hard to figure out some problems when you can not actually get your hands on the system.

Can you please just say what I have to do I really can't make anything out of what you said but you are the best solution so....?

 

[Ashade]

I have looked at several different system that had disk usage near 100% Problem is that each one ended up having a different cause so it is hard to say what the fix would be. But I can give you some ideas to help isolate the cause down.

You start task manager, select the performance tab, open resource monitor, select disk tab

then open a cmd.exe as a admin (windows key+x+a)
now you stop various suspected services and watch how the system responds in resouce monitor.
for example:
net.exe stop superfetch (hit enter and see if your disk usage goes down after a min or two)
net.exe stop "Windows search"

I mention these two because I have seen disk corruptions that made these two services go nuts and take 100% disk bandwidth

I have also seen tasks in the task scheduler that did the same thing until you killed the task.

in all the cases you had to find out the cause of the problem and fix it and the service then worked as expected.

for example, one case had a filesystem corruption that made a loop in the directory structure such that when windows or any program scanning the files would never end and just continue scanning the same set of files forever. In one case it was building a search index and the database just kept growing and growing in size until all of the hard drive was used.

in most cases all you need to do is run cmd.exe as a admin then
chkdsk.exe /f /r on your drives and the condition that causes the problem gets fixed

there are also conditions where windows 8.1 will really use your disk while it is attempting to relocate data off of bad spots on your disk drives.
older versions of windows did not do this. windows 8 will attempt to read data from your disk drive even if you have not requested it. It is looking for errors during the read process so it can locate bad sectors before your data is lost. It will read, if it gets a read error, it will read the spot over and over and try to get a clean copy of the data, it will then move the data to a new good spot on the drive and mark the old spot as bad.

This process can take days on some drives and your system will seem to be at 100% disk used for no apparent reason. It will take much longer on a laptop it the laptop is allowed to sleep. This process is needed because a lot of OEMs do not format and install the os, they just plop a entire OS image on a drive with the assumption that all sectors of the drive are ok.

(I guess that is another point, turn your system to high performance and let it run at idle overnight and see if the disk is at 100% usage in the morning)

- there are also software bugs that will peg your disk access at 100 % but these almost always end up being bugs in 3rd party drivers. It is not because microsoft makes great drivers, it is because microsoft has windows update and when a microsoft driver breaks they get 100,000 automatic bug reports and then they put a fix in the windows update and you download the update and don't ever hit the problem. When the bug is in a 3rd party driver microsoft still gets the 100,000 bug reports but they tell the vendor of the driver, that vendor makes a fix and puts it on their website. Now you have to hit the bug, figure out the problem is caused by the vendor, look at the vendors website and hope they put the fix there. Not a fun process. After years of this problems and updates I find that about 95% of the problems are in 3rd party drivers, and you just have to figure out which one.

sorry if this is not so helpful, it is hard to figure out some problems when you can not actually get your hands on the system.

 

[Ashade]

I have looked at several different system that had disk usage near 100% Problem is that each one ended up having a different cause so it is hard to say what the fix would be. But I can give you some ideas to help isolate the cause down.

You start task manager, select the performance tab, open resource monitor, select disk tab

then open a cmd.exe as a admin (windows key+x+a)
now you stop various suspected services and watch how the system responds in resouce monitor.
for example:
net.exe stop superfetch (hit enter and see if your disk usage goes down after a min or two)
net.exe stop "Windows search"

I mention these two because I have seen disk corruptions that made these two services go nuts and take 100% disk bandwidth

I have also seen tasks in the task scheduler that did the same thing until you killed the task.

in all the cases you had to find out the cause of the problem and fix it and the service then worked as expected.

for example, one case had a filesystem corruption that made a loop in the directory structure such that when windows or any program scanning the files would never end and just continue scanning the same set of files forever. In one case it was building a search index and the database just kept growing and growing in size until all of the hard drive was used.

in most cases all you need to do is run cmd.exe as a admin then
chkdsk.exe /f /r on your drives and the condition that causes the problem gets fixed

there are also conditions where windows 8.1 will really use your disk while it is attempting to relocate data off of bad spots on your disk drives.
older versions of windows did not do this. windows 8 will attempt to read data from your disk drive even if you have not requested it. It is looking for errors during the read process so it can locate bad sectors before your data is lost. It will read, if it gets a read error, it will read the spot over and over and try to get a clean copy of the data, it will then move the data to a new good spot on the drive and mark the old spot as bad.

This process can take days on some drives and your system will seem to be at 100% disk used for no apparent reason. It will take much longer on a laptop it the laptop is allowed to sleep. This process is needed because a lot of OEMs do not format and install the os, they just plop a entire OS image on a drive with the assumption that all sectors of the drive are ok.

(I guess that is another point, turn your system to high performance and let it run at idle overnight and see if the disk is at 100% usage in the morning)

- there are also software bugs that will peg your disk access at 100 % but these almost always end up being bugs in 3rd party drivers. It is not because microsoft makes great drivers, it is because microsoft has windows update and when a microsoft driver breaks they get 100,000 automatic bug reports and then they put a fix in the windows update and you download the update and don't ever hit the problem. When the bug is in a 3rd party driver microsoft still gets the 100,000 bug reports but they tell the vendor of the driver, that vendor makes a fix and puts it on their website. Now you have to hit the bug, figure out the problem is caused by the vendor, look at the vendors website and hope they put the fix there. Not a fun process. After years of this problems and updates I find that about 95% of the problems are in 3rd party drivers, and you just have to figure out which one.

sorry if this is not so helpful, it is hard to figure out some problems when you can not actually get your hands on the system.

so I tried this and disabling BITS and windows crashed so I was forced to do a hard shutdown. now when I try to start my computer it just sits on the Samsung screen with its spinning circle of dots and nothing else.

update: it finally started up after around an hour and disk is once again at 100%

update2: so I opened admin command prompt again and the following is what occurred: C:\WINDOWS\system32>net.exe stop "windows search"
The following services are dependant on the Windows Search service.
Stopping the Windows Search service will also stop these services.

Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service

Do you want to continue this operation? <y/n> [n]: y
The service is not responding to the control function.

More help is available by typing NET HELPMSG 2186.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>NET HELPMSG 2186

The service is not responding the control function.

any advice would be appreciated

update:
the problem has gotten worse. now I am unable to do anything with the machine except turn it on and off for whenever I try to do anything else windows itself stops responding.
im thinking I should just buy a new hdd (or if I can find one for this pc a ssd) and install windows 10 or windows 7 (if I can find it). only problem with that is the disc drive on this Samsung machine has been replaced something like 4 times and each time it worked for a little while then just died. so id have to find a way to install windows WITHOUT a working disc drive.

 

[foxhoundSPG]

My laptop was doing this. I am running windows 8. I had to turn off all windows defender applications and processes and it went down instantly. Turn off real time protection and end the processes in the task manager.

 

[DanRogers]

Searched for weeks trying to solve this. Would run a few seconds to a few minutes then disk usage would go to 100% and freeze up. None of the above solutions worked for me.
What ended up working for my Win10 was:
In Device Manager – Expand IDE ATA/ATAPI controller and change/update the driver from what it was to “Standard SATA AHCI Controller”. Then reboot and verify it changed.
No problem s since.