Windows 8.1 disk usage 100% Problem

[edgewood11]

I have a computer that is just built recently and it is running windows 8.1. I am having a problem with high disk usage. It often climbs to 100% under the most basic tasks (running internet explorer). When I look at task manager the task causing it is usually "system." The strangest part is system is only using 3.3 MB/s.

 

[treyb]

Wow, thank you, disabling super fetch and my win8.1 box suddenly works great and the disk usage from 100% down to normal.

press
Windows+R
Write
services.msc
Disable
1-Super fetch
2-Windows Search
And It Will Work Great

 

[ambon]

this is a skydrive issue IMO. Try to disable it at charms> settings> change PC settings> skydrive. if it didnt work out disconnect your microsoft account. thats what i've done.... hope it helps...

 

[kamakawiwo]

I have a computer that is just built recently and it is running windows 8.1. I am having a problem with high disk usage. It often climbs to 100% under the most basic tasks (running internet explorer). When I look at task manager the task causing it is usually "system." The strangest part is system is only using 3.3 MB/s.

I figured it out!!! Try this:
1. Google your computer model + drivers. Update the chipset.
2. Go to Device Manager, and under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, right click the driver under this and select the driver tab. Select Roll Back Driver. The new driver seems to have some issues with it, idk why they haven't fixed this yet, but rolling back the driver has been working fine for me.

 

[athinaok]

The problem is win 8 application Skype.

Open win 8 Skype application and wait 10 min to load. This will fix the problem.

If issue remains uninstall win 8 Skype application.

 

[Aristotel3]

press
Windows+R
Write
services.msc
Disable
1-Super fetch
2-Windows Search
3-Background Intelligent Transfer Service
And It Will Work Great

I cannot disable BITS, it is grayed out... Any ideas???

 

[harvtkent]

press
Windows+R
Write
services.msc
Disable
1-Super fetch
2-Windows Search
And It Will Work Great

 

[harvtkent]

Thank you for this worked straight away once disabled and not just stopped...thank you again...!

 

[BigMacaroni]

press
Windows+R
Write
services.msc
Disable
1-Super fetch
2-Windows Search
And It Will Work Great

Awesome! That really works

 

[john shipman]

hi I found disable windows updates and I have Lenovo computer so stopped Lenovo solutions which was checking and giving alerts and this dropped my disk usage a lot,,,,, if you do disable windows up date ,check yourself every week or two ..one other thing you can try is Go to charms bar and press search, then type view local services.
Once there, stop and disable BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service). worth a try hope it helps john

 

[Rozz McGee]

thought i'd put my 2 cents in:
i did the manual management of virtual memory thing (ignoring the recommended 'size of your ram' thing, basically just doubled the figure) and the INSTANT i pressed 'Set' the activity stopped.

what i think is happening:
It's not something to do with the page file, it's window's auto management stuffing up and constantly readjusting that file

 

[alexor]

press
Windows+R
Write
services.msc
Disable
1-Super fetch
2-Windows Search
And It Will Work Great

thank you so much man this did it

 

[Famiii]

press
Windows+R
Write
services.msc
Disable
1-Super fetch
2-Windows Search
And It Will Work Great

I did this and it worked perfectly for me. Thanks for sharing

 

[linkkira]

I disabled superfetch and it dropped right in front of my eyes and worked for a few minutes and then it shot back up.

I have tried disabling windows search and Background Intelligent Transfer Service but those didn't help.

Any suggestions? I'm desperate.

Since none of these solutions are not helping you, you might want to change the performance of your computer.

1. Go to your 'System Properties'
[Keep in mind what your Installed Memory (RAM) is]
2. On the LEFT side of your systems Properties go to 'Advance System Settings'. A small new window should pop up.
3. On the 'Advance' tab, there is an area that says 'Performance' along with two other ones, User Profiles and Startup and Recovery . CLICK on the 'Settings' button that's in Performance.
4. Again a new window will pop up. In the 'Advance' Tab where Virtual Memory is at CLICK the 'Change' button.
5. Again, a new window will pop up. UN-CHECK Automatically manage paging files size for all drives
6. In that same window, click 'Custom size'
7. Remember when the RAM on your Systems Properties? This is where we will convert the GB to MB in Initial Size and Maximum Size.
So say you have 4 GB of RAM. You want to do 4 * 1024 = 4096.
You wan to type in 4096 for your 'Initial Size'
For your Maximum Size you only have to double Initial Size. So it's 4096 * 2 = 8192
8. Click 'Set' then the Window closes
9. Click 'Apply' then 'Ok'
10. It will ask you to restart your computer.

Please note that when your Antivirus is scanning your computer, it will always use 100% of the disk.
If you have any question or need help please feel free to ask.

i have try this but step 8 the window does not close and i think it has some thing to do with the fact that i have 2 hard drives an SSD and A HDD to wich is the one with the problem

 

[windows8sux]

Disabling BITS, Win Search and SuperFetch didn't do anything for me. Dropped the usage for a couple of seconds but shot up right again to 100%.

From one of the other suggestions on this forum, I went to Control Panel > Troubleshooting > Windows Search & Windows Update..

Let it run the course. After the fixes were applied, the disk usage is back to normal now. Such relief.

 

[Aaron Budgor]

I used to have this problem, but solved it by running a really good registry cleaner app, such as RegHunter. After cleaning, discovering over 3000 registry errors, and re-enabling SuperFetch and Windows Search, my Windows 8.1 operating system has worked perfectly ever since.

 

[FreeBSD Fan]

I tried the 'solutions' offered by others and nothing worked for me. I even reinstalled Windows 8. No joy. So I created my own solution. I blew away Windows and installed FreeBSD OS, and then installed GNOME3 as my desktop. My family loves it, and the computer is incredibly fast. We like it so much that my other computers also run FreeBSD OS, one running XFCE4 desktop, and the other running KDE4 desktop.

 

[Coldlucidity]

If you guys have Advanced System Care, try disabling that, my 100% went down to 1% disk usage, lol.

 

[Coldlucidity]

If that's not the problem go and download https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb896645.aspx helped me immensely.

 

[timjrandall]

hi I found disable windows updates and I have Lenovo computer so stopped Lenovo solutions which was checking and giving alerts and this dropped my disk usage a lot,,,,, if you do disable windows up date ,check yourself every week or two ..one other thing you can try is Go to charms bar and press search, then type view local services.
Once there, stop and disable BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service). worth a try hope it helps john

John- what model Lenovo do you have?

 

[ayehia]

worked perfect for me.. so far..
thx guys

 

[eugene0420]

Try disabling windows disk "scheduled optimize" under disk options.

 

[Timothy Mertens]

I've had the same problem for months. Turned out I just had to uninstall and the reinstall my anti-virus.

In Task Manager > Details I right clicked the headings bar and 'Select Columns' from here I added the I/O Reads, I/O Writes I/O Write Bytes and I/O Write Bytes.

Ordering on any of these I could see that the 3 top processes hogging Hard Drive time were
MsMpEng.exe,
AvastSvc.exe and
System.

This meant I had 2 anti-virus process running at the same time. Some how MsMpEng (Window Defender) was still running and even when I disabled it it would run the next time I started up.
So if you have MsMpEng in your processes when you have another anti-virus installed try uninstalling and reinstalling it.

For me this sorted it out.
Hope this helps someone out.

 

[jupiter2375]

press
Windows+R
Write
services.msc
Disable
1-Super fetch
2-Windows Search
And It Will Work Great

I disabled (not just Stop them) SuperFetch, Windows Search, and Background Intelligent Transfer Service in the Property window, and I also increased my initial and maximum virtual RAM as someone had mentioned in here, but it didn't really work for me until I disconnected the Microsoft account and logged in as a local account. After I logged in with my local account, I went back and enabled the 3 processes above one at a time. I found out that the SuperFetch was the culprit, at least, in my case. So, I turned the other two back on and disabled just the SuperFetch. Now, my laptop is cruising around at below 10% disk usage almost all the times!

 

[Magnus_the_great]

Thank You all
I tried all above and disk usage always soared back up to 100%, which made it difficult to diagnose.
For me fix was uninstalling update kb3035538 - windows 10 advisor (update coming out July 2015).
Computer fast again, windows 10 alert was just running my HDD into ground and halting any sign of being able to do anything, has me looking at Linux or FreeBSD OS software.

 

[jupiter2375]

Did't help deactivating those services, any other advice?

DISABLE ANYTHING IS JUST A TEMPORARY FIX!!! I ONCE THOUGHT IT WAS THE WAY TO RESOLVE THE ISSUE. ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE!!! DON'T WASTE TIME DOING ANY OF IT!

The very possible issue, especially when your system is almost brand new, is either

• 
  1- Hardware or
  2- Software (most likely updates)

If it won't take you long to restore it to the factory image condition and start everything from there, do so because it would be easier than trying to patch things up here and there.

I had the same problem a while back. If you're sure that your anti virus software is working fine, and your computer is virus free, the issue is most likely just the .NET Framework bundle update (I believe there are over 120 files total) that needs times to go through your system for the first time. So, if you just let it run at 100% disk usage for a few hours, it will be fine afterwards. It worked for me. Just let it idle overnight or something. Don't need to disable anything!

The 100% disk usage is always there because your computer needs to scan for virus and fetch some files, particularly during start-up, but it should not be doing it continuously. So, if you see it do this for just a couple of minutes, it's normal.