Windows 10: 100% disk usage.

On all my PCs with Windows10 installed (mostly home PC, two home notebooks, a work PC and a work notebook) there's a problem with 100% disk usage on start. High disk usage lasts for quite some time (for example, this screenshot was taken almost 2 hours after the notebook was started) and makes the use of the PC almost impossible. All PCs have several common points:

1. All of them had Windows 7 preinstalled by the manufacturer and have gone through W7->W8->W8.1->W10 upgrade path.

2. All of them also have some Linux distros installed on, as my main job is cross-platform app development with Qt.

3. The 100% disk usage problem isn't reproduced under Linux, so the hardware is Ok.

4. All these PCs have Windows installed on HDDs or SHDDs. Moving the OS onto an SSD solves the problem. Unfortunately, SSDs are too expensive to be used as a single drive in notebooks for me, so I managed to fix only my desktop PC and my mother's PC this way.

5. As it can be seen on the screenshot, actual read and write speed is quite low, so "find and disable the app that's using the disk" is not a valid solution. It looks much more like the Windows95 bug, when the disk controller was abandoning DMA mode and switching into PIO mode.

6. I've tried every method recommended on forums (this forum, windowstenforums etc.) with no success. I've even tried some methods not mentioned on forums (for example, I have swap completely disabled on my 16Gb RAM i7 laptop and similar work desktop. I also have an 32Gb fast USB3.0 flash drive assigned as a ReadyBoost drive.) No success.

I think I made a request to the Microsoft support team about this issue once and was told that this may be an issue with the hardware manufacturer (Lenovo). But now I know that this is not a Lenovo issue because 1) it's reproduced on other PCs, and 2) It's not reproduced on same PCs under Linux. So I tried to open a support ticket again recently, only to find that no free support is provided for Windows10, and the only way to find a solution is to ask on the forum.


For quite a long time I was booting Windows only to install updates, check if these updates solve the problem and return back to Linux, so the issue didn't bother me much. But now I have an app to develop expicitly for Windows (customer's requirement). And it breaks my heart to turn on the laptop at 21:00 and finally be able to do something useful on it at 23:00.




Is there anything productive that can be done?

:)

 

100% disk usage

The most common cause of 100% disk usage appears to be Superfetch and Prefetch, but there are also other causes. You can try disabling both these features and see if it helps.

This article provides steps to disable prefecth and superfetch:

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How to Fix 100% Disk Usage Error in Windows 10

 

100% disk usage and memory usage

Hi,

100% disk usage and memory usage can be caused by a software corruption, running application running on the background and malware or virus infection.

For us to properly isolate the issue and provide an appropriate resolution, kindly answer the questions below:

• Did the issue happen after installing the Fall Creators?
• Did you receive any error messages?
• Can you send us the screenshot of the Task Manager showing the 100% disk usage and memory usage?
• What troubleshooting steps have you done so far?

For isolation purposes, please perform a clean boot to see if the same issue will occur. Refer to this
article for more information on how to perform a clean boot
in Windows.

Looking forward to your response.

 

Disk usage constant 100%

Hi Here are some more things you can check for 100% disk usage after you try Eric's suggestions!

gb89

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/fix-100-disk-usage-windows-10