Windows 10: MsMpEng.exe periodically takes 100% disk usage

As the title reads, Disk usage issue. When I am playing certain games, my disk usage will periodically jump to 100% disk usage out of proportion with every other aspect. At first, the culprit was Sophos home, but after completely disabling that program, Windows Defender becomes the culprit. Tried disabling WD, but even though the dashboard says it's disabled, nothing has changed in processes, and it is still killing my disk usage when playing games. trying to kill the processes gets me the notification that Access is denied.

Trying to find a solution online, all I find is that it is a legitimate process of Windows Defender, with no help in calibrating it or disabling it when I am gaming.

Sometimes, I can back out of the game, and my system recovers, others, it locks up completely, and I can't do anything but power cycle and reboot. The problem primarily occurs when I am in a game, but has also happened when I wasn't even using the machine, it was just on, and when I've tried accessing photos or watching movies/youtube videos.

At a loss as to what I can do to fix this, any help is appreciated.



Moved from: Windows 10 / Security & privacy

:)

 

Disk Usage at 100% with nothing running

My PC is running Windows 10 with the latest updates but has suddenly become unusable with disk usage staying at 100% even with nothing running and just the same processes listed in Task Manager as before the problems
started. I've tried a few suggestions found in online forums - disabling Windows Search and Superfetch, adjusting page file size, etc. but nothing has done the trick yet. I don't have any outside anti-virus software installed. I read about the potential MSI
issue but don't have IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers listed in the Device Manager. Finally, it seems to boot up normally and will have periods where the disk usage drops and it's usable but those moments are brief and it inevitably goes back up to 100% usage.

 

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.