Windows 10 100% disk usage on windows 10

  • Thread starter Thread starter JohnHorwedel
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J

JohnHorwedel

Greg,


I read your response to a post about 100% disk usage on Windows 10. Your response thoroughness was impressive, so I would like to consult with you, as I have a high disk usage problem.


I have a Dell laptop with frequent spikes to disk usage. The disk usage will spike to 100% occasionally and typically runs higher than other computers that I have. It's always 2-5%, then runs up to 50%, then runs up to 100%. I did some trouble shooting and improved the situation from a constant 100% disk usage. I suspect some data corruption due to power supply failure, prior to motherboard replacement. As I limit what is running, I see frequent read / write to disk or cache at the top of the list of processes, which results in disk usage spikes to 100%. I saw some information about disabling write caching on the hard drive. I'm about to try that tonight, when I get home to that laptop. I did already run a dskchk /f /r. I'm wondering what else I should do or could do.


History:

This Dell laptop experienced a power surge during a lightning strike on the power grid at the house. The power supply and distribution was affected and normal boot up would no longer occur, with messages about unable to charge battery. Successful boot-ups, by accepting the risk of boot-up with no battery charging resulted in a slow system and freeze ups. I sent the laptop to Dell for repair and the motherboard was replaced. It was returned with apparent lingering issues with high disk usage.


The system prompted me to update device drivers and the system prompted me to load a new version of Windows 10 (over write / replacement). I did this. I uninstalled Skype, Spotify, McAfee, Malwarebytes, Candy Crush and some other apps to help trouble shoot the source of the problem. I also diconnected from internet access. Things improved from constant 100% disk usage to the ability to get down to a few percent, but it will spike back up to 100%, down below 10%, then back up to 100% within a 10 second timeframe. It does look like there is read/write to disk or cache frequently, even if I am not doing anything on the laptop.


Connecting to the internet brings usage up and opening a browser bring usage to 100%. If I just wait the usage will go down, but them back up again, on its own. There does seem to be a process of read /write to disk that is causing these disk usage spikes.


Thanks for your thoughts,


John

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