HDD always 100

[JustinP526]

My wife is having issues on her laptop where it's constantly freezing, Task Manager is showing disk load at 100% all the time, but no programs are showing any throughput to indicate what is causing the full load.

 

Laptop is an Acer Aspire 7 (A717-72G-53P7)

Intel i5-8300H, nVidia GTX 1050 (4GB GDDR5), 8 GB DDR4 system RAM and 1TB HDD

 

This is the HDD that came in the laptop

https://www.newegg.com/toshiba-mq04abf100/p/1B0-0011-000E9

 

I'm looking into whether it can take an SSD drive as well and what capacity so we can put one in for upgrade.

 

So far we have tried almost every option on this page

https://www.makeuseof.com/tips-fix-100-disk-usage-improve-windows-performance/

 

None of these has fixed the problem at all. We're currently checking Acer's site for any driver updates to see what may help. Even Check Disk ran and found no issues with HDD. I can run a disk utility from Toshiba to get all the SMART stats and see if the drive is starting to fail. Any other tips or ideas?

[Paul442]

What does task manager say is the top usage on CPU? MEMORY? And how high?

[JustinP526]

CPU usage 1 - 2% when idle, Memory usually no higher than 45% even with programs open. It's always just HDD at 100% constantly and Task Manager will freeze up for minutes at a time then shows nothing is using disk but it's at 100% load anyways. No missing updates. We tried doing a full factory reset and it won't even do that, gives an error about having administrator do it or getting a disk. It's Windows 10 and should have latest version update.

[nigsy]

What if you start in safe mode? Does the HD run at 100% still?

[JustinP526]

Yes it was still at 100% disk usage even in safe mode

[Tx Redneck]

Run disk cleanup, get rid of old restore points and old temp/update files/programs, etc, then run the defragger. It'll likely take all night, but my biggest suggestion is to get a cheap ssd for it. It'll make a night and day difference.

 

Tx

[JustinP526]

OK, we'll give that a try and see how it goes. Not sure what will happen though, already tried to uninstall Chrome and it never starts the uninstall process from add/remove programs. We did already defrag and run disk cleanup, no difference. Wondering if some issue with a driver gone missing or some corrupt files. Always willing to try anything that may solve this one, and it's a tricky one.

[nigsy]

Have you run the manufactures disc health utility?

But I'm with TX, time for an SSD!!

[JustinP526]

We were able to finally remove Chrome by deleting the Google folder in C://Users/UserName/AppData/Local and that got Chrome uninstall to finally finish. Took almost an hour for that folder to delete. It helped a little bit. More so, we disabled SuperFetch (SysMain) in msconfig and that seemed to help a bit more. But it will run good for a couple minutes before jumping back up to 100% disk usage again. Every process listed in task manage shows 0 MB/s throughput but it shows disk at 100%. Highest ones show occasionally as System and BITS. I'm wondering if a corrupt or missing driver, perhaps for storage controller. Wondering if a reinstall of Windows would be a remedy as this issue just started within the past month.

 

Any easy way to find out what kind of SSD I can put in it without opening up the whole machine? Been hearing there should be possibly an M2 slot on mobo. Otherwise, it would be swapping in a SATA type one as exchange to the standard HDD.

[Tomk_]

https://www.crucial.com/compatible-upgrade-for/acer/aspire-7-a717-72g

Scroll down and it will reccomend SSD drives.

 

You might try running tweakng.com All in one repair tool and see if it helps. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/windows-repair-all-in-one/

[Tomk_]

 

[beagle1]

Hi  When you check cpu an memory usage , the next one is Disk , an your saying it's at 100% , what does it show when you Pan down the list , are there any high ones in the list , i show firefox an internet explorer at like .1% an that's it the rest are at zero , also how Full is the Disk . Regards Philip ..

[JustinP526]

Ran the tweaking.com tool and it found and fixed some errors. One was nvidia container, there was some it didn't say in file system check and 2 that were for hyperv. Can't do much on discharging the system as I have no clue how to remove battery, seems to be inside the laptop. It's not an owned machine, on rent to own from Aaron's.

 

Seems to still be an issue though. It shows 100% disk use in task manager, all listed tasks show 0 MB/s so very difficult to know what's causing the disk use. File manager shows 308GB free out of 930GB, we are working on removing some programs that are no longer used.

 

Thanks very much though for all the tips and suggestions.

Edited February 3 by JustinP526

[Tx Redneck]

On 2/1/2021 at 4:57 AM, JustinP526 said:

OK, we'll give that a try and see how it goes. Not sure what will happen though, already tried to uninstall Chrome and it never starts the uninstall process from add/remove programs. We did already defrag and run disk cleanup, no difference. Wondering if some issue with a driver gone missing or some corrupt files. Always willing to try anything that may solve this one, and it's a tricky one.

if you've already done disk cleanup and defrag, run checkdsk. After that completes, disable pagefile and system restore, delete all but most recent restore point, defrag again. Win won't defag hibernation files, old restore points... stuff that's most responsible for fragmentation.

 

If that doesn't do it, then SSD is the only path forward I see, w/out having physically touched the laptop.

 

The Inland branded ssd's from microcenter are fantastic upgrades and cheap!

 

Tx

[JustinP526]

Going to keep an eye on things for a bit and see if it cleared things up completely, but seems to be doing better now that we uninstalled Windows Updates that were for Flash Player. Looking into completely removing Flash from both our laptops, seems there was supposed to be an update (KB4577586) that removes it. But that update isn't showing for either of us. May have to get it via the update catalog only.

 

Either way, as soon as possible, going to get her an SSD.

[JustinP526]

Well I think we're going to try removing flash as I did on my system from the directions I seen here:

https://lifehacker.com/how-to-remove-adobe-flash-from-windows-10-in-5-minutes-1845509875

 

But it's now crashing to BSOD with an error of CRITICAL_PROCESS_FAIL

 

Maybe completely remove and then reinstall nvidia driver?

[JustinP526]

We ended up taking it in to be sent for service/repair, which they will do for no charge. I'll definitely see about getting the SSD either way. From what I see in owners manual (for both of our laptops) should be able to go up to 512GB M2.2280 SSD. May also add 2nd stick of RAM to double up.