Why does win10 use HDD 100% these days?

For what it's worth only one PC and one laptop is running a 5400 HDD. The HDD speeds are not the common factor.

It seems to me that M$ is simply not taking HDD's in mind anymore? That they have decided to try and phase them out via neglect? Or have they done something specific to reduce performance on HDD's?

These are not rocket science questions. And "Get a SSD" is not answer to them.

It reminds me of a glaring bug in Fallout 4 with level loading..... literally the only "fix" was to run the game from an SSD. This does not mean the software stopped being buggy.... the buggyness was just worked around.
 
Dimpie (COMPUTEK) said:
Never ever since the existence of Win10 have i seen that o_O
Click to expand...
Hammered together old parts, core2duo, 4gb ram, 5400 HDD...... I'm starting to seriously consider throwing in the towel and just putting win7 back on the thing or forcing the old toppie to learn to love linux.

EDIT: when I first put win10 on it the thing ran fine
 
SSD drive is the solution. I had this because the nice laptops we got for work came with HDDs. Swapping out the drives to SSDs solved our problem.
 
rambo919 said:
Hammered together old parts, core2duo, 4gb ram, 5400 HDD...... I'm starting to seriously consider throwing in the towel and just putting win7 back on the thing or forcing the old toppie to learn to love linux.

EDIT: when I first put win10 on it the thing ran fine
Click to expand...
Remember to enable TLS 1.2 in Windows 7 before that breaks and then you blame the internet.
 
rambo919 said:
Hammered together old parts, core2duo, 4gb ram, 5400 HDD...... I'm starting to seriously consider throwing in the towel and just putting win7 back on the thing or forcing the old toppie to learn to love linux.

EDIT: when I first put win10 on it the thing ran fine
Click to expand...
www.gnome-look.org

Redstone

GTK themes based on the appearance of the latest Windows 10 public build. Get the Acrylic theme here : https://www.pling.com/p/1229009/ You can get extra...
www.gnome-look.org
1624883160653.png
 
backstreetboy said:
www.gnome-look.org

Redstone

GTK themes based on the appearance of the latest Windows 10 public build. Get the Acrylic theme here : https://www.pling.com/p/1229009/ You can get extra...
www.gnome-look.org
View attachment 1096999
Click to expand...
That's great.... the problem is his assortment of third party apps he can't bear to part with..... He has a laptop running winXP for some of the more ancient one's.

He's not great with learning new software.....
 
rambo919 said:
For what it's worth only one PC and one laptop is running a 5400 HDD. The HDD speeds are not the common factor.

It seems to me that M$ is simply not taking HDD's in mind anymore? That they have decided to try and phase them out via neglect? Or have they done something specific to reduce performance on HDD's?

These are not rocket science questions. And "Get a SSD" is not answer to them.

It reminds me of a glaring bug in Fallout 4 with level loading..... literally the only "fix" was to run the game from an SSD. This does not mean the software stopped being buggy.... the buggyness was just worked around.
Click to expand...
I disagree that MS is not geared towards HDDs.
My Desktop only supports SATA 300, not 6.
It's got a 1TB 7200 HDD.
I don't experience any of the issues you are, even when running at half of the current SATA standard.
 
|tera| said:
I disagree that MS is not geared towards HDDs.
My Desktop only supports SATA 300, not 6.
It's got a 1TB 7200 HDD.
I don't experience any of the issues you are, even when running at half of the current SATA standard.
Click to expand...
My main rig which is running a 7200 has had less issues yes.... but I did notice it a few times.

For the record I did to a deepish google dive and this issue has been popping up for people since 2017 at least.... and then an update fixes it and then it comes back again with a large spike in it happening again this year with M$ forcing people to update to the 20's.

M$ is changing something on and off and I was just wondering if someone else knew wtf was going on. Also this year that freeze bug started happening which has since been fixed it seems.... I think it might have something to do with this and the HDD was getting overflowed with I/O but the RAM was still fine which is why the mouse could still move.
 
rambo919 said:
My main rig which is running a 7200 has had less issues yes.... but I did notice it a few times.

For the record I did to a deepish google dive and this issue has been popping up for people since 2017 at least.... and then an update fixes it and then it comes back again with a large spike in it happening again this year with M$ forcing people to update to the 20's.

M$ is changing something on and off and I was just wondering if someone else knew wtf was going on. Also this year that freeze bug started happening which has since been fixed it seems.... I think it might have something to do with this and the HDD was getting overflowed with I/O but the RAM was still fine which is why the mouse could still move.
Click to expand...
Found this:

Fix 6: Fix your StorAHCI.sys driver​

Note: A million thanks to our warm-hearted reader Javier for the following solution.
The Windows 10 100% disk usage problem might also be caused by some Advanced Host Controller Interface PCI-Express (AHCI PCIe) models running with the inbox StorAHCI.sys driver due to a firmware bug.
Here’s how to determine if this is your problem and fix it:
1) Open Device Manager by pressing Windows logo key and X at the same time to choose Device Manager.
img_594b453d7e242.png

2) Expand the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers category, and double-click the AHCI controller.
img_594b45719881f.png

3) Go to the Driver tab and click Driver Details. If you can see storahci.sys stored in a path of system32 folder, then you are running the inbox AHCI driver.
img_594b4611132d9.png

4) Close the Driver Details window and go to Details tab. From the drop-down menu, select Device Instance Path. Make note of the path, starting from VEN_.
img_594b474d5583c.png

5) Type regedit in the search box of Start panel, then hit Enter on your keyboard to run Registry Editor. Then go to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Enum\PCI\ <AHCI Controller>\<Random Number>\Device Parameters\Interrupt Management\MessageSignaledInterruptProperties
The <AHCI Controller> here refers to the name you see from step 2).
The <Random Number> differs on different machines.
img_594b48600f0e1.jpg

6) Double click the MSISupported key and change the value to 0.
img_594b48d861882.jpg

7) Restart your computer after the change, then check your computer’s disk usage: Type “task manager” in the Windows search bar and select Task Manager, then in the Processes tab, look at the % at the top of the Disk column. If it’s no longer 100%, you’ve fixed the problem!
 
I have an Intel Nuc8i3 with 32GB RAM that is being bogged down by this. I do have an SSD but the OS is installed on the HD. I have seen a few other machines as well with this issue. Windows 10 updates does not work 100% with all machines, well documented that is breaks some existing installations.
 
|tera| said:
Found this:

Fix 6: Fix your StorAHCI.sys driver​

Note: A million thanks to our warm-hearted reader Javier for the following solution.
The Windows 10 100% disk usage problem might also be caused by some Advanced Host Controller Interface PCI-Express (AHCI PCIe) models running with the inbox StorAHCI.sys driver due to a firmware bug.
Here’s how to determine if this is your problem and fix it:
1) Open Device Manager by pressing Windows logo key and X at the same time to choose Device Manager.
img_594b453d7e242.png

2) Expand the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers category, and double-click the AHCI controller.
img_594b45719881f.png

3) Go to the Driver tab and click Driver Details. If you can see storahci.sys stored in a path of system32 folder, then you are running the inbox AHCI driver.
img_594b4611132d9.png

4) Close the Driver Details window and go to Details tab. From the drop-down menu, select Device Instance Path. Make note of the path, starting from VEN_.
img_594b474d5583c.png

5) Type regedit in the search box of Start panel, then hit Enter on your keyboard to run Registry Editor. Then go to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Enum\PCI\ <AHCI Controller>\<Random Number>\Device Parameters\Interrupt Management\MessageSignaledInterruptProperties
The <AHCI Controller> here refers to the name you see from step 2).
The <Random Number> differs on different machines.
img_594b48600f0e1.jpg

6) Double click the MSISupported key and change the value to 0.
img_594b48d861882.jpg

7) Restart your computer after the change, then check your computer’s disk usage: Type “task manager” in the Windows search bar and select Task Manager, then in the Processes tab, look at the % at the top of the Disk column. If it’s no longer 100%, you’ve fixed the problem!
Click to expand...
I'll have to do all that on the most problematic one, the bug comes and goes on everything else.
 
Vis1/0N said:
I have an Intel Nuc8i3 with 32GB RAM that is being bogged down by this. I do have an SSD but the OS is installed on the HD. I have seen a few other machines as well with this issue. Windows 10 updates does not work 100% with all machines, well documented that is breaks some existing installations.
Click to expand...
I have seen cases of a monthly update taking all day to download, install and fully restart because of this.
 
rambo919 said:
View attachment 1096919

As you can imagine the 4GB Desktop becomes rather useless rather quickly..... if I had confidence the user could use it I would have put linux on the thing years ago.
Click to expand...

It looks like your page file is incredibly small - the Committed total should be the sum of the page file and the amount of physical memory. On one of my work laptops that also only has 8 GB of RAM, I've noticed that when the available Commit starts getting very low, sometimes I get the runaway disk usage due to memory compression and writes to the page file - I figured it out by opening Resource Monitor while it was happening (as suggested by someone else earlier).

For reference, see my Committed memory (mine's on auto) - so I have 8 GM RAM + 23 GB Page file = 30.6GB available for Commit.
1624891862794.png

As a sidenote, I stopped using Chrome on this laptop because I found it was just using too much memory and it would trigger excessive paging very quickly.
 
me_ said:
It looks like your page file is incredibly small - the Committed total should be the sum of the page file and the amount of physical memory. On one of my work laptops that also only has 8 GB of RAM, I've noticed that when the available Commit starts getting very low, sometimes I get the runaway disk usage due to memory compression and writes to the page file - I figured it out by opening Resource Monitor while it was happening (as suggested by someone else earlier).

For reference, see my Committed memory (mine's on auto) - so I have 8 GM RAM + 23 GB Page file = 30.6GB available for Commit.

As a sidenote, I stopped using Chrome on this laptop because I found it was just using too much memory and it would trigger excessive paging very quickly.
Click to expand...
Work PC so never tweaked anything on it..... might be why the one PC has so few problems, it's mine so I made sure to make the pagefile excessive at some point in the past.

It could be that the memory compression is the problem, I did notice that the useless photo's and myphone apps keep asking for internet access.... which I keep blocking.
 
When you find a solution report back.

My folks pc had the issue and I tried every "solution" under the sun with no luck.

This was on a freshly formatted drive with nothing but win10 installed, disabled defender as well as many other services and also turning off many things in settings etc. Boot up at times was also very slow taking several minutes.

Eventually gave up and got them a ssd.
 
@rambo919

I've been barking about Win 10 mysteriously and hellishly underperforming on mechanical HDD's for over two years now. And it's not just me, other IT people in the field who frequently work on a myriad of devices have picked up on it too. Let us know if you ever find the culprit, best of luck :)
 
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