Windows 8 using 100% of HDD with high average response times and low read/write speed

Anonymous
2013-04-29T02:11:24+00:00

Hi There,

Since I upgraded to Windows 8 (in January), I have intermittently experienced freezes, and general performance dips. Upon investigating I found that when this occurred, my Hard Drive was showing as 100% Active Time, with a low Read and Write Speed (could be as low as 10 KB/s or as high as 40MB/s) and an Average Response time well into the 1000's (ms).

This is an example https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23428568/100%25%20HDD.png.

The same thing happens on all the Hard Drives when they're in use. Since it originally started happening, it has only become worse and more frequent. I had thought it may have been a heat problem, but it never gets above 40-50c on the HDD.

All in all.. i'm very confused and really looking for any help you can provide because it's really affecting my daily usage...

Computer Model - Alienware M15X Laptop

OS - Windows 8 Pro 64Bit

Thanks in advance :)

Oliver

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Performance and system failures

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

45 answers

Sort by: Oldest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2013-08-29T19:47:17+00:00

    Re Installing the Intel storage driver healed my computer, for now... :)

    It's very strange to me that this issue seems to have a lot of "causes" if you search the internet. Although you could ask yourself if every problem was treated with the right solution if the problem keeps returning after x-time and x-numbers of "solutions"

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2013-08-30T00:03:06+00:00

    Hope not...

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2013-09-05T18:53:38+00:00

    Yes I have wondered the same thing about the problem returning after each "solution".

    To Javier

    I also found that disabling wuauserv stopped the problem but other ""update" services can trigger it too (such as app updating or "Nvidia Experience" updates so I'm convinced it lies deeper but win update triggers it.

    I've completely formatted and re-installed now and it hasn't resolved anything. Disabling updates makes the pc usable most of the time but I'm unhappy. I'm supposed to be able to update!

    Microsoft's answer was to scan for Malware ... on a brand new install ... seriously.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2013-09-07T17:17:02+00:00

    This problem returned in less than 72 hours after fresh installing Windows 8. I tried the 8.1 preview, but it was the same right from start. 

    I finally gave up and went back to Windows 7 disabling all the updating apps, but as you point out, that makes me profoundly unhappy too...

    Microsoft is not addressing this issue despite hundreds of reports and unuseful solutions... I'm even considering changing OS and throwing myself in the rivers of Linux... (I once swan the oceans of MacOs and didn't like it... too dependent on Office and frankly Excel for Mac really has performance issues...)

    Well... for now, more than two weeks on 7 and nothing weird...

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2013-09-30T02:43:16+00:00

    Hi,

    Im not sure if it works for others but my Surface RT got much better after I increased (Custom size) Virtual Memory (Paging File Size). By default it was automatically. Maybe I need few days to see if problem doesn't come back (:

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments