Fixing 100% disk usage in Windows 10 with Chrome and Skype running

Anonymous
2015-08-16T12:25:27+00:00

How to fix 100% disk usage in Windows 10

This is caused by a common combination of Skype as well Google Chrome. Similar issue with other programs could also cause 100% disk usage. To fix this do the following:

Google Chrome:

In Google Chrome, go to Settings > Show Advanced Settings ... > Privacy > Prefetch resources to load pages more quickly

and untick it. See Figure-1 below:

Figure-1

Skype:

Make sure you have exited Skype and it is not running in the taskbar (if it is running in the taskbar then quit it).

Open Windows Explorer and open the following folder:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Skype\Phone"

Now right click "Skype.exe" file and then click "Properties" and open the "Security" tab.

Click the "Edit" button and then highlight "ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES" and place a tick in the "Write" box.

Click "Apply" and then "OK" and then "OK" again. See Figures-2 to Figure-6 below:

This is it, now run Skype and check the Disk Usage in Task Manager and it will no longer show you 100% disk usage anymore:-

I hope this helps people. I spent a long time in finding a solution to this problem.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Devices and drivers

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-03-18T14:50:11+00:00

    Hi Neelesh, 

    My system starts at 100%, then actually goes down to almost nothing, (2% right now), after 5 minutes.  The problem for me is that I currently use Windows Defender as my Antivirus program.   

    http://www.howtogeek.com/225385/what%E2%80%99s-the-best-antivirus-for-windows-10-is-windows-defender-good-enough/

    What Antivirus program are you using instead or Defender?  From a practical standpoint the above article says Defender catches 95% of all viruses.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-03-19T00:59:18+00:00

    hey 

    maybe windows defender is good but whats the point of it when its just give hangs n loading , read ,write problems in hdd , also its delete the file it think as a virus , I m using quick heal as my antivirus prog but its also cause prob in disk usage so i just disabled its virus protection permanently this will fix the disk usage but no longer auto scan for virus, needed to manually scan hdd n flash drives .

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-03-19T10:47:09+00:00

    Some of the suggestions here are not wise.

    1. If you disable the pagefile, you open your system up for becoming even slower or potentially crashing. The pagefile is used to temporarily store programs or their data loaded in memory which are not being currently accessed and room is needed to load additional programs or data. When this happens, these dormant programs or its data are swapped to disk which allows other programs to load. If this happens often, you will notice a slowdown of your system. Many systems today come with 4GB of memory which could limit you if you are using a lot of programs at the same time. The only cure for this is installing more memory.
    2. Disabling your antivirus is also not a good idea. If you have a truly intrusive antivirus such as Norton or McAfee, uninstall it and get one which uses less system resources. I have not heard much of Windows Defender causing slowdown issues. That is usually a very low resource antivirus. Check to see if it is doing a virus scan when you notice high disk usage problems.
    3. To help track down what process might be causing the problem do this:

      a. Download and run Process Explorer from Windows Sysinternals.

      b. Once you start it, enable showing Process I/O data. [Go to "View" > "Select Columns" and under the "Process I/O" tab select "Reads" and "Writes". This will show you what processes are doing a lot of disk I/O.

        (1) If it is a particular program, then you have it.

        (2) If it is "System", then it is most likely a driver or some Windows maintenance process. It might be a little difficult to determine but possibly you might be able to tell by what file or files are most active.

          (a) Open "Task Manager", select "Performance" tab, and click the "Open  Resource Monitor" link at the bottom.

          (b) Open the "Disk" section, see what file(s) are being accessed the most and see if it can be related back to a particular program or standard Windows process.

        (3) If it is "svchost.exe", Hold your mouse over that svchost process and it will list what is running under it. There may be several processes running there, possibly you could narrow it down to one.

    JohnD

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-03-20T21:42:53+00:00

    John, 

    *  I hope that people understand that if you run Windows 10 with 2-4 GB of RAM that you need to use the 32 Bit version of Windows 10, and if more RAM you need to use the 64 Bit version of Windows 10.  People may forget those facts. I have 8 GB RAM & Windows 10/64 Bit. 

    *  After 10 minutes my resources are so low that it would seem like I am bragging if I show you them here.  Windows Defender does not seem to use too much of my resources.  Norton is a great antivirus program, though it does use resources.

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  5. Anonymous
    2016-03-21T15:02:17+00:00

    Hi

    I don't use Skype and my Chromesettings are good. But when I start my computer the first 10 minutes I have still 100% usage.

    Pleas help!

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