Users who face slow response time issues on Windows 10 might look into their Task Manager for some guidance because it is the Task Manager that provides you with all the information about the processes running on your computer currently.
You can manage your computer's disk usage with Task Manager. If it has reached a disk usage of 100% then you need to take some action as the machine's disk usage is maxed out and your system's performance will be degraded from here on in.
Here we have for you 10 methods that will help you resolve the problem of high disk usage on your Windows 10 system.
1. Restart Your System
You obviously know from experience that you can restart your machine and it can resolve most of the issues. It is the same with the 100% disk usage problem. Yes, you will not find the root cause of the problem through this solution, but it might solve your problem and that would probably be sufficient for you.
Make sure that you choose the "Restart" option as it starts your system in a fresh state and not the "Shut Down" option which preserves the system state and might not solve your problem.
2. Update Windows
You can resolve the mysterious problems by installing the latest updates on your Windows 10 system. You can go into the "Update and security" section of the Windows Settings app and check if you are up to date.
If updates are available make sure that you install them.
Settings, then Update & Security settings, and then Windows Update
The overall performance of your system including that of the hard drive could be improved by this.
3. Check For Malware
Your disk usage might spike if your computer is infected with malware. This issue can be caught if you have antivirus software running in the background. But, there can be exceptions so scan your hard drive for potential infection manually. As your disk is already experiencing high usage, it could be a time-consuming task but necessary at the same time.
4. Disable Windows Search
The high disk usage could be caused by a known bug in Windows 8 and 10 that causes a search loop. You can stop the Windows Search facility temporarily and see if that improves your disk issue, then open an admin prompt and enter the command: net.exe stop “Windows search”.
The Windows search would stop running after this until the time Windows is restarted.
You can then disable it permanently if it turns out that Windows Search was responsible for your Windows 10 disk usage reaching 100%.
- Press the Windows key + R, then enter services.msc and hit Enter.
- As the services window opens, select the Windows Search entry and double-click it so that its properties are updated.
- Then, select Disabled under Startup type and then click on OK to save your changes.
5. Stop the Superfetch Service
The Windows Supertech service is another feature that can cause problems. This feature could also be disabled temporarily with the command: net.exe stop superfetch.
You can disable the service permanently using the same procedure as for disabling the Windows search.
6. Change Energy Options
If you have experienced 100% disk usage on Windows 10, you can try the change of energy settings option as it seems to have worked for a number of users.
Use this procedure:
- Move to Power Options, then change plan settings, and then change advanced power settings.
- From the drop-down box select the High-performance option and make sure all plan settings are set to their defaults.
7. Temporarily Turn Off Your Antivirus Software
You could also try turning off your antivirus software temporarily and check it this improves your disk usage. If it does then you might want to change antivirus packages. Sometimes even Windows Defender might cause problems.
8. Reset Virtual Memory in Windows 10
The disk is treated like RAM by the virtual memory and it uses it to swap out temporary files when it runs out of actual RAM. 100% disk usage on Windows 10 can be caused by Errors in the pagefile.sys. You can reset your virtual memory settings to solve this issue.
Follow these steps :
- You need to click on “Advanced system settings” in your computer’s “System Properties”.
- In the Performance section, click on "Settings".
- After selecting the “Advanced” tab click the “Change” button.
- Check the box titled “Automatically manage paging file size”.
- You also have the option to choose “No paging file”, then press OK and then reboot. This might improve your system disks performance.
9. Run Check Disk
You can check if there are any physical problems with your hard drive using a check disk. Although, the high disk usage generally indicates that there is an application or logical issue that drives the disk usage, it is still worth trying so that any physical damage can be ruled out. Just run Check Disk and note its results.
10. Change Settings in Google Chrome
According to the reports, making some changes to your Google Chrome settings can help your disk usage.
For Chrome, make this change:
- Open Settings, then Show advanced settings.
- Uncheck the “Use a prediction service to load pages more quickly” option, under the privacy section.
- Make sure that you try disabling Flash in Google Chrome too.
You might have to think about replacing your hard drive if these methods don't resolve your issue with 100% disk usage on your Windows 10 computer.
