Hard Disk activity constantly at 100%, startup takes over 5 minutes...

[KyleRD]

Hello,

First off, my computer specs are:

Lenovo Ideapad Y580
GTX 660M Graphics
Intel quad core 3630 qm processor
1 TB 5400 RPM HDD
8 GB RAM
Windows 8

Within the past couple of months, my laptop has gotten extremely slow, to the point where it takes several minutes on startup before I can do anything with the laptop. When I bought it, it ran amazingly fast. Now it is frustratingly slow.

When I look at the task manager, it shows my disk activity at a constant 100%, even when there is only about .5 MB/s of activity going on. The fans are constantly running full speed, and, as an example of how slow it is going, loading a game of League of Legends takes about 3 minutes whereas when I bought it, I would be first to load in, usually in about 15-20 seconds.

Skype seems to be suspicious, as when I have it installed, the disk activity is at a constant 100%. On startup, my Avira Antivirus Free also seems to be a culprit, reaching 4-5 Mb/s (relatively a lot compared to everything else in the task manager, I don't know a whole lot about computers so I'm not sure whether or not this is a high activity).

Does anyone have any suggestions or useful tips on this? I have already done a full disk scan with my antivirus and no viruses were found. My friend suggested that maybe the hard drive was going bad, but I only bought it less than a year ago, and if that is the case then I'd have to send it in to Lenovo which isn't ideal since I need it for college.

Thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to respond. I have a very busy day tomorrow, so if I don't reply tomorrow then I will over the weekend.

EDIT: More info, the Read/Write speed in the Performance tab of Task Manager is, 0/300 Kb/s on average, idling. And this is still 100% activity.

 

[Emerald]

have you checked the HDD for Errors?

 

[KyleRD]

have you checked the HDD for Errors?

Thank you for your reply,

I honestly don't even know how to do that. If you have tips on that, please share them. I'm going to sleep now so I will look it up on Google later if not.

 

[Emerald]

open Explorer, right click on the C: drive and choose Properties.

choose the Tools tab and click on "Check now..." under Error checking area

 

[KyleRD]

open Explorer, right click on the C: drive and choose Properties.

choose the Tools tab and click on "Check now..." under Error checking area

Did that, and after about 2 minutes it said "Drive Repaired", I looked at the details but don't really understand any of it... However, disk activity is down and Read/Write speeds have gone up to about 500 Kb/s / 500 Kb/s and activity was only at 31%... so I'm taking this as a good sign! I will keep you updated in case it still acts up.

Thank you so much so far!

 

[DigitalMooney]

I have solved this problem, see my post here:

http/answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-hardware/how-to-fix-100-disk-usage-in-windows-10/7c5c979b-0ed0-4855-b9b8-05b9499533e2?tm=1439732422386

I hope this helps you all.

In case people do not want to click on the link, here is the solution:

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.

 

[Lovish Garg]

DigitalMooney's solution worked. Just click the microsoft's link for detailed instructions.