FIX: 100% Disk Usage Windows 10 Task Manager

Windows Task Manager is a beneficial tool that gives us performance insights. Sometimes Windows 10 Task manager shows 100% Disk usage. When this happens, your system slows down, and it is almost impossible to use. Moreover, 100% Disk Usage puts pressure on your hard disk and might cause severe damage.

100% Disk Usage on Windows 10

Thankfully, the problem can be resolved by following a series of troubleshooting steps.

1. Update Device Drivers

It is quite likely that a faulty device driver might be causing the problem. So the best thing to do is update to update the device driver. Typically driver updates for Windows 10 are automatically delivered and installed. However, in some cases, the rollout takes time, and you might have to update or reinstall the driver manually. Follow the steps below to update device drivers on Windows 10 manually.

1. Open Device Manager.
2. Select Disk Drives and click on the arrow to see devices under it.
3. Right-click the drive that Windows 10 is installed on.

3. Now click on the Update Driver option.

4. Select Search automatically for updated driver software.
5. Select Update Driver.
6. If Windows is not able to find a new driver, then you can head over to the manufacturers’ website and check for an update.
7. Restart your system, Open Task Manager, and check the Disk column in the Processes tab. If it is not showing 100%, then you have fixed the issue. If not, then proceed to the next step.

2. Disable Superfetch

Superfetch is a Windows feature that analyzes RAM usage patterns in the background and is responsible for preloading “frequently used” apps into the RAM. The feature is designed to make launching apps faster. However, Superfetch is known to cause disk performance issues on Windows 10. The best way to find out is by disabling SuperFetch. Here’s how you can stop SuperFetch,

1. Press Windows Key and X simultaneously and click on Command Prompt (Admin).
2. Click Yes on the User Account Control prompt.
3. Type the following in the command prompt, and hit Enter.

net.exe stop superfetch

4. If the command above fails, try this one.

net.exe stop sysmain.

5. Once again, head over to Task Manager and check the Disk column. If it is not showing 100%, then you have fixed the issue; if not, then proceed to the next solution.

3. Run a Disk Check (CHKDSK)

1. Open Command Prompt with admin rights.
2. Click Yes on the User Account Control prompt
3. Type the following command in the command prompt,

chkdsk.exe /f /r

4. Hit Enter and Y to confirm the changes.
5. Restart your computer. Please note that your PC will take an unusually long time to restart due to the Disk Check.
6. Open Task Manager and check the Disk column for disk usage.

4. Reset Virtual Memory

Virtual memory is referred to as a combination of RAM and a portion of hard disk space. Typically, data is offloaded to Virtual Memory when there isn’t enough RAM to perform a task. The data is moved temporarily to the HDD and is sent back to RAM when required. Follow these steps to Reset Virtual Memory,

1. Open Run by typing Windows+R keyboard shortcut.
2. Type sysdm.cpl in Run.
3. Open the Advanced tab and click Settings under the Performance menu.

3. Go to the Advanced tab in the Performance Options menu.

4. Click on Change in the Virtual memory section.

5. Ensure Automatically manage paging file size for all drives is unticked.
6. Click on C: or any other drive on which you have installed Windows.
7. Now you need to enter an Initial Size and Maximum Size for the virtual memory. As far as Initial Size is concerned, set your preferred value. If you are unsure, then enter the number mentioned as Recommended. Maximum Size should not exceed 1.5 times as that of physical RAM. For instance, if your system runs on 4GB RAM, then the Maximum size should not exceed 6.1GB.
8. Click on Ok and apply the changes.
9. Press Windows+R.
10. Type temp, and press Enter.
11. Select all the files and press Shift+Delete.

After following the above steps, head over to Task Manager and check the Disk column, if it is not showing 100%, then you have fixed the issue, if not then proceed to the next step.

5. Repair StorAHCI.sys driver

It is relatively common for some Advanced Host Controller interface PCI-Express models to cause issues while running with StorAHCI.sys driver. In other words, StorAHCI.sys driver issue can potentially cause Windows 10 100% disk usage issue. Follow these steps to Repair StorAHCI.sys driver.

1. Open Device Manager.
2. Click on the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers.

3. Double click Standard SATA AHCI Controller.

4. Go to Driver Tab> Driver Detail.
5. If you are running the AHCI driver, then the storahci.sys path of the system32 folder will be visible. This is to check whether or not you are running the AHCI driver. If you are, proceed to the next step. If you aren’t, you will not be able to use this fix.
6. On this same window, go to the Details tab.
7. Select Device Instance Path from the dropdown menu.

8. 8. Copy the path starting from “VEN.”
   9. Open Start Menu, type regedit, and press Enter to run Registry Editor.
   10. Go to the following key.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Enum\PCI\ <AHCI Controller>\<Unique Nubmer>\Device Parameters\Interrupt Management\MessageSignaledInterruptProperties

1. 11. Replace <AHCI Controller>, <Unique Number> with the path copied in the previous step.

12. Open the MSISupported key and change Value data to 0.
13. Click on Ok to apply changes.

Conclusion

We hope the above steps have helped resolve the 100% Disk Usage issue on Windows. We advise you to use the Windows Task Manager whenever your system becomes sluggish. This way you will understand the issue and troubleshoot it via various methods.

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Mahit Huilgol

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