Disk active time at 100, then PC freezes

Question

Disk active time at 100, then PC freezes

Anonymous

Hi,

I've started having problems with gaming recently. When I start any game (CS:GO, Valorant, Minecraft, PUBG or anything else) my disk active time (in task manager) goes up to 100% (though there was 1 instance where it only went up to 50% when playing CS:GO for some reason) and after that the PC freezes to the point where I can't do anything but power cycle it.

As you can imagine, a gamer's worst fear is not being able to play games, so, being myself, I went on to search for what is causing this problem and how to solve it. I came across tons of different websites, with loads of all sorts of posts that provided many solutions, of which, however, none worked.

PC Specs

MB ASUS PRIME A320M-K

CPU R3 2200G

GPU GTX 1050Ti

RAM 16GB G.Skill Ripjaws (2x8GB)

SSD Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500G

HDD Seagate 1TB

PSU Cooler Master MWE 450 Bronze

I haven't had a problem like this until just a few days ago. More detailed explanation:

When I start my PC I can use anything on any disk and everything works properly, no crashes, no stutters, it works like it's supposed to.
When I start any game located on either my SSD or HDD, after some time the disk active time (located in task manager) spikes to 100%, after some time the PC freezes completely.

Notes:

This often happens when loading new textures, for example:
In PUBG, when opening inventory (tab) to pick up items, some icons appear invisible;
In CS:GO, after loading into a game, some skin textures seem to not load as well.
I also moved games from my SSD to HDD and then tried playing, but unfortunately that didn't help at all. To add to this, when the game that I started from the HDD freezes along with my entire PC, task manager displays 100% disk active time on my SSD and 0% on my HDD, so I'd probably guess that it's some system drive process that's causing it, however, I'm not an expert, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
Resource monitor shows no abnormal disk usage, however, when this happens, both it and task manager display 0KB/s read/write, 0ms response time and 0 disk transfer rate.
I'm pretty sure it isn't my HDD or SSD, as I've performed all sorts of tests, ranging from chkdsk/sfc to literally moving 1-100GB files back and forth, nothing happened.
I also ran CrystalDiskInfo and saw no abnormalities (at least from what I could understand and read on forums).
I downloaded Samsung Magician, ran multiple diagnostic tests (short/full scan, short/extended SMART) and everything came back as perfect.
I recently upgraded my RAM from an 8GB stick to a 2x8GB kit of G.Skill Ripjaws, but that is unrelated to the problem, as I got my old 1x8 stick back and the issue still persisted.
I have checked ALL the connections inside the case, everything is where it's supposed to be.
Running Windows 10 Home edition, version 21H1.
Weirdest of all, this issue started with PUBG. I started it and played some games, then was the first time my PC gave up. After that I wanted to make sure it was just PUBG crashing my PC and not other games, so I launched CS:GO along with Far Cry 5 and Far Cry 4 at the same time, all of them being installed on the SSD. I didn't expect that not to crash, however there I was questioning my life choices with 3 games open at once and my PC running just fine (a little laggy at most). After that, this evening I wanted to play a game of CS:GO, so I started it up and went into an MM game. First few rounds were just fine, but after that I noticed that some weapon skins became blank and my own weapon/footstep sounds disappeared. Then the game froze and I had to restart my PC. After that, trying to rejoin the match would crash my PC instantly. Then, when the match had ended I loaded up a private bot match, and, to my surprise, it worked flawlessly. I had no issues starting a casual/deathmatch mode after that too.

Today I tried to play CS:GO again, and, surprisingly, it worked just fine, managed to squeeze in 2 games (~2 hours). After that, however, I tried playing PUBG, but it instantly got my disk active time to 100 and my PC froze right after that. Do mind that it doesn't start working until you power cycle it.

At this point I have no idea on where to look and what to try, because it looks like I've tried everything besides fully reinstalling windows (I have tried reinstalling drivers (GPU/SSD/any other ones you might think of) but to no avail). While I don't really want to reinstall windows, as getting everything back would be a hassle, if there is no other solution I'm up for it.

If any screenshots or additional information are required, please let me know and I'll provide them as soon as I can.

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.

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6 answers

Answer 1

From what I read it might be possible that the controller of your ssd is failing, since you have a Samsung you can try and see if there is a firmware update using Samsung Magician that might resolve it. If you haven't tried it, it might be worth reinstalling windows. Also what you can try is installing windows on a other drive maybe use the hdd for that or if you have some other drive laying around use that. Then boot in windows on the new drive, install a game and launch it. If the game launces and you can play for a while without problems than the problem lays most likely with your ssd.

Answer 2

Hello xBlueElixir, welcome to the Microsoft community, I'll be happy to help you today;

I understand that you are having problems with the high consumption of the disc in games;

Initially I recommend that you follow the instructions below;

Do a clean install of the NVIDIA drivers;

Download and run the driver package:https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.a...

Follow the onscreen instructions until you get the Installation Options window;

Select the Custom (Advanced) box and press Next;

On the next screen, you can choose the components to install (all should be checked by default, and if you're not sure, leave them as such).=;

In the Select driver component table, check the Perform a clean installation box and click Next;

restart the pc;

Check for new updates on Windows Update:

1: Open the Windows 10 "Start" menu and select the "Settings" item.

2: then select the "Update and Security" option.

3: in the "Windows Update" section, click "Check for updates".

4: If there are no updates, the message "You are up to date" will be displayed.

5: if there is any pending system update, the message "Features update for Windows 10 ..." will be displayed, then click on the "Download and install" item to start the system update.

6: wait for the update download to finish and restart the PC, or schedule a restart to be able to finish the procedure.

Make a clean boot:

Clean boot serves to determine whether a background program is interfering with the system or optimizing system loading.

Press the Windows + R keys, type msconfig and click OK;
In the System Configuration window, click on the services tab;
At the bottom of the screen, check the Hide all Microsoft services box and click Disable all;
Now click on the Programs Startup tab and on Open Task Manager;
When loading the task manager, click on the start tab and disable all non-Microsoft programs (right-click on the program and choose disable), close the Task Manager and click OK on system configuration and restart computer if requested.

NOTE: This procedure disables all third party services and programs. You can later, if the problem is solved in this way, selectively enable the programs and services that will start with Windows, instead of keeping all disabled. If the problem returns after activating the startup of a specific service or program, the problem is exactly in the startup of this software and it is recommended to remove it.

Run System File Checker;

Press the Windows + X keys, select Command Prompt (Admin), copy and paste the commands below and press enter after each command.

Sfc /ScanNow

Dism /Online /Cleanup-image /RestoreHealth

Wait for the process to finish and restart the pc;

Test it in games and check the behavior;

I hope I helped, even more!

Answer 3

Hi again,

thanks for trying to help. I tried everything provided in the video, however it did not change a single thing. I'll repeat once again - my disk usage is very low when doing literally anything (<10%), but when I launch a game (for example PUBG) it instantly goes up to 100% and freezes the entire PC. This is not just my drive being slow, it is quite literally crashing my PC. That happens nearly every time I try to launch some game, one day more than another.

You might've got the situation a bit wrong, as my SSD can move files as big as 50GB without reaching 100% active time at over 2GB/s. The crashes/freezes only happen when playing games. It might be the GPU, it might be the PSU, it might be anything really and I don't know where to start.

Perhaps there is some other magic way to knock some sense into my PC?

Answer 4

Dear xBlueElixir,I understand that clean installing the NVIDIA drivers and the system file checker did not fix the issue;

In this case, I recommend that you follow the instructions provided in the video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Enh3gPc3HVs

After performing the steps in the video, check if the problem is fixed;

Hope I helped, see you soon!

Answer 5

Hi, thanks for your reply.

I reinstalled the NVIDIA driver from the link you provided, while also following the clean boot steps. I'm afraid this hasn't helped.

The powershell commands reported that everything is just fine.

Again, my disk usage is not simply at 100%. When it reaches 100%, my entire system freezes - I can't do anything with the pc except kill it and boot again. I only see this when playing games; transferring files works just fine (tested with 50GB files, also moved games around from one disk to another, everything went perfectly).

There's also the fact that PUBG is installed on my hard drive and CS:GO is installed on my SSD. It doesn't matter which game I try to run, whether on the SSD or HDD, the SSD (system disk) usage goes up to 100% while the HDD drops to 0%. Also, the transfer rate and speed all drop to 0KB/s.

Is there anything else I could try and do?

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Disk active time at 100, then PC freezes

6 answers