Tutorial: Disk at 100% in Windows 10? See how to solve

O Windows 10 it has its qualities, but it hardly has unanimous preference. For us, the best definition for it is “bittersweet“, especially for the annoying little details. Among them, a stranger bugs that leaves the disk running at 100% for long periods of time. The strangest thing is that this happens for different reasons, depending on the machine, requiring particular solutions. We received a Dell Inspiron 5000 for testing (full review on the way!) and we ran into this problem again. We managed to solve this inconvenience and we explain below how to do the same with your PC by four different ways.

Solution 1: Disable Superfetch in Windows 10

O SuperFetch, present since the Windows Vista, is (or should be) a service to make the machine smarter. Basically, it detects the most accessed programs and leaves them stored in memory. In theory, this would take place using processor idle time, not interfering with everyday tasks. But especially in Windows 10, it can leave the processor at 100% for a long time. Logically this can be solved by disabling the service in question.

Step 1. In the start menu, type “services.msc” (without quotes) and press Enter:

Step 2. A window listing all Windows services will open. find the service SuperFetch and double click:

Step 3. In the window that opens, click on “Stop” (1) and then disable it from startup (2) by clicking Disabled:

Solution 2: Disable Windows Search

O Windows Search is a service that indexes the information so that it can be found more quickly later on. Emails, images, documents and other file types are organized using (in theory) processor idle time. As well as the SuperFetch, this functionality can severely impact the performance of the Windows 10, and the procedure to disable it is similar to the first solution.

Step 1. In the start menu type “services.msc” (without quotes) and hit Enter:

Step 2. Now, in the list of services, find the Windows Search and double click. Since the items are listed in alphabetical order, just scroll to the bottom of the window:

Step 3. In the window that opens, click on “Stop” (1) and then disable it from boot (2):

Solution 3: Reallocate virtual memory

A virtual memory (known as swap No. Linux) is a space in the hard drive ou SSD used as “reserve RAM memory”. Basically, when the RAM memory “ends up”, Windows starts using the disk itself. As a storage device, virtual memory is extremely slower than RAM memory, but it is essential for the proper functioning of the system. In Windows 10, however, it comes with a frequent problem: misallocation by the system.

If it is too big, it becomes wasted space. If it's too small, well, the machine freezes, barely loading pages in the browser. Solving this is simple: just reallocate the available space. (https://whatthefab.com/)

Step 1. In the start menu, type “system” (without the quotes) and hit Enter:

Step 2. On the system screen, click “Advanced System Settings”, located in the column on the left:

Step 3. Inside the tab "Advanced", click in "Settings…” under the section “Performance"

Step 4. Then in the tab “Advanced", click in "Alter” in the section “Virtual memory"

Step 5. Now, in the next window, uncheck the option “Automatically manage paging file size of all drives" (1). Then click on “custom size” (2) and choose the maximum virtual memory size (3):

Which size to choose? A good rule is multiply the amount of available RAM by 1,5. That is, if you have 4GB, the paging file might be 6GB.

Solution 4: Disable scheduled maintenance

Scheduled at a specific time, automatic maintenance of the Windows 10 may occur at inconvenient times. Disabling this feature by making use of less resource-hungry software (like CCleaner) may resolve this issue. See how to do this.

Step 1. Enter the Control Panel and then click on “System and security"

Step 2. Now click on “security and maintenance"

Step 3. Go to "Change Security and Maintenance Settings“ on the left side and turn off automatic maintenance.

Other solutions

The four solutions above helped us every time we needed it. But, searching Google, we found other possible problems, but we didn't get to test them: disable printer service (spooling) to reset antivirus. If the above four solutions don't work, it's a good idea to try these two options.

Ever faced the problem of the disk working at 100%? Did the above solutions work? Tell us in the comments!

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