Disk at 100% when playing games, computer failure

[smochee]

When I play games such as Total War Warhammer, Planetside 2, Red Orchestra, Assassin's Creed Unity, etc, disk reads 100% usage and my computer fails and freezes pretty quickly after starting up the game (10~30 min)
I've recently...
- upgraded from Windows 8.1 to 10
- disabled superfetch, windows search, and some other stuff on regedit in an attempt to reduce disk usage
- upgraded from radeon HD (4000s) to radeon RX 480 8G
I'm thinking of installing a SSD and migrating my OS to the SSD and keeping everything else on my HDD to solve that problem. Good idea?

[cosmic_cream]

How much RAM does your system have? It sounds like the page file (virtual memory) is getting thrashed.

I put in my first SSD a couple months ago and it is so much faster. Windows boots in seconds compared to minutes. It won't solve your problem though, it'll just make it less obvious. Your disk reads will be faster but if I'm right about the page file they'll still be stuck at 100%.

[Seven7]

good idea:
1 backup most important data, game saves, bookmarks, etc.
2 full erase hdd with victoria for dos (magic boot disk 2.0 \ bootable usb with dos)
3 full scan hdd with victoria for dos - if there present surface errors - buy new WD Black \ HGST 7200 rpm hdd
4 on other pc make bootable usb with latest W10
5 install W10, drivers, updates, software, steam
6 tune up settings, defragment
7 install games
optional: buy an samsung 250 SSD and start from step 5

[smochee]

Originally posted by cosmic_cream:

How much RAM does your system have? It sounds like the page file (virtual memory) is getting thrashed.

I put in my first SSD a couple months ago and it is so much faster. Windows boots in seconds compared to minutes. It won't solve your problem though, it'll just make it less obvious. Your disk reads will be faster but if I'm right about the page file they'll still be stuck at 100%.

i have 8gigs RAM, and I've increased the pagefile size, but that doesn't seem to have solved my problem.

[[☥] - CJ -]

Have you checked to see in resource manager what is using so much disk usage?

And as you are now on Win10
Give Shutup10 a try, that may help.

Another thing is, generally when updating to Win10 reinstalling drivers is a general rule

Ethernet
Soundcard
GPU

Uninstalling those and manually installing the correct Win10 drivers would be a start.

The other thing is, you only have 8GB RAM, its a general rule when having a 6GB-8GB VRAM GPU to double your Physical RAM for a buffer. Though its doubtful thats the cause.

If you do move to an SSD, do a Fresh install, otherwise your issues MAY transfer to it.

Also, have you tried turning off Windows Defenders realtime scanner and other options? it can be a pain.

All that aside, its honestly better to do a clean install after Win10 has been registered.

[martinmartyzzz]

You should also check event viewer System log and see if your HDD is having problems. Then, regardless of what you find, junk it and go all SSD. I'd also be for adding more RAM to reduce your virtual memory usage in general, if budget permits. If you need any more help spending money, just let us know. We're here for you.

[smochee]

Follow up to thread because I was recently msg'd about this issue 2 years after the fact.

I cloned my HDD onto an SSD. The SSD holds the operating system while everything else goes into the HDD. What actually happened in my case was I wiped my OS while trying to clone it so I had to get another key.

My computer freezing while playing games was another problem, which had to do with an inadequate heatsink and fan cooling a CPU that would go up to 90*C.

[gesundheit]

One thing to also watch for is when you upgrade or update Windows it leaves the old Windows build on your disk.

My Windows 10 recently did an update and left 33Gb old Windows data on my 128Gb SSD (windows.old)
I'm getting the "less than 25%" warning after startup for the SSD right now.
I'll leave these old unused Windows files for now as I wait to see if the new update works w/o problems.

In a week or two I'll run disk cleaner and select "clean system files" and check the "Previous Windows Install" box to free up that 33Gb.

[UTFapolloMarine]

try one thing
this will disable all usage on all drives and drivers to enable gaming mode if this wont help that sounds like viruses loading up man or just to many processes via task manager

https://www.razer.com/cortex/boost