I’ve written several posts on fixing various issues that Windows 10 users encounter on their laptops and this article is yet another detailed post about how to fix 100% disk usage on Windows 10.
It looks like this problem has become more common nowadays as I’ve been asked several times in the recent past.
This issue occurs when your laptop running on Windows 10 start to utilize more resources and slows the laptop down.
It freezes all other activities on your laptop until the 100% usage comes down. For example, if Disk usage is 100%, you’ll not be able to start any program such as Microsoft Word or Excel.
It is manageable until it happens once a while, but when it starts to happen often, it becomes very irritating because it interrupts the execution of other programs on the laptop.
So if you see your laptop slows down or notice a delay in the opening of any program, you can check if your Windows 10 laptop is using a 100% disk.
What causes a 100% disk usage on Windows 10
This program was very very rare until a few years back but it has become common nowadays.
It is more commonly seen with HP & Dell laptops and at times becomes very problematic when you’ve to urgently do some task and laptop usage a 100% disk.
This problem mainly occurs due to the over-utilization of drives that slow down the operating system of Windows 10 laptops and eventually freezes the laptop.
In that case, you aren’t able to run any program until the disk usage is slightly relaxed.
In some cases, the 100% disk utilization occurs for a few minutes and the laptop returns to normal operation while for some other users, it becomes permanent which can not be avoided and has to be fixed.
In this post, I’ll share quite a few methods to easily fix a 100% disk usage problem on Windows 10.
I advise you to go through the whole article to check all the methods so that in case one method doesn’t work, one can try another one.
This error is noticed with both Hard Disk Drives as well as Solid State Drives which are commonly known as HDD and SSD respectively.
How to check if your Windows 10 laptop using 100% disk
When your Windows 10 laptop slows down, you can check if your laptop disk utilization is 100%. Here is how to check.
Step:1– Press Alt+Ctrl+Del.
Step:2– It will show you the blue screen with options as depicted in the below image. Click “Task Manager”
Step:3– Go to the “Processes” Tab and you’ll see 100% Disk if your PC is on a 100% Disk usage.
If you see 100% disk usage, you need to fix this problem else the performance of your Windows laptop will be very bad.
How to fix a 100% disk usage on Windows 10
If you are trying to find out the ways to fix 100% disk usage on Windows 10, we’ve worked out a few fixes that can help you resolve this problem easily.
Try these methods and hopefully, you’ll be able to fix the 100% disk usage problem on Windows 10 laptops.
Restart Your PC
You probably have noticed that many times, restarting your PC resolves the issue. So the first thing you should do is to restart the Windows 10 laptop.
Restarting the laptop refreshes the machine and relaunches the processes and it eventually resolves almost all types of errors.
It is suggested that you should “Restart” the computer instead of “Shut Down” & starting again.
The “Restart” option will start the PC in a fresh mode and fix the problem as oppose to Shut Down which maintains the state and may not fix the issue.
Reset Virtual Memory
Virtual memory could be the potential cause of a 100% disk usage issue on Windows 10 and resetting it can resolve the problem.
Virtual memory is a part of the physical disk on your PC. It’s actually a combination of RAM and part of the PC’s hard drives.
When RAM on your PC is not enough to perform a certain task, the hard drive (HDD) of the PC is used to support the execution of the task as it is a part of Virtual memory.
The part of the data is temporarily moved to HDD and returned back to RAM when needed.
So when there isn’t enough memory to store data, a 100% disk usage issue is encounter. Don’t worry, I’ll show you how to reset virtual memory.
Follow these guidelines!
Step:1– Go to Control Panel> System and Security > System or simply press “Windows Key“+ Pause/Break that will take you to “System“.
Step:2– Go to “Advanced System Settings“
(Note: Alternatively, you can type “Advance System Settings” in the Windows search bar which will take you to the Advanced System Settings directly which is the next step!)
Step:3– Go to the “Advanced” tab and click “Settings” under the “Performance” section
Step:4– Go to the “Advanced” tab again and click “Change” from the “Virtual Memory” section.
It will further open the “Virtual Memory” tab with “Automatically manage paging file size for all drives” ticked by default.
Step:5– Select “Windows C:” and then select “Custom Size“
Step:6 – Now you’ll have to enter values for the two files “Initial size (MB)” & “Maximum size (MB)“. The “Initial size” value could be vary depending on your PC.
If you are clueless as to what number you must enter, simply enter the value that is recommended just below under “Total paging file size for all drives“
However “Maximum size (MB)” value can be known by multiplying RAM with factor 1.5. For example, if your computer has 6 GB RAM, the Maximum size value can be 1.5 x 6144MB = 9216.
Step:7– Click “Set” and then “Ok“. It is done!
Now, we need to remove the temporary files.
Press “Windows” + “R” and type “Temp“. Select all the files with “CTRL+A” and delete them. Reset the computer and check if the problem is solved.
Update Windows
Sometimes Windows’ latest updates can improve the overall performance of the computer and fix a 100% disk usage issue because the company keeps watching on the common error that people encounter often.
You can click the “Check for update” button to see if there are any latest updates that you install.
Here is how to go about this fix.
Step:1– Type “Settings” on Windows Search.
Step:2– Go to “Windows Update“
Step:3– Install the updates.
Check Disk Performance
A 100% disk usage problem on Windows 10 could be caused due to physical problems with your hard disk and running a disk check can fix this problem.
Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a technical person in order to do that. I’ll show step by step how to do it.
Here is it.
Step:1– Type “Command Prompt” in Windows Search and run it as administrator.
Step:2– You will be asked if you want to run the command prompt as an administrator. Choose “Yes”.
Step:3– Type “chkdsk.exe /f /r” and press “Enter“. You’ll be asked to type Y/N for Yes or No depending on your decision to start the disk check process right away or not.
Step:4– Type “Y” and it will start the process next time whenever the computer is started. Close all the applications and the process will start as soon as the computer is started.
The computer may take several minutes to complete the process. Hence, you should try this method when you could leave the computer for some time.
Step:5– After the process is completed, check if the issue is resolved.
Disable Windows Search
The other possible reason that could resolve a 100% disk usage problem on Windows computers can be fixed by disabling Windows Search.
Sometimes a bug with the windows search loop keeps the hard disk busy continuously which results in 100% utilization of the disk that eventually slows down the computer.
Therefore disabling windows search can fix this problem. Here is how to do it.
Step:1– Press Windows + R to initial the “Run” command prompt.
Step:2– Type “Services.msc” and hit Enter or press “Ok“. It will take you to Windows services.
Step:3– You’ll see all the services running on your Windows machine. Some of them are enabled by default while some of them are not. Scroll down to find “Windows Services”
Step:4- Double click “Windows services” and from the “General” tab, choose “Disable” as Startup type.
Step:5- Reboot the computer and check if a 100% disk usage on Windows 10 problem is fixed! If it doesn’t fix the problem move on to our next fix!
Disable Service host Superfetch/Sysmain
Service host Superfetch is one of several processes that run in the background and could be the potential cause of a 100% disk utilization on your Windows computer.
If your Windows 10 is updated for October 2018 update, the Superfetch must have been replaced by Sysmain.
Although the main task of Service host Superfetch is to load the program more efficiently by minimizing boot time that eventually increases the overall performance of the computer.
Disable Service host Superfetch to fix this issue. Follow these steps:
Step:1– Type “Command Prompt” and run the app as administrator.
Step:2– Type “net.exe stop sysmain” and press enter. It will stop Sysmain services. You need to type “net.exe stop superfetch” if you haven’t updated for October 2018 Windows 10 update.
Step:3– Once this service is stopped, you can check if the problem is fixed.
This method will disable Service host Superfetch temporarily and if you want to disable it permanently, do it from “Windows Services”. Follow these steps (same steps as disabling Windows Search):
Step:1– Press Windows + R to initial the “Run” command prompt.
Step:2– Type “Services.msc” and hit Enter or press “Ok“. It will take you to Windows services.
Step:3– Find the “Superfetch” service.
Step:4– Double click the service and choose “Disable” from Startup type:
Step:5– Click “Ok” and it will permanently disable Service host superfetch!
Use High-Performance Power Plan
This is yet another method to fix this issue but in that case, your computer may use more power and your laptop can consume more battery.
Although the modern day’s laptop has a high-performance processor that offset the battery problem.
Here are the steps.
Step:1– Press Windows + X and choose “Power Options“
Step:2– After you follow step:1, it will option power options. Click “Additional power settings“
Step:3– Click “Create a power plan“
Step:4– Select “High performance” while creating a power plan and hit next. Enter the plan name and follow on-screen instructions and you’ll be done. It will reduce disk usage to 9-10%!
Change Skype settings
The other method that worked for us is changing skype settings. The changes I’m going to suggest for this application will have a positive effect on disk usage.
Before making the changes, make sure the application is not running. You see that by checking the system tray or through Task Manager.
If you see the application is running, right-click the application icon on the system tray and quit it.
Here are the skype settings.
Step:1– Press Windows + R
Step:2– Type “C:\Program Files (x86)\Skype\Phone\
Step:3– Search for Skype.exe file. Right-click it and go to Properties.
Step:4– Go to Security Tab and hit “Edit” and select ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES
Step:5– Tick the checkbox in front of “Write” under the “Allow” column.