Ok, what have we seen with this issue? Brand new Asus laptop with Win 10. Was perfectly snappy until client asked to have Office365 put on, then everything went to hell. So I killed off OneDrive (that seemed to be part of it), superFetch (same) and antivirus, all of which helped, but it's still not like it was. Does not use StorAHCI.sys driver so no issue there. Client very unhappy. Anybody else seen this?
100% Disk Usage with fresh win 10
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sapphirescales
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If it has a hard drive, you're up sh*t creek without a paddle. Windows 10 and hard drives just don't mix. It doesn't matter what you do, it will always be a slow piece of garbage. I don't care if it has an 8th gen i7 with 32GB of RAM, it will be slower than a Pentium 4 with Windows XP unless it has an SSD. Windows 10 just kills hard drives. Unless it's totally bare bones with NOTHING on it, and even then it's slow. You load anything on it and it's even worse.
GTP
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Yeah, often. Usually killing off the superfetch service does it but lately that hasn't been doing it either.
I've tried all the things you have without success.
Emsisoft doesn't make any difference to the performance so I leave it alone.
I've tried all the things you have without success.
Emsisoft doesn't make any difference to the performance so I leave it alone.
GTP
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A little dramatic, but an SSD does help.
I experience slowness on units even with SSD's.
(and before you launch, it happens on ANY brand of SSD)
sapphirescales
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The only time I experience slowness with SSD's is if I put one in some crappy A series APU laptop or something. NOTHING can help those things - and I used to think Celeron's were bad. Of course, software related issues can cause slowness too. But it takes quite a bit to gunk up a machine with an SSD.
timeshifter
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I hope the client is unhappy with Microsoft and not with you? All you did was install some software.
Archon Prime
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You didn't install Avast on there, did you? lol
carmen617
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Run the Windows Update Troubleshooter - I've seen it solve a few of these recently, and it's a quick thing to try.
cypress
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I disable both Superfetch and Windows Search under the Services and that pretty much solve the issue. Yes an SSD would fix that issue as well but not every client is going to go for it. As long as the processor is solid, i5 or such then you should be fine with disabling those services.
sapphirescales
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No, it doesn't matter what you do. Windows 10 has a problem with hard drives and Microsoft knows it. That's why they created "fast startup" that creates more problems than it solves. Take two identical systems with an i5 processor, at least 4GB of RAM, and a standard hard drive. Load one with a fresh copy of Windows 7 and another with a fresh copy of Windows 10 with fast startup turned off. Windows 10 will take 3x longer to start up than Windows 7, and the disk usage will hover around 100% for the first 5 minutes after startup at least.
If you turn on fast startup, it's only about 2x slower than the Windows 7 machine and disk usage will hover at 100% for only about 2 minutes after startup, but then you have to deal with all the problems that fast startup causes. Tweaking things like disabling Superfetch, uninstalling the Skype app, etc. will make things slightly better, but you'll never get close to the performance of the Windows 7 system no matter what you do. It really sucks. That's why I always install SSD's. The only hard drives I sell nowadays are desktop drives to be used as storage only drives on a desktop computer.
If a client insists on a hard drive, I tell them that's fine but it WILL be slow. The few that have insisted on the hard drive have brought it back a few days later demanding that I put the SSD in because they can't get any work done. I just had a client in this morning bring his system back that I'd installed a hard drive in. He was absolutely FURIOUS with himself for insisting on the hard drive. His exact words: "Sorry, but I'm just a cheap b*stard. I'll pay whatever it takes to get this system fast now." LOL.
I've installed Windows 10 on numerous laptops without SSDs. They were not slow and never got any complaints. I often see 100% disk usage that the OP mentioned when Windows updates are needed, malware, or some OS bug. I don't high disk usage with bad HDDs. High disk usage is the cause of slowness here. I always install barebones Windows with the latest version or update and service packs. CPU and disk usage should be low after a fresh install. I've seen changing power option to higher performance makes a difference for some slower computers.
cypress
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I agree that this is true. Especially with that amount of RAM and the AMD APU systems are even worse, nothing you can do there. But I have setup numerous Dell Inspiron desktops from the past year or so with the tweaks listed and a clean re-installation and haven't had issues. The systems have 6-8GB.
On the laptops yeah that is a different story especially with the 5400 RPM drives. But for some clients they gotta really go through the hassle before seeling the light and knowing there are better options out there like an SSD
Slaters Kustum Machines
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I have seen high disk usage/blue spinning circle caused by the Microsoft Office Upload Center. If they are not using it you could disable it: https://www.ghacks.net/2018/02/09/how-to-disable-the-microsoft-office-upload-center/ On the machine I was working on the problem it wasn't apparent in Task Manager, but I could see the issue with Process Explorer.
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sapphirescales
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Brand new desktop hard drives are a LOT faster than your average laptop hard drive. Speeds of 180MB/s aren't uncommon. Because of this, hard drives are usually okay in brand new desktops. The speed still isn't very good, but it's at least bearable. But your average laptop hard drive goes at 90MB/s at BEST so you're basically screwed.
Porthos
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Many/most desktops come with 7200 rpm drives. All I see in laptops are 5400 rpm.
I never install less than a 7200 rpm spinner when using spinners.
GTP
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IME, this problem of 100% cpu usage is not indicative of every computer.
I have clients who upgraded to Win 10 from day 1 - on AMD Semprons, Athlons, APU's, Turion's, Pentiums, Celerons, Core2 Duo, Core2 Quad, Centrino, AMD Phenom, and everything else in between, both 32bit and 64bit.
Probably 90% of them are still using the same old spinning HDD that the computer was built with, whether that was the 5400rpm or 7200rpm drive the unit came with.
Most are also using only 2~ 4 gb of ram as well. In a lot of cases that ram is 2 (or 4) x 512gb, 4 x 1gb modules, 2 x 2gb modules etc for desktop and 2 x 1gb or 2 x 2 gb or 1 single 4gb ram in laptops.
I've got clients running Win 10 on AMD E Series laptops with 2 gb ram and not complaining about speed.
In fact I have a client with an ASUS EeePC with a 500gb spinner, 1 gb ram and Atom CPU. It runs fine.
NOT ALL (if any) of these (older) systems are affected. The problem with 100% cpu usage seems to be on newer systems and laptops.
Again, probably 90% of these systems run perfectly ok and seem quite snappy when being used for their intended purpose.
I have clients who upgraded to Win 10 from day 1 - on AMD Semprons, Athlons, APU's, Turion's, Pentiums, Celerons, Core2 Duo, Core2 Quad, Centrino, AMD Phenom, and everything else in between, both 32bit and 64bit.
Probably 90% of them are still using the same old spinning HDD that the computer was built with, whether that was the 5400rpm or 7200rpm drive the unit came with.
Most are also using only 2~ 4 gb of ram as well. In a lot of cases that ram is 2 (or 4) x 512gb, 4 x 1gb modules, 2 x 2gb modules etc for desktop and 2 x 1gb or 2 x 2 gb or 1 single 4gb ram in laptops.
I've got clients running Win 10 on AMD E Series laptops with 2 gb ram and not complaining about speed.
In fact I have a client with an ASUS EeePC with a 500gb spinner, 1 gb ram and Atom CPU. It runs fine.
NOT ALL (if any) of these (older) systems are affected. The problem with 100% cpu usage seems to be on newer systems and laptops.
Again, probably 90% of these systems run perfectly ok and seem quite snappy when being used for their intended purpose.
carmen617
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And most of them run fine after they've been on for a while - whether it's 2 minutes or 5 minutes or 10 minutes, once whatever is starting up with the system finishes taking over all the resources, the computer generally is fine. Clearly there are more than one start up processes that can cause the issue, and clearly an SSD adds enough speed that the problem is masked. But whatever it is that's causing the problem should be fixable on any otherwise healthy system.
Computer Bloke
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Isn't the fix simply to put the machine to sleep after use instead of shutting it down?
That's certainly what we do, and what we advise our clients to do, and we're not seeing any of these problems.
That's certainly what we do, and what we advise our clients to do, and we're not seeing any of these problems.
GTP
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Yes, that is an option for some. Having the device wake with a simple press of the spacebar works great.
But many people here (where electricity costs are nudging 40 cent per KW) prefer not to give AGL et al anymore money than they need to.
Having older desktops running (even though in a low power state) can push up the power bill to unacceptable levels.
Of course newer computers are much more efficient but still consume that "electric fluid" with gusto!
