Solved 100% Disk Usage - Happening at specific times daily

drandersoninc

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Member
Messages
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I have an ASUS Vivotab running Windows 8. I am seeing that the service process hits 100% disk usage from roughly 4:58PM - 5:04PM daily. I've made sure that my antivirus is't downloading updates or running during that time, same with Windows Update, Live Update, etc. How can I find what specific process is running during that time that is killing the machine given I know when to watch for it?

Thanks!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 32x
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus Vivotab
    CPU
    Intel Atom Z2760 @ 1.8GHz (4CPUs)
    Memory
    2 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel Graphics Media Accelerator
    Sound Card
    Intel SST Audio Device
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Tablet
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Hard Drives
    64GB SSD + 64GBmicroSD
    Browser
    Chrome, IE, Firefox
    Antivirus
    Malwarebytes and SuperAntispyware
Welcome to the forums drandersoninc,give this a try,download process explorer and see who is kicking in at that time.A first guess is that windows are backing up in the backround,if you have not configured the feature otherwise.Please do fill in your system specifications,really helpfull for future references.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    W8 Pro 64bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home...made ®
    CPU
    Intel i7 2600k
    Motherboard
    GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3
    Memory
    Corsair Vengeance 4x4Gb 1600 Mhz
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS GTX 680 DirectCU II SLI
    Sound Card
    onboard
    Monitor(s) Displays
    LG Flatron W2240S PN
    Screen Resolution
    1920X1080
    Hard Drives
    SanDisk Ultra Plus SATA 3 128GB X2

    Western Digital Caviar Blue 2x1TB + WD Caviar Black 1TB
    PSU
    Corsair RM 850 X
    Case
    Chieftec Dragon
    Cooling
    Thermalright Macho HR-02
    Keyboard
    Ivation mechanical backlit
    Mouse
    MS Optical 6000
    Internet Speed
    24 Mbps
    Browser
    Chrome
    Antivirus
    ESET NOD32 8.0.312.0
You can also check "Task Scheduler" and see if there's something slated to run at that time. Could be some backup or disk defragmenter.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home made
    CPU
    AMD Ryzen7 2700x
    Motherboard
    Asus Prime x470 Pro
    Memory
    16GB Kingston 3600
    Graphics Card(s)
    Asus strix 570 OC 4gb
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 960 evo 250GB
    Silicon Power V70 240GB SSD
    WD 1 TB Blue
    WD 2 TB Blue
    Bunch of backup HDDs.
    PSU
    Sharkoon, Silent Storm 660W
    Case
    Raidmax
    Cooling
    CCM Nepton 140xl
    Internet Speed
    40/2 Mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    WD
You can also check "Task Scheduler" and see if there's something slated to run at that time. Could be some backup or disk defragmenter.

Hmmm.... Never used that before.

As soon as I opened it up I started getting messages that "Task xxx. The Task XML contains an unexpected node". xxx was such values as 'UserTask-Roam', 'KernelCeip Task', 'License Validation'. Not sure what that is about?

When I look at the task status window it shows blank, but could be related to the above. The window below it showing 'Active Tasks' has a number of tasks listed, some with 'Next Run Time' / 'Last Run Time'.

For 'Last Run Time' I see an entry that ran at 4:58PM yesterday, which would be right around the time I got the spike. It's tied to my SuperAntiSpyware - and because I didn't have it scheduled to run at that time AND I didn't see that process as the active process in Task Manager I didn't believe it to be the issue. To test this I'll shut down the spyware at that time and confirm the issue no longer exists. May take me a day or two with upcoming travel plans. Thanks for the tip!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 32x
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus Vivotab
    CPU
    Intel Atom Z2760 @ 1.8GHz (4CPUs)
    Memory
    2 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel Graphics Media Accelerator
    Sound Card
    Intel SST Audio Device
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Tablet
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Hard Drives
    64GB SSD + 64GBmicroSD
    Browser
    Chrome, IE, Firefox
    Antivirus
    Malwarebytes and SuperAntispyware
Welcome to the forums drandersoninc,give this a try,download process explorer and see who is kicking in at that time.A first guess is that windows are backing up in the backround,if you have not configured the feature otherwise.Please do fill in your system specifications,really helpfull for future references.

Thanks. Profile filled in. Thanks for the download link, I'll take a look at that if the spyware (see above) doesn't turn out to be the problem.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 32x
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus Vivotab
    CPU
    Intel Atom Z2760 @ 1.8GHz (4CPUs)
    Memory
    2 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel Graphics Media Accelerator
    Sound Card
    Intel SST Audio Device
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Tablet
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Hard Drives
    64GB SSD + 64GBmicroSD
    Browser
    Chrome, IE, Firefox
    Antivirus
    Malwarebytes and SuperAntispyware
Do a Search for "Defragment and Optimize your drives" to see if anything is scheduled to occur at that time of day.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win 8 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Custom
    CPU
    AMD FX-8350
    Motherboard
    Asus M5A99FX Pro R2.0
    Memory
    16 GB Viper 3 DDR3-2133
    Graphics Card(s)
    HIS Radeon HD 7770
    Sound Card
    Realtek HD
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Asus PA248Q
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1200
    Hard Drives
    128 GB 840 Pro Samsung SSD
    2 x 1TB Seagate Barracuda (Storage Space - Simple)
    PSU
    Antec 550
    Case
    Antec Sonata II
    Cooling
    CoolerMaster TPC 812
    Keyboard
    CM Storm Quickfire XT Brn - wired PS/2
    Mouse
    Roccat Lua - wired USB
    Internet Speed
    15
    Browser
    IE10
    Antivirus
    MS Defender
Well so far it seems that the change I made above did make a difference at that one time, but I am still getting random 100% pegs during the day. I'll look into that Process Viewer mentioned in this thread and see if that can tell me what the heck is going on in the 'System' process that pegs it, won't go into detail as to what it really is, and throttles the disk while doing it. I'm half tempted to disable the Windows 8 AntiVirus program as I have a suspicion that it is at least a partly guilty party. More to come....
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 32x
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus Vivotab
    CPU
    Intel Atom Z2760 @ 1.8GHz (4CPUs)
    Memory
    2 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel Graphics Media Accelerator
    Sound Card
    Intel SST Audio Device
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Tablet
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Hard Drives
    64GB SSD + 64GBmicroSD
    Browser
    Chrome, IE, Firefox
    Antivirus
    Malwarebytes and SuperAntispyware
I disabled / deactivated the Windows Defender Program. That was also not it as I still have random 100% disk usage

Question on Process Explorer: Task Manager shows "Disk Usage" which when pegged is bringing the PC to its knees. Process Explorer only shows CPU Usage, which often is fine in Task Manager during these events. I canot find a single process that suddenly appears during these events based solely on CPU Usage. How do I make a correlation between a Disk Usage Spike in TM to a process in Process Explorer?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 32x
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus Vivotab
    CPU
    Intel Atom Z2760 @ 1.8GHz (4CPUs)
    Memory
    2 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel Graphics Media Accelerator
    Sound Card
    Intel SST Audio Device
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Tablet
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Hard Drives
    64GB SSD + 64GBmicroSD
    Browser
    Chrome, IE, Firefox
    Antivirus
    Malwarebytes and SuperAntispyware
At the upper toolbar,select view and under refresh time check 10 seconds.Right click on description bar,select columns,under performance tab select start time,under process disk select reads and writes,could help you identify the culprit but you will have to check every now and then.The good thing is,you are not letting go,keep up.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    W8 Pro 64bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home...made ®
    CPU
    Intel i7 2600k
    Motherboard
    GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3
    Memory
    Corsair Vengeance 4x4Gb 1600 Mhz
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS GTX 680 DirectCU II SLI
    Sound Card
    onboard
    Monitor(s) Displays
    LG Flatron W2240S PN
    Screen Resolution
    1920X1080
    Hard Drives
    SanDisk Ultra Plus SATA 3 128GB X2

    Western Digital Caviar Blue 2x1TB + WD Caviar Black 1TB
    PSU
    Corsair RM 850 X
    Case
    Chieftec Dragon
    Cooling
    Thermalright Macho HR-02
    Keyboard
    Ivation mechanical backlit
    Mouse
    MS Optical 6000
    Internet Speed
    24 Mbps
    Browser
    Chrome
    Antivirus
    ESET NOD32 8.0.312.0
At the upper toolbar,select view and under refresh time check 10 seconds.Right click on description bar,select columns,under performance tab select start time,under process disk select reads and writes,could help you identify the culprit but you will have to check every now and then.The good thing is,you are not letting go,keep up.

Thanks for the above.

Based solely on start time (I initially missed the I/O column addition) I have seen a couple of processes consistent on the past 2-3 spikes. This is not always the case, but this may be one of the reasons. The process is 'SearchFilterHost.exe' and there is a corresponding SearchProtocolHost.exe. I'll start looking into this first and see if I can make a correlation - it will not allow me to kill the process, but perhaps I can change the indexing settings within windows...
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 32x
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus Vivotab
    CPU
    Intel Atom Z2760 @ 1.8GHz (4CPUs)
    Memory
    2 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel Graphics Media Accelerator
    Sound Card
    Intel SST Audio Device
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Tablet
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Hard Drives
    64GB SSD + 64GBmicroSD
    Browser
    Chrome, IE, Firefox
    Antivirus
    Malwarebytes and SuperAntispyware
So here's an interesting thing I have seen, and I'm marking this as solved for now. All the changes I made had varying degrees of impact but never fully resolved the issue. A week ago I upgraded Windows 8 to 8.1, and have not experienced a single instance of 100% disk usage. I cannot confirm fully that MS did some kind of fix in the upgrade, but for me its been positive in regards to performance.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 32x
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus Vivotab
    CPU
    Intel Atom Z2760 @ 1.8GHz (4CPUs)
    Memory
    2 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel Graphics Media Accelerator
    Sound Card
    Intel SST Audio Device
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Tablet
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Hard Drives
    64GB SSD + 64GBmicroSD
    Browser
    Chrome, IE, Firefox
    Antivirus
    Malwarebytes and SuperAntispyware
Glad you sorted it out,even in such a manner.Enjoy...!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    W8 Pro 64bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home...made ®
    CPU
    Intel i7 2600k
    Motherboard
    GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3
    Memory
    Corsair Vengeance 4x4Gb 1600 Mhz
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS GTX 680 DirectCU II SLI
    Sound Card
    onboard
    Monitor(s) Displays
    LG Flatron W2240S PN
    Screen Resolution
    1920X1080
    Hard Drives
    SanDisk Ultra Plus SATA 3 128GB X2

    Western Digital Caviar Blue 2x1TB + WD Caviar Black 1TB
    PSU
    Corsair RM 850 X
    Case
    Chieftec Dragon
    Cooling
    Thermalright Macho HR-02
    Keyboard
    Ivation mechanical backlit
    Mouse
    MS Optical 6000
    Internet Speed
    24 Mbps
    Browser
    Chrome
    Antivirus
    ESET NOD32 8.0.312.0
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