Does full disk usage lead to the system freezing?
Does full disk usage lead to the system freezing?
Hello everyone!
Recently I've been having a weird issue where my disk would go to 100% usage for seemingly no reason and cause the entire system to be extremely slow or outright freeze. At this point, I've done everything I could think of short of reinstalling Windows. Specs below:
OS: Windows 10 Pro
CPU: Ryzen 5 7600X
RAM: G.SKILL Trident Z5 Black RGB 32GB(2x16GB) DDR5 PC5-48000 @6000Mhz
MB: ASROCK B650 PG LIGHTNING
GPU: Gigabyte RTX 4090 Gaming OC
PSU: MSI MPG Gold A850GF
Storage:
Samsung 980 500GB NVMe (PCIe 3.0)
Kingston Fury Renegade NVMe 2TB (PCIe 4.0)
Kingston A400 Sata SSD 240GB
WD Blue 7200RPM 1TB HDD
The issue here is with the Samsung NVMe which has been working flawlessly for a few years now, this is a rather new build and I moved the drive over from my old PC. I recently purchased the Samsung NVMe and moved around the SSD slots a bit. Initially, the Samsung disk was in the motherboard's PCIe 5.0 slot, but when installing the new one, I moved it to the PCIe 3.0 slot, the new SSD in the PCIe 4.0 slot, with the idea to leave the PCIe 5.0 slot empty for a potential future upgrade. The issue started somewhere around this time though I'm not certain if that was the case right after installing the new SSD.
Anyway, at first I thought it could be the PCIe 3.0 slot, so I moved the Samsung drive back to the PCIe 5.0 slot which it was using initially and was working without issues, but this didn't resolve anything. The issue will be mostly present when botting up the PC. Right after boot, the disk will stay at 100% usage without any valid reason. Checking the resource monitor, I'm seeing some processes reading/writing up to ~200MB/s, however, this SSD should support up to 3.5GB/s.
What I've tried so far:
Updated Windows.
Triple-checked that the SSD is seated properly.
Changed from PCIe 3.0 to 5.0 slot.
Used Windows 10 SFC and DISM.
Scanned entire PC for malware.
Disabled Link state power management.
Enabled performance mode and overprovisioning for the SSD..
Enabled TRIM.
Optimized disk via Windows.
Used CHKDSK.
Checked drive health via CrystalDiskInfo and Samsung Magician, both report good.
Tried to update Firmware, already at latest version.
Ran SMART test which reports no issues.
Chipset drivers are up to date.
Bios is updated.
Yesterday, I went to create an archive containing some Nvidia drivers that I had at ~800MB each with the idea of then copying it on the same disk to look at the transfer rate. This resulted in a ridiculously long amount of time and I ended up stopping the archive. Though even after I stopped the process, the disk would remain at 100% and my system would eventually freeze, requiring several manual reboots before it could boot normally.
The only thing I'm seeing that I'm not really familiar with is that the Samsung drive is using Host memory buffer, I'm not sure if this was the case before, first time I'm seeing this via Samsung Magician.
When performing a performance benchmark via Samsung Magician, I am seeing ridiculously low write speeds for the drive:
For comparison, these are the benchmarks for my new Kingston NVME, as well as the Kingston Sata SSD that I've had for a while:
Here are some more screenshots of all drives from CrystalDiskInfo:
So basically, I'm stumped. Any help on the issue is greatly appreciated!
Just completed another test and it seems the write speed is even more problematic than before:
If the SSD were failing, wouldn't that be flagged in the health status, and wouldn't the SMART test also point to problems?
Edit: Including export from SMART data as well:
Model Name, Samsung SSD 980 500GB
Serial Number, S64DNF0R532805X
Drive Type, NVMe
Result,Byte End,Byte Start,Description,Raw Data,Status
,0,0,Critical Warning,0,OK
,2,1,Temperature (K),310,OK
,3,3,Available Spare,100,OK
,4,4,Available Spare Threshold,10,OK
,5,5,Percentage Used,4,OK
,47,32,Data Units Read,34298125,OK
,63,48,Data Units Written,36032964,OK
,79,64,Host Read Commands,322552101,OK
,95,80,Host Write Commands,384896232,OK
,111,96,Controller Busy Time,1031,OK
,127,112,Power Cycles,883,OK
,143,128,Power On Hours,5601,OK
,159,144,Unsafe Shutdowns,45,OK
,175,160,Media Errors,14,OK
,191,176,Number of Error Information Log Entries,14,OK
,195,192,Warning Composite Temperature Time,0,OK
,199,196,Critical Composite Temperature Time,0,OK
,201,200,Temperature Sensor 1,310,OK
,203,202,Temperature Sensor 2,315,OK
,205,204,Temperature Sensor 3,0,OK
,207,206,Temperature Sensor 4,0,OK
,209,208,Temperature Sensor 5,0,OK
,211,210,Temperature Sensor 6,0,OK
,213,212,Temperature Sensor 7,0,OK
,215,214,Temperature Sensor 8,0,OK
Hi there! Below is the screenshot of disk management.
Regarding the Resource Monitor, there was no activity with the disk at that time, so I ran another benchmark using Samsung Magician. I included screenshots of Resource Monitor sorted by Total during both read and write tests, along with benchmark results indicating 52MB/s sequential write.
Edit: I just restarted the system and turned off performance mode, capturing another screenshot. At that moment, the disk was at 34%, which should accommodate 3GB/s read and 3.5GB/s write—this doesn’t align with the speeds shown earlier.
Edit 2: Additional screenshot taken while downloading a Windows update.
So oddly enough, I installed a Windows update which felt quite challenging given the previous slow write speeds. After restarting, another benchmark showed my write speed has improved to 2GB. I’m not entirely sure what happened. According to the review here: Samsung 980 M.2 NVMe SSD Review: Going DRAMless with V6 V-NAND (Updated) Samsung’s 980 is an affordable M.2 SSD that doesn’t include DRAM, yet it offers the brand’s quickest flash technology. I think I’m in the right ballpark. I’ll keep watching and let you know if any problems arise, but so far everything seems fine. Also, could someone clarify how many NVMe SSDs fit on my motherboard? https://pg.asrock.com/mb/AMD/B650%20PG%2.../index.asp This is listed under Storage specs: Storage CPU: - 1 x Blazing M.2 Socket (M2_1, Key M), supports type 2280 PCIe Gen5x4 (128 Gb/s) mode* - 1 x Hyper M.2 Socket (M2_2, Key M), supports type 2280 PCIe Gen4x4 (64 Gb/s) mode* Chipset: - 1 x M.2 Socket (M2_3, Key M), supports type 2280 PCIe Gen4x2 (32 Gb/s) mode* - 4 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s Connectors From what I understand, I should be able to use up to 3 NVMe SSDs, with the slowest reaching around 32GB/s?
Windows update was handling updates and creating system restore points.
During that period, any benchmarks would have resulted in much lower scores.
The screenshots showing drive activity during benchmarking are not helpful.
I was hoping to capture disk activity screenshots while the system was running at 100% utilization, so we could identify what was causing the high disk activity.
If you're running a disk benchmark, then the benchmark itself is likely causing the activity.
In one image you saw Chrome extensions showing a lot of disk activity—maybe consider uninstalling them.
Also, it might be a good idea to move the pagefile to a different drive than the OS drive.
Yes, but installing an update and making a restore point shouldn't make the system almost unresponsive. I couldn't recreate the problem during startup this time, which is why I shared screenshots while working. The performance issues were well under the SSD's capabilities.
For instance, after downloading, during the update process I only opened Chrome a little. It's unclear what triggered this and how the update fixed it.
Also, thanks for highlighting the page file—I'll consider moving it to another drive. Cheers!
It seems the issue has returned after the PC was idle for a while. Speed is now at 215MB/s. I moved the page file to the new NVMe as recommended. I attempted to capture a screenshot of the resource monitor after rebooting. The PC booted quickly and didn’t freeze, but the monitor still showed 16% usage, while the top processes weren’t even near 50MB. If the actual write speed is around 2GB/s, those processes shouldn’t reach that level. Any advice would be appreciated.
Today, I'm having trouble getting the PC to start. It took around 10 minutes to boot into Windows, and another 10 minutes to open Task Manager and Resource Monitor. I wasn't able to take a screenshot, so I had to snap photos with my phone. (Sorry for the low quality.) The system is constantly reading and writing kilobytes of data, and the disk is always at full capacity, which makes basic tasks like opening the start menu really difficult. Any suggestions?