100% Disk Usage on Startup (Aspire/v5 571 Series) and (Aspire R15 N16P2)

My issue is quite profound and occurs on two ACER laptops (Aspire/v5 571 Series) and (Aspire R15 N16P2). I've had other non-ACER laptops and have never experienced this issue.

Both laptops are VERY VERY SLOW when first booted up - even before the first screen pops up on the monitor.

When I eventually can access the PC's, I login and start the Task Manager. The disk usage shows 100% and this state continues for about 10 minutes.

After this status changes, both laptops are fine - until I shut them down and boot them up again.

Does anyone know what is happening even before the display monitor comes to life when booting the ACER laptops?

(Thread was edited to add model name to the title)

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AnhEZ28

@Dennis_C can you post the screenshot of the task manager when the Disk is 100% usage. I think Windows 10 on the HDD tends to have 100% disk because of background services or automatic Windows defend scanning.
You can check this post for optimization: https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/612495/windows-10-11-optimization-guide-for-gaming/p1

ragsak28

Hi @Dennis_C

You can try to reset the BIOS to check if that makes any difference.

How do I reset my BIOS/UEFI to default settings?

Press and hold the power button for 10 seconds, or until your system shuts completely down.
Power on the system. Keep on tapping the F2 button again and again while booting to get into the BIOS.
Press F9 and then Enter to load the default configuration.
Press F10 and then Enter to save and exit.

Hope it will help you in some way.

ttttt

@Dennis_C

Are you still using mechanical HDD as the boot drive ?

Dennis_C

AnhEZ28 said:

@Dennis_C can you post the screenshot of the task manager when the Disk is 100% usage. I think Windows 10 on the HDD tends to have 100% disk because of background services or automatic Windows defend scanning.
You can check this post for optimization: https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/612495/windows-10-11-optimization-guide-for-gaming/p1

I have included two copies of Task Manager screenshots. In both cases the only tasks that I initiated after booting the system were Task Manager and the MS Snipping tool (that captured the screenshots. All the other apps were brought in automatically upon a system boot.

I have limited disk usage to a 50% in order to get work done. If take away that limit the disk usage would be 100%.

Since the issue arises before the LOGIN screen and the subsequent desktop screen appear, I'm not sure how a Task Manager screenshot will help, but here they are - as attachments.

(I have often wondered if it is Kaspersky Anti-virus software that is conducting a disk scan, so I will be uninstalling it to see what happens. I'm happy with using Kaspersky as my firewall and it does not exhibit any issues on other PC's that I have.)

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/t1/hr2jssgez3tv.jpg

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/8x/vldrgw41senl.jpg

Dennis_C

ragsak28 said:

Hi @Dennis_C

You can try to reset the BIOS to check if that makes any difference.

How do I reset my BIOS/UEFI to default settings?
Press and hold the power button for 10 seconds, or until your system shuts completely down.
Power on the system. Keep on tapping the F2 button again and again while booting to get into the BIOS.
Press F9 and then Enter to load the default configuration.
Press F10 and then Enter to save and exit.
Hope it will help you in some way.

I did this reset, but to no avail.

Dennis_C

ttttt said:

@Dennis_C

Are you still using mechanical HDD as the boot drive ?

Yes, the HDD's are the same drives that were on the laptops when I bought them.

I realize the replacing them with SSD's will increase performance, but this should not make any difference to the issues as the problem app will not care if it is scanning a HDD or SSD.

AnhEZ28

@Dennis_C check the startup tab to disable some start-up apps.

ttttt

@Dennis_C

You said: this should not make any difference to the issues as the problem app will not care if it is scanning a HDD or SSD.

Yes, the app will not care it is SSD or HDD, but for people who are still using a mechanical HDD as the boot drive, that is the bottleneck of the PC.

People using a high end CPU with mechanical HDD will still feel the PC running slow. I am seeing way too many of these cases.

Replacing with M.2 NVMe SSD or 2.5" SATA3 SSD will give you a big boost in performance.

Dennis_C

ttttt said:

@Dennis_C

Are you still using mechanical HDD as the boot drive ?

Yes, that is the only drive on my ACER laptop.

Dennis_C

ttttt said:

@Dennis_C

You said: this should not make any difference to the issues as the problem app will not care if it is scanning a HDD or SSD.

Yes, the app will not care it is SSD or HDD, but for people who are still using a mechanical HDD as the boot drive, that is the bottleneck of the PC.

People using a high end CPU with mechanical HDD will still feel the PC running slow. I am seeing way too many of these cases.

Replacing with M.2 NVMe SSD or 2.5" SATA3 SSD will give you a big boost in performance.

I agree that an SSD will make a big difference in overall performance, but the problem of 100% SSD IO will probably be the same. It will just take less time to get over that hump and settle down.

ttttt

@Dennis_C

No! Once you use a M.2 NVMe SSD, I can almost guarantee that this 100% SSD/HDD IO will not happen. A high end PCIe 3.0 M.2 NVMe SSD (3,400 MB/s read) is close to 30 times faster than 5400 RPM HDD (~110 MB/s). Data will not be clogged at the HDD.

Trust me!

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