Smart Diskcheck

[Bobc]

I have been trying to diagnose a problem with my HP laptop since I upgraded it to Windows 10. A Problem developed that a whole lot of people are having. My hard drive activity goes up to 100% almost constantly with extremely long response times. I noticed while the SMART test is running on my hard drive, Windows performance monitor shows the active time and average response times return to normal until the SMART test completes. The hard drive shows no problems on any of the multiple tests that I have ran. Is it possible that the test is disabling something in windows that could be the cause of my problem? Thanks for any help on this

[David (PassMark)]

I don't know the answer, but I would start by running some benchmarks to get some concrete data to compare against.

Then I would check BIOS settings. (Do you have AHCI turned on).
Then I would check device drivers are correct for the hardware.
Then I would check the HP web site to see if there were any firmware / driver updates.
Then I would use Microsoft's Process Monitor to look at the activity on the disk.

[Bobc]

This all started when I upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 7. Here are some specs

HP DV7T-4100 Core I7 (Quad core hyperthreaded-Monitor shows 8 processors)
Turbo boost to 2.9ghz
640GB HD 7200 rpm
8GB DDR3 Ram
Windows 10 64bit
1gb ATI Radeon HD5650 DDR3 graphics

This computer screams on Windows 7 and when the SMART test is running. Majority of the time the system lags and doesn't respond. All Drivers are up to date. Bios is up to date and doesn't give any options for AHCI but it is running in AHCI mode. Attached are some screen shots that may give some more info.

[David (PassMark)]

It might be this well documented problem

https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/3h4wjg/windows_10_high_disk_usage_100_ive_seen_a_thread/

[Bobc]

I have already tried that, indexing, windows search. The processor seems to be almost at idle with the fan barely making any noise. I have let the computer sit idle for an hour thinking windows would "catch up" and it would stabilize. I ended up blowing a fan at the under side of the laptop where the hard drive is to cool it down. It just seems strange that when I give the hard drive something intense to do- defrag or a hard drive test, it acts like it is supposed to. This problem mostly happens when the drive is idle or slightly being used. I have done a lot of research and tests. A lot of people have this same problem. Some of them have resolved with a minor fix but nothing seems to cure my problem

[David (PassMark)]

I have already tried that, indexing, windows search.

I don't think you read the article.
The article actually says, Disabling windows search didn't fix the problem. That was the whole point of the article in fact, to offer another solution which it seems solved the problem for 100s other people.

Solution suggested was, in Win10 go to Settings, System, Notifications, and turning off "show me tips about Windows". (then wait a few minutes)

As to why this works I have no idea. As it doesn't make any sense.

[Bobc]

I have already tried that. I turned off all notifications except App and my video control center notifications

[David (PassMark)]

We don't know the solution, or why DiskCheckup might improve the performance (temporally)
If we had on the machine on site we could probably do a deeper investigation and traces of disk activity. Do it is rather time consuming and difficult to do remotely.

Did you try asking HP?

[Bobc]

Not yet and haven't tried Microsoft either. It seems that a lot of people have the same unresolved problem with different brand PC's. Some have installed new hard drives and reinstalled Windows, drivers and software only to have the same problem reoccur.