Hey everyone! I haven't powered on my 5-year-old PC in about a month due to exams, but when I started it up again, it seems super slow. I noticed that it's constantly showing 100% disk usage, and it's taking ages to open programs. My hardware is mostly fine, and I have a 2TB hard drive instead of an SSD since I couldn't afford it. Any advice on how to solve this issue would be awesome! Here are my specs: Geforce GTX 1660 Ti, AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-core, 16 GB Corsair RAM, and a 2TB Barracuda hard drive.
4 Answers
If your disk usage is at 100%, something must be accessing it heavily. Since you haven’t used your PC in a while, it could be Windows updates running in the background. I suggest letting your computer run for a day to see if the usage drops. You could also check Task Manager to see which processes are using the most resources.
Honestly, Windows 11 is pretty rough on hard drives, especially if it’s not an SSD. A budget 256-512GB SSD would really boost your performance. You can store your files on the HDD, but having Windows and your main programs on an SSD will speed things up drastically.
I’ve noticed that the 'System' process is using about 3-5 MB/s in Task Manager. Looks like you’re onto something! I’ll definitely think about getting an SSD.
You might want to try defragmenting your hard drive; that can help speed things up a bit. Ideally, however, investing in a small SSD (like a 256GB one) for your operating system will make a huge difference! You can keep using your HDD for all your other files.
Thanks! I'll definitely look into both defragmenting and getting an SSD.
Make sure to check for any pending updates and look into your Windows Defender settings. Sometimes background scans or updates could be what's hogging your disk space.
Thanks! I’ll try leaving it on overnight and check again in the morning.