Windows 8 process System takes 100% disk usage and extremly slows pc

hard driveprocesstask-managerwindowswindows 8

I have Windows 8 and recently I have problem with process System. Sometimes this process takes disk usage to 100% for a several minutes and working speed is betwenn 0,1MB/s and 0,4MB/s. I can't work with computer and I must wait. It happens after start of the system, from sleep or just after tens of minutes running. There was no problem with this before. Is there any way how can I find out what system is doing? Which task could do this? How to fix this?
Btw I have Acer TimelineX 3820TG.

Best Answer

System is the Windows kernel. It is not very observable from userspace. This is often caused by:

  • Faulty hardware
  • A misbehaving driver
  • Very inefficient disk storage subsystem stuff (e.g., encrypted software RAID-5)
  • A rootkit

The approach to beginning to solve this is incredibly specific to your situation, but in your shoes I'd try a few random things like:

  • Running a SMART test on the hard drive
  • Booting another operating system using e.g. a Live CD of Linux (Ubuntu, for example) and check out the I/O performance in there to rule out any software or driver issues
  • Reinstalling the OS if it does appear to be a software problem
  • Replacing hardware if the performance is the same even using another OS
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