HDD 100% Usage

[BillyCarpenter]

Yesterday I had 2 laptops come in for repair. These were inexpensive laptops. One was HP. The other was Dell. Both had HDD's and not SSD's.

The customers complained that the it was taking forever to open a program or document. I ran a quick performance test and it showed 100% disk usage. I did a deep scan on the hard drive and it passed...no problem. I turned off all the start up programs that I could and same for processes. I changed the power setting to high performance. I won't go thru the long laundry list of what I did but none of it corrected the problem to my satisfaction. It helped, but not enough.

I'm gonna replace with HDD with a SSD.

Any input is welcomed. Thanks.

[richs]

Add more memory if you can.

[mojorolla]

Yesterday I had 2 laptops come in for repair. These were inexpensive laptops. One was HP. The other was Dell. Both had HDD's and not SSD's.

The customers complained that the it was taking forever to open a program or document. I ran a quick performance test and it showed 100% disk usage. I did a deep scan on the hard drive and it passed...no problem. I turned off all the start up programs that I could and same for processes. I changed the power setting to high performance. I won't go thru the long laundry list of what I did but none of it corrected the problem to my satisfaction. It helped, but not enough.

I'm gonna replace with HDD with a SSD.

Any input is welcomed. Thanks.

If they are showing 100% usage, they are on their way out. I recently had this on my laptop, replaced with a SSD, holy crap is that thing fast. It literally took 5 minutes to re-install Windows.

[tsbservice]

Yesterday I had 2 laptops come in for repair. These were inexpensive laptops. One was HP. The other was Dell. Both had HDD's and not SSD's.

The customers complained that the it was taking forever to open a program or document. I ran a quick performance test and it showed 100% disk usage. I did a deep scan on the hard drive and it passed...no problem. I turned off all the start up programs that I could and same for processes. I changed the power setting to high performance. I won't go thru the long laundry list of what I did but none of it corrected the problem to my satisfaction. It helped, but not enough.

I'm gonna replace with HDD with a SSD.

Any input is welcomed. Thanks.

It's going to be a lot better. We are reviving old/slow machines(PC/laptop) that way.

[BillyCarpenter]

Sometimes I'm terrible at explaining things. Here's what I'm trying to ask:


I know that a SSD will resolve the issue. The thing is that these are inexpensive laptops that cost around $300. The customer can get upside down on these really fast.

I'm gonna have to create a system image of the old hard drive and replace the old drive with the new one. I'll charge about $65 for the SSD and and 1 hour labor. That's a total 165 + tax.

I was wondering if there was a fix that didn't involve replacing the drive but I think mojo is right....when it starts showing 100% usage...it's on its way out.

[tsbservice]

Sometimes I'm terrible at explaining things. Here's what I'm trying to ask:


I know that a HDD will resolve the issue. The thing is that these are inexpensive laptops that cost around $300. The customer can get upside down on these really fast.

I'm gonna have to create a system image of the old hard drive and replace the old drive with the new one. I'll charge about $65 for the SSD and and 1 hour labor. That's a total 165 + tax.

I was wondering if there was a fix that didn't involve replacing the drive but I think mojo is right....when it starts showing 100% usage...it's on its way out.

Just explain customers that. Laptops will still be slow but will show some juice.

[KenB]

What would the otherwise identical laptop cost with an SSD (the same size as you are proposing) cost?

Anything over $465 would put them money ahead to go ahead with your services.

[slimslob]

Yesterday I had 2 laptops come in for repair. These were inexpensive laptops. One was HP. The other was Dell. Both had HDD's and not SSD's.

The customers complained that the it was taking forever to open a program or document. I ran a quick performance test and it showed 100% disk usage. I did a deep scan on the hard drive and it passed...no problem. I turned off all the start up programs that I could and same for processes. I changed the power setting to high performance. I won't go thru the long laundry list of what I did but none of it corrected the problem to my satisfaction. It helped, but not enough.

I'm gonna replace with HDD with a SSD.

Any input is welcomed. Thanks.

Low end HP and Dell laptops are notorious for being loaded with bloat ware. If you were using Windows Task Manager to see the disk usage you can click on the Disk column to see all the running tasks sorted in either ascending or descending order. More often than not the high users are apps that you don't actually need. The same can be done for memory usage. Occasionally you can have something running in the background that is not need and consumes a lot memory to the ppoint where there is a lot of swapping to and from virtual memory, swap space of the HDD. Eliminating that memory usage can also reduce disk usage.

[mojorolla]

Before I repaired my now 6-year-old laptop, it was in need of a new drive and a power cord. I looked at pricing on the new devices and the decent ones started at 500-600 bucks. For 125, I was able to repair my current laptop and it runs smoother and faster than it has ever before. If your customer is on a budget, the repair is probably their best bet.
Another thing particular to our industry is a lot of the new laptop are wifi only, no network port. Make troubleshooting network issues that much more "fun".

[GeneOR95]

This is an extract from a help file I created a while back for various WIN 10 issues. Its worth trying as they are free solutions. You should be able to download it from this link. It is just a basic windows help file that should open when you double click the downloaded file.

FixHundredPerCentError.chm - FileFactory

Hope it helps.