Disk is getting hammered

I have been dealing with an ongoing issue where my SSD randomly spikes to 100% active time. When it happens, programs take a long time to open, File Explorer may freeze, and sometimes the entire computer becomes unusable until the disk activity settles down. The problem is intermittent, so it does not happen every second I use the computer. However it happens often enough that im here now. Whenever it is hitting 100% the culprit is System majority of the time.

System specs:

• Windows 11
• AMD Ryzen 5 3600
• NVIDIA RTX 3060
• ASRock B550M Phantom Gaming 4
• 32 GB RAM
• 1 TB SSD
• BIOS version P3.90

Troubleshooting I have already attempted:

• Checked the SSD health, which reported that the drive was healthy
• Confirmed that the SSD still has more than 100 GB of free space
• Updated the motherboard BIOS from P1.00 to P3.90
• Ran sfc /scannow
• Ran DISM repair commands
• Ran CHKDSK
• Disabled SysMain
• Temporarily reduced or disabled Windows Defender to test whether it was causing the spikes
• Upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11
• Checked Task Manager and Resource Monitor during the spikes
• Increased the amount of RAM in the computer

If you know where to look to find the root cause of the problem please let me know because Ive tried everything I know and more and it still hasnt worked itself out. At this point I dont even think the disk is causing the problems I think its just getting shoveled because of the issue.

I would check for malware. I usually run a full system scan with Superantispyware and remove all results. You don't have to register, you can use the trial version. If it finds too many, over 400, I then do a second full system scan with Malwarebytes Antimalware and if that finds too many as well, I consider backup the data and reinstall Windows, although these cases are rare. Usually just Superantispyware removing a lot of cookies is enough.

spapakons said:

I would check for malware. I usually run a full system scan with Superantispyware and remove all results. You don't have to register, you can use the trial version. If it finds too many, over 400, I then do a second full system scan with Malwarebytes Antimalware and if that finds too many as well, I consider backup the data and reinstall Windows, although these cases are rare. Usually just Superantispyware removing a lot of cookies is enough.

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SUPERAntiSpyware only managed to find 35 things. I cleared them, but the disk is still being throttled.

I would say to optimize the disk or even defrag it, but I am not sure it will make any difference. Try disabling all startup applications you don't need. It's not necessary everything to load at startup. You can load it manually when you want to use it. Besides it should only take a couple of seconds. How much RAM do you have? How much of it is free? Maybe Windows use too much virtual RAM and hence the spikes. You can configure less applications running in the background. Also enabling game mode boosts performance. Could any application search for updates? Disable most automatic updates. You can always check manually.

I would start to look what is it that uses the disk.
Open the Windows Resource Monitor and have a look on what the disk is doing and what program/process is the bad guy for the activity.
Then go from there.

I would use Macrium Reflect or Hasleo Backup Suite to do an image backup to an external HDD or SSD and than completely wipe the computer's drive. Then I would do a clean install. You can always restore from the image.