Hey folks,
I've been having some issues with my laptop recently that seem to be getting frustrating. I am not the most tech savvy person in the world, but i'm also not the least tech savvy person. However, I've been having an issue that I cannot seem to solve and the problem remains a mystery. Essentially the issue is that my laptop seems to be freezing often, for no apparent reason. I could be sitting on the desktop, or watching a movie in a media player, or even just browsing facebook or youtube. Sometimes these freezes go away after 5 or so minutes of sitting at a lower resolution program part informing me that it's (not responding). However, the majority of the time I am forced to hard power down with the power button.
I don't know if anybody can help me, but i'll start with what I know.
1. I am currently using a Lenovo Z710 and Windows 8.1.
2. My first thought was virus. Don't know how, because I never go on to disreputable sites, but I checked anyways. I currently use Avast for security, but after this issue came up I have run TDSKiller, Rkill, Malwarebytes, AdwCleaner, and CCleaner. I have run these programs in safe mode as well. No results. However, running the operating system in safe mode COMPLETELY eliminates the issue.
3. When I look at the Task Manager, my disk usage is constantly fluctuating between low disk usage and 100% with very little actiivty in between. However, it is more commonly on 100% than not. So my second guess was that perhaps the health of my hard drive was failing. So i downloaded SeaTools and ran a complete drive health check. It came back saying that the drive is completely healthy.
4. I do not experience these spikes on the hard drive in safe mode. Everything runs smooth and crisp. When on a normal startup, after looking at the disk usage, I don't see heavy use on the hard drive. It can be sitting at 100% disk usage with a program operating at even 0.3 mb/s. It seems to fluctuate and it's been really hard to pinpoint the exact service or program that seems to be causing this. I can play a video game/executable for hours with absolutely no issues. It's when I get to the desktop and/or an internet browser or media player that something like this happens.
5. The world of google suggested a few things. Commonly this issue occurs on windows 8.1 because of Superfetch, Windows Search, or Windows Notifications. I have disabled them all, the issue still persists.
6. When the disk usage spikes and freezes everything, there seems to be a few common suspects; Google Chrome, Avast and Steam. However, I've uninstalled and reinstalled both and the issue persists. Even windows services that are running at 0.1 mb/s can sometimes be turning orange on the task manager letting me know its using up the hard drive.
7. I am notorious for meddling with things far above my skill level when it comes to computers, mostly because I live alone and don't have any technologically savvy people in my life. I often do things because google said so and it's probably unwise. My inclination would be to simply say "screw it" and factory restore my laptop, however reinstalling my games collection on this laptop would take me nothing short of three weeks of constant downloading and installing and my current plan with my service provider only gives me 200 GB a month on this connection, so it would likely take me months. Furthermore, without knowing exactly what I did wrong would likely result me end up doing the exact same thing and have this problem again later.
I have seen folks posting their "logs" on tech sites and things in the past, and to be perfectly honest that's all Greek to me and when it comes to technology I don't even speak English. I look at my processes in the task manager and there are quite a few things that I have no idea what they are. Google hasn't been all that helpful in figuring them out either, because there's 1000 sites who want to convince you that even your windows executable is a virus and buy their software. This issue has been hard to monitor and observe because it seems like there is genuinely no precursor to the disk usage spikes and I am almost always unprepared. Ive tried to replicate the issue and i can't seem to get it to dance when I want it to, and as a result I don't have any more information that the above.
If somebody wants to help, and needs to see some kind of computer log or something similiar, i'm happy to upload it. Just please add instructions on how i obtain said logs or whatnot because if left to my own devices i'll probably screw something else up.
Thanks for your time,
Jesse