How to fix Ntoskrnl. 100% Disk usage

System (ntoskrnl.exe) keep fluctuating between 0 to 100% disk usage

My new Asus Zen AiO running Windows 10 has been on 100% disk usage constantly to the point that it is impossible to use the PC at all.

I have googled and run all these, which only improved slightly:

 

Settings > Notifications & actions and turning everything off

 

Virtual Memory under Advanced System Settings, set to zero

 

Disable windows update

Disable Print spooler

 

delete temp files C:\windows\temp

 

Executed these under a batch file:

net.exe stop sysmain (Stop superfetch)

net.exe stop “Windows search” 
chkdsk.exe /f /r 
sfc /scannow
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

 

 

reinstall Chrome 

reinstall Windows 10 and update to the latest 20H2 with latest patches.

 

Finally, I use msconfig and disable every service I think is not critical. Now system (ntoskrnl.exe) only hit 100% disk usage once in a while, but it’s still quite frustrating that Windows keep pausing once in a while because of this.

 

Install the WPT (Windows Performance Toolkit) by downloading ADK from here

http://www.microsoft.com/en-US/download/details.aspx?id=39982

 

If you are running windows 10 you should use the newer version found here

 

There is no need to install anything but the windows performance toolkit.  That is  about 100Mb.  You do not need to install the entire ADK (or SDK)

 

1. Run ADKSetup.exe.
2. Click Install, specify the location where you want to install the Windows ADK features, and then click Next.
3. Select the Windows ADK features that you want to install (windows performance toolkit), and then click Install.

 

Help with installation (if needed) is here

When you have downloaded and installed it, open an elevated command prompt and type the following 

WPRUI.exe (which is the windows performance recorder) You should see this

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Unless your problem involves sleep, shutdown, waking, or reboot check off the following boxes

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There are various options.  Choose the one that applies to your situation

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If you want to reduce the size of the file you can choose “Light” instead of verbose

 

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Please run the trace when you are experiencing the problem

When you are ready or are experiencing the problem Click Start

 

Let it run for 30 secs  and save the file (it will show you where it is being saved and what the file is called)

It will generate a large file and the longer you run it the larger it will be ZIPPING the file reduce the size by a factor of 10 so a 10 Gig Etl=1 Gig zipped file  Please dont upload an ETL file that is larger that 4 Gb unzipped.  If your is bigger run a shorter trace

 

Zip the file and upload to us on Onedrive (or any file sharing service) and give us a link to it in your next post. It will be faster for you to upload and for us to download.  Be sure to upload the file that ends in “ETL” not the smaller folders that end in PDB!!!

 

If your problem involves sleep, hibernation, shutdown, or reboot you will need to configure WPR differently.  For example for a reboot issue configure it like this (this will reboot your computer as soon as you click start so close your work)

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For shutdown issues configure it like this