Stuttering in games, is something wrong with my hard drive?

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CallumMerrill

CallumMerrill

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I just built a PC but I'm experiencing a lot of stuttering and hitching in games such as Grand Theft Auto V, Shadow of Mordor and ARMA 3, my hard drive often goes into a high usage state when playing games and recently when allocating disk space for a new steam game install. I'm running Windows 8.1 and everything is at stock.

I've tried reinstalling drivers and disabling sound devices to no avail, but the hard drive is the only thing that is acting up when I monitor it.

Specs: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/946bf7
HDD in Task Manager: http://i.imgur.com/Poovmr0.png
 
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CallumMerrill

CallumMerrill

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Currently running hard drive checks, I'll try this as soon as it's done.

Accidentally selected this as solution, anyway to revoke that?
 
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SinxarKnights

SinxarKnights

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What were you doing when you took the pic of the useage? Is it possible Windows is trying to defrag the drive?

I ask because that seems like the typical defrag behavior. It will stop defragging until it returns to an idle state then start again. When you go to install games, Steam pre-allocates the space it needs. It does this so programs like a disk defragmenter won't move the files around while it is downloading.
 
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CallumMerrill

CallumMerrill

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The image was taken within about 10 minutes of rebooting the PC, all I had done was started to install BioShock: Infinite (wanted to test this game for stuttering too). The usage and average response time instantly shot up sky high, I've also noticed this kind of usage when stress testing and playing games, but it's inconsistent.

I don't see any indication of the system defragging the drive and I can't see why it would even attempt to, I first booted the PC on Tuesday evening so there can't be many fragmented files.

Update: I tested the drive and it passed using an official utility from Seagate. This is the usage whilst doing a system scan using Windows Defender and downloading BioShock: Infinite. http://i.imgur.com/Pih7kvT.png
 
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SinxarKnights

SinxarKnights

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Well there you go. That is why the disk usage in that pic is at 100%. See if you can find a HDD benchmark and while your at it grab Speedfan and use that to check the HDD S.M.A.R.T values and do the online analysis of it.

The write speed seems low though. Have you checked in the Event Viewer to see if there are any disk related errors show up?

 
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CallumMerrill

CallumMerrill

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I've done the analysis and it seems to be fine, the event viewer is clean of disk errors but the disk still seems to be performing appallingly whilst under little load, all that I'm doing currently is using chrome and scanning with Windows Defender and usage / response time are both looking bad.

S.M.A.R.T Analysis: http://i.imgur.com/rPSIkUm.png
HDD Task Manager: http://i.imgur.com/DaQICAl.png
 
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CallumMerrill

CallumMerrill

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Yes I have and everything came clean (aside from some blatant false positives), to be honest I'm starting to think that the stuttering may be an issue caused by Rockstar for Grand Theft Auto V, it's a lot less noticeable in other games. Supposedly a lot of users with GTX cards are having issues with the game after the latest update, but for me the game is completely unplayable.
 
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SinxarKnights

SinxarKnights

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Ok well I am going to take a shot in the dark with it. Open up windows defender and disable the realtime protection thing and try your games again. If it does nothing make sure to turn it back on.

I know you are using Windows 8.1 (as am I) but when I used the Windows 10 tech preview it became a huge issue for some unknown reason. Leaving it enabled cause a huge performance hit in games and made the system very sluggish. But again it might not do anything at all and I recommend leaving it on if at all possible.

What antivirus are you using btw? Are there options for realtime protection? If so turn that off too and try it.
 
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