Installed 4K Monitor and lost 30+gb of storage???

Darksider13

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Feb 10, 2014
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Not sure how in the world this happened but I just installed my 4K monitor, nothing else has changed. Even used my computer earlier today before I received it and everything was fine. I haven't installed/uninstalled or changed anything else about the computer or its setup. Anyone have an idea?

Note: When I did turn the computer on after plugging everything in, the thing ran like a bat out of hell. CPU utilization was around 50-60% and the only things eating up CPU at the time were my Audio Device Graph Isolation (which usually runs around 12 threads at 2.5 average CPU. This time it was running around 4.5. Beyond that, the only thing running hotter was my Resource Monitor that was running at 10 average CPU. Everything has calmed down and gone back to normal now but I'm concerned about the random 30gbs I acquired.

I've checked CCleaner and Disk Cleanup. Both seem to show no abnormal files and Disk Cleanup showed that no abnormally large system files had been created. Any ideas?
 
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If you are constantly close to running out of space I recommend a new HDD (or...
There's no relationship between installing a monitor and adding that much data. It must be a coincidence.

There's a free program called FOLDER SIZE that will help you figure out what folders exist and maybe you can figure out where the extra space is.

http://www.mindgems.com/products/Folder-Size/Folder-Size.html

(run, the select c-drive and press the green PLAY icon to scan. then it should be obvious)

If you have STEAM maybe there was an update to some games.

 

Darksider13

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Okay so literally as I type I'm looking at my Resource Monitor and my NT Kernel is running 256 threads right now. Also losing even more space. Lost 6 gb in the last 4 minutes. Acronis isn't running at all and that's the only backup software I use/own. Running a virus scan now.

Edit: So it looks like the thread count is slowly increasing but it really isn't using much of the CPU. Also, BackgroundTaskHost just became suspended. Right now my Resource Monitor and my AntiVirus are running the highest CPU use.

Edit 2: First AV scan came back negative. Running MWB now to see if anything's there. I have absolutely no clue what could be doing this. Steam wasn't even running when this started up the second time.

Edit 3: OKAY, so I just gained back about 25 gb. Not sure how this happened. I'm so confused right now.
 
Still sounds like it may be Acronis True Image. If you have it setup to AUTO DELETE older backups then you can have a situation where a NEW backup is made (using space) but then it deletes an older backup (saving space).

*You can PROVE that by checking WHEN your backups are made. Note that a backup can be set to start when the PC is turned on if it MISSES the last backup. If the backup isn't for a few days then it's not an Acronis issue.

I considered a Windows Update but that doesn't sound right since the backup IMAGE it may create with major updates usually needs to be manually deleted.
 

Darksider13

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Just checked Acronis and it says there is no backup made (I don't have my back up drive attached anyway which is why I didn't even consider that as an option). I don't have autobackups set anyway, I only ever manually backup. Still about 7-10gb gone but a majority of the storage lost has been returned without me doing anything.

Edit: MWB came back clean as well.

Edit 2: Finally perhaps found the culprit. Delivery Optimization files have skyrockted to 14gb since I last ran Disk Cleanup. Haven't lost any storage since last I reported so I think this may be where the remainder is. Is it safe to clear that out? The file name is just some crazy hash value.
 


If you are constantly close to running out of space I recommend a new HDD (or SSD) with higher capacity. If you are NOT running out of space then I would mostly ignore when the size increases.

*Yes, it appears fairly safe to delete the Delivery Optimization files.
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/can-i-delete-delivery-optimization-files-shown-by-disk-cleanup
 
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