13.9.22

Resolving high disk utilisation in Windows 10

 

Fix Your StorAHCI.sys Driver

According to Microsoft support, Event ID 129, the resets of the disk controller, can be caused by many factors. One of the known ones is that some Advanced Host Controller Interface PCI-Express (AHCI PCIe) models cause these symptoms in Windows 10 when running with the inbox StorAHCI.sys driver.

Due to a firmware bug, the Solid-state drive (SSD) does not properly complete input/output when Message Signalled Interrupt (MSI) mode is enabled. As a result, the Windows storage stack attempts to reset the device after waiting on unresponsive read/write for a period of time.

So, the first solution to fix 100 percent disk usage Windows 10 here is to disable MSI mode via the registry. Follow the guide below:

First Move: Identify if You Are Running the Inbox AHCI Driver (StorAHCI.sys)

Step 1. Press "Win+R" to call out the Run box, then type "devmgmt.msc" and hit Enter.

Step 2. Under "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers", right-click "Standard SATA AHCI Controller" and select "Properties".

see the Properties of AHCI controller

Step 3. Navigate to the "Driver" tab and click "Driver Details". If you see "storahci.sys" in the list, you are running the inbox driver.

check if you are running the inbox AHCI driver

Second Move: Disable MSI for the Controller in the Registry

Step 1. In the same properties window, navigate to the "Details" tab and select "Device instance path" from the Property drop-down menu. Please pay attention to the Value that starts with PCI\VEN, which will be useful in Step 3.

pay attention to the value of the Device instance path

Step 2. Open the registry editor by typing "regedit" in the same Run box.

Step 3. Navigate to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Enum\PCI\<AHCI Controller>\Device Parameters\Interrupt Management\MessageSignaledInterruptProperties", where <AHCI Controller> refers to the device instance path you noticed in Step 1. Then change the value of the MSISupported key from "1" to "0".

change the value data of MSISupported

Reboot the machine and see whether this works