6600k 100% usage after SSD install

[MCin]

Hello, I hope you all are doing well!

So I've got an odd one here, have worked in IT for coming up on 10 years and have never had this much trouble before. So here it goes:

I recently installed a Sandisk Ultra II 480Gb SSD, and made it my primary boot device retiring me WD Blue to just being a secondary drive. The first thing to change of course was the awesome boot speed, but then once I was in windows and checking everything out I noted that my CPU usage was astronomically higher than it was before. I still had my BIOS giving the CPU a 23% overclock therefore it was running at 4.2GHz, but yet just opening Chrome or task manager was causing it to spike to 100%. My idles were bouncing between 5% and 30% depending on mouse movement alone with no other back ground processes. Something clearly wasn't right so I checked my drivers, all were there and up to date. I then made sure the paging file was on my WD Blue HDD, disabled superfetch, and made sure indexing was disabled. I rebooted with no luck, CPU still pegged out doing the simplest thing. I then downloaded the Sandisk software and, as I assumed, there were no optimization settings. So just to try somethings, thinking it was maybe just the windows 10 glitch of just showing 100% usage, I started up BF1. This game ran smooth for me prior to the SSD install, 120 to 144 FPS, at most 80% CPU usage, just never ad any issues with it. The game ran like garbage once iwas loaded into a map and even in the menu it was already using way more than it every did before, 50%-60%. Once I was in the map it immediately went to 100% and I was stuttering and dropping frames like no tomorrow, mean while my 1070 is maybe under 40% to 60% load. Okay, maybe it's just BF1, I'll try something else. So I start the Division, another game that used to run like a champ on my system similar to BF1 prior to SSD install. I load in and again the CPU goes straight to 100% and I'm not necessarily dropping frames, but nothing is loading in. I had to stay in one place while I waited for the map to load, nothing like it was before I installed the SSD. So to rule anything out I reset my BIOS by clearing CMOS. Started back up and just let it use the defaults, still that same issue, and as I thought it would, maybe a little worse. I went back into BIOS and made sure AHCI was on, and also that the onboard VGA was disabled. Nothing changed, I then put the settings back to how it was before and maybe changed performance by 5% or so, still maxed out when starting task manager or chrome and still full, constant usage in game. I made sure that my GPU was being detected and that it had the most up to date driver, it was all good. Checked device manager to make sure the intel HD graphics were disabled, and found it wasn't even listed. I went to intel's website and downloaded the newest driver for the intel HD graphics, just trying to rule stuff out, and when installing I get an error message stating I don't meet the minimum requirements to install the software, tried another version and got the same result. Windows recognizes my CPU as the 6600k, the Intel processor ID tool recognizes it as a 6600k and BIOS does as well. Next I installed the driver update utility and it found nothing, I was thinking that maybe it would see the lack of driver and tell me what I needed if I had to have some specific version first. So then, I had some one tell me a game server I manage was having issues. I went to the site in chrome to log into the dashboard and on that page is a snow falling effect for the holiday season, the moment that page loads, my CPU skyrockets to 100% and stays there (screenshot), causing me to lag and stutter. This made no sense. Any time any sort of graphic was on screen my CPU went nuts, this is the only conclusion I've been able to come to and have no idea. Physx is on my GPU and, like I said, the Intel HD graphics aren't even installed, the CPU shouldn't be doing any rendering at all. So to test this out I opened EVGA OC scanner and started a physx test on my cpu to see what it would do, it handled the test like a champ (screenshot) and now I'm even more confused and bewildered.

Just to cover system specs:

Motherboard: ASUS Sabertooth z170 S

Ram: 16GB

GPU: EVGA 1070 SC 8GB

CPU: i5 6600k (Liquid cooled, temps rarely go above 40C)

SSD: Sandisk Ultra II 480GB

HDD: WD Blue 1TB

OS: windows 10 64-bit Home

Sorry for the novel, but I wanted to be thorough and cover everything. Any help or suggestions are appreciated, thank you for your time.

[idata]

Hello Fox3475,

Thank you for advising us about all the troubleshooting that has been done.Some other things I would like to add:

1. What happens if you use the system with the SSD only?

2. Have you tried going back to the HDD alone?3. Please run this test: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/19792/Intel-Processor-Diagnostic-Tool https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/19792/Intel-Processor-Diagnostic-Tool4. What temps is the CPU reaching while going to 100% of usage?5. Have you changed the thermal paste? If reaching high temps is an issue6. Please run the system with a simple configuration (CPU, motherboard, 1 stick of RAM and a single drive)7. Are you getting any error messages or BSODs at some point while using the system?Please let me know how it goes.Regards,Esteban C

[idata]

Hello Fox3475,

I would like to check if the last recommendations worked for you.

Regards,

Esteban C

[MCin]

I apologize for the delay I did not see the first response.

It was a windows error that simply required the reinstall of Windows, using windows 10 Home through out this, and the issue went away. As for the exact cause I saw some inconsistencies in services running, not using a lot of resources just services that shouldn't be running like virtual disk and Hyper-v components, even though I never setup that add-on/feature. I also ran into issue while doing an image check via CLI. After the check froze twice I decided the best course of action was to give in and reinstall the OS. After doing so it runs fine and I now enjoy the benefits of an SSD with out issue. Please note that even updating windows to the most current didn't solve this issue either. I know this is probably not the solution everyone was hoping to find but re-installing the OS, even after an initial clean install, will solve this problem.

[idata]

Hello Fox3475,

Thank you for letting us know how you got the issue solved!

Sometimes the issue is the less expected thing

Regards,

Esteban C