AMD admits GPU driver bug is writing data continuously, wearing out SSDs
AMD has acknowledged a GPU driver bug causing continuous data writing that wears out SSDs, with one user reporting 1% monthly health loss over 16 months.
An SSD can spend most of its day doing very little, particularly when a PC is sitting idle. That may not be the case for some AMD Radeon systems, however, with reports suggesting that AMD's External Events Utility (EEU), which is installed alongside Radeon drivers, may be writing data to the system driver continuously, even when the computer is barely being used.
User Reports
The issue drew attention again on November 8, when Reddit user 'darklinkpower' highlighted reports of unusual drive activity. One Radeon owner claimed the problem had been quietly eating into their drive's reported health for more than a year.
I just found out that the driver eats up 1% of my SSD health every month for 16 months.
Another user reported sustained writes of approximately 5MB/s while their PC was idle. Another one claimed their SSD health had dropped by about 1% every month for 16 months.
Company Response
AMD has acknowledged the problem. In an October 21 response on its community forum, a company representative confirmed they were investigating with the aim to resolve it in a future driver release.
Yes. We're looking into it with the aim to resolve it in a future driver release.
Another representative, AMAD Vik, subsequently offered a more encouraging update on Reddit, apologizing and saying, 'This is hopefully fixed in the next one.'
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