AMD Confirms Radeon Driver Bug That May Shorten SSD Lifespan

AMD Radeon users are reporting a driver bug that causes continuous SSD writes, even when their PCs are idle. The issue could increase SSD wear over time and potentially shorten drive lifespan.

The problem appears to involve the AMD External Events Utility (atieclxx.exe), a background process that manages display-related functions, including monitor detection, hotkeys, and FreeSync.

AMD Radeon driver bug can write hundreds of gigabytes to SSDs daily

According to user reports on Reddit, the AMD External Events Utility continuously writes data to SSDs without any obvious user activity.

Some users have observed write speeds of around 1MB/s, while others report rates reaching 5MB/s. At those speeds, the process could write hundreds of gigabytes of data every day.

For example, a sustained write speed of 0.3MB/s generates approximately 26GB of data daily, while 0.7MB/s results in around 60GB. At 1.5MB/s, the total reaches nearly 130GB, and at 5MB/s, it climbs to approximately 432GB per day.

Although SSDs can handle substantial amounts of data, continuous unnecessary writes could accelerate wear, particularly on smaller drives or lower-endurance QLC models.

AMD reportedly acknowledges the issue and prepares a fix

According to Reddit discussions, an AMD representative acknowledged the problem and linked it to an interaction between the AMD External Events Utility and Microsoft’s PCIe filter driver.

AMD reportedly submitted a potential fix for final validation and testing. The company hopes to include the correction in an upcoming Radeon driver release, although it has not confirmed when users can expect the update.

For now, affected users may need to rely on temporary workarounds.

How to stop excessive SSD writes caused by AMD drivers

Some users report that disabling the AMD External Events Utility stops the continuous disk activity. However, this workaround may also disable AMD Adrenalin hotkeys and other display-related features.

AMD has reportedly suggested disabling Resizable BAR (ReBAR) in the BIOS as another possible workaround. This change may affect gaming performance, so users should consider the trade-off before making adjustments.

Another community workaround involves replacing three AMD PCI bus driver files with older versions from driver 26.3.1. However, manually replacing driver files can cause system instability, and AMD has not officially recommended this approach.

Users experiencing unusually high SSD writes can check Windows Task Manager or Resource Monitor to identify processes generating excessive disk activity.

Until AMD releases a verified fix, users should avoid modifying system driver files unless they understand the risks.

In other news, AMD warned of a potential PC market slump in 2027. Meanwhile, Xbox Series X|S consoles are getting machine learning upscaling with AMD FSR 4.1.2.

Via Neowin