Boot SSD causing issues (?)

[Demolishdude]

Greetings!

 

So I have been having an issue with my computer for a while now and I believe I have a suspect as to what is causing it.

 

THE PROBLEM:

• So there are times where my computer will completely freeze up, as in it entirely stops responding for long periods of time (which can be defined for me as anywhere between 30 seconds to well over two hours, at which point I have reset the PC only to have it automatically boot into recovery mode or not even find a boot drive). There have also been a couple of instances where the computer will crash and it will treat the crash as though the boot media was disconnected.

 

THE SUSPECT:

 

• NAME: Crucial MX500
• AGE: 5 years (purchase date: spring 2014)
• SIZE: 120GB
• HISTORY: He was purchased originally to being the new boot drive for a hdd based system, but unfortunately the owner (me) was not a thinker at the time and couldn't comprehend why copying the OS folders to an SSD in file explorer wouldn't result in booting off of the SSD. After housing files and being put offline for multiple years, he was repurposed by being the boot-drive to an old core duo machine. A few months later, he moved up to an intel core quad machine. Unfortunately, due to the lack of mounting hardware, the poor guy was duct taped to the outside of the 5.25" bay and remained that way from fall 2017 to the summer of 2018.
• CURRENT STATUS: Nowadays, he can be found in my current rig, being the primary boot drive. The rest of the rig consists of:
  • CPU: Ryzen 7 2700 (bought new summer 2018)
  • MOBO: Asrock B350 Pro4 (bought used, original purchase was spring 2017)
  • RAM: Corsair Vengeance Pro RGB (bought new summer 2018)
  • GPU: MSI (OEM blower cooler style) RX 580 8GB (ripped from an Alienware R7 crossfire machine friend got in January 2018, original install date was November 2017)
  • STORAGE: 2tb seagate HDD that is system storage and roars to life anytime I access it, and the current suspect.
  • PSU: EVGA? I forget.
  • CASE: Cooler Master HAF XB EVO with a 200mm top fan that is half screwed in and half twist tied to the fan grill. I am proud in my level jank.
  • Let me know if anything else is relevant.

THE SOLUTION

• So, uh, yeah idk. It usually happens when the SSD starts to get full but idk if thats the cause. My thoughts:
  • IF SSD
    • Maybe too many bad sectors if thats even possible? Is there a way to check drive health?
    • Age? Five years for a SSD is a bit much.
    • Abuse? Am I allowed to duct tape a SSD to a metal case?
    • Too many writes considering I copied over that OS from my original PC a gajillion times without a speck of knowledge on how that even was supposed to work?
  • If not SSD
    • Then what? You decide!
    • Also, fun story, my RX 580 is funky and either that or a corrupted windows library or driver is resulting in opencl to not work. Ryzen renders faster in blender using cycles and it won't export or render at all in premiere pro if GPU acceleration using opencl is enabled.

 

Any advice, suggestions, or questions are appreciated. Thank you!

 

TL:DR- My system is freezing up and I noticed it tends to happen when SSD is getting low on space (meaning <20GB). Thoughts?

[Enderman]

Well first of all you should never fill up an SSD more than 80 or 90%

Second, it sounds like you need to clean install windows.

 

[Demolishdude]

2 hours ago, Enderman said:

Well first of all you should never fill up an SSD more than 80 or 90%

Second, it sounds like you need to clean install windows.

 

Clean install of windows would be an ideal step, but I did not know about the filling the SSD part. I will be more vigilant in storage management, thank you!

[Enderman]

10 minutes ago, Demolishdude said:

Clean install of windows would be an ideal step, but I did not know about the filling the SSD part. I will be more vigilant in storage management, thank you!

If those two things don't fix it you can check your SSD's health using crystaldiskmark and crystaldiskinfo, it might need to be replaced.

[Demolishdude]

7 minutes ago, Enderman said:

If those two things don't fix it you can check your SSD's health using crystaldiskmark and crystaldiskinfo, it might need to be replaced.

I was thinking of stepping up to a m.2 drive running off a pci x4, but I wasn't sure if I needed to act sooner of if I could wait. Ill look into those programs you have suggested, thank you!