SSD 100% usage then freeze

[ZuppaSalata]

Hi guys, 

I'm writing because my pc keeps crashing while playing or just browsing and I think I finally know why. I just noticed that while I was watching twitch, the stream stopped loading. It wasn't a connection problem so I opened my task manager. It took a while but then it finally opened and at the same time the stream restarted. So I kept the task manager on my screen, after like 20 minutes it happened again, the stream started loading and I saw that the ssd usage was at 100%. Then both write and read speeds went down to 0 but usage was stuck at 100%. Couldn't open anything else, tried to open some chrome tabs and the pc froze. So I had to reboot. 

This is happening to me at least once or twice a day and everytime I have to reboot. 

My specs:

cpu: ryzen 5 2600 

gpu: Powercolor RedDragon rx5700 8gb

ram: Ballistix DDR4 16 gb 3200MHz

motherboard: msi b450 tomahawk max

psu: corsair cx 550m W 80 bronze

ssd: Western Digital BLUE 500 Gb (where windows 10 home is installed)

HDD: seagate 1TB 7200 RPM

 

Do you guys think this is happening because of a faulty ssd? I used crystal disk info and it says that my ssd is fine

Please let me know if you have any idea, every part was brand new and I built this pc 4 months ago.

 

Thank you so much!

[KarathKasun]

The drive is dropping connection.  The SSD controler is locking up trying to deal with an error or the connection is dropping out due to a faulty cable.

[ZuppaSalata]

10 minutes ago, KarathKasun said:

The drive is dropping connection.  The SSD controler is locking up trying to deal with an error or the connection is dropping out due to a faulty cable.

I tried to switch cable and switch sata port but that didnt' solve the problem

[KarathKasun]

It may be a failure of one of the SSD components then.  You could try a full secure erase and see if that fixes it, but if that does not work the SSD may need to be replaced.

[ZuppaSalata]

4 hours ago, KarathKasun said:

It may be a failure of one of the SSD components then.  You could try a full secure erase and see if that fixes it, but if that does not work the SSD may need to be replaced.

I think so, but I realized that windows was downloading some updates. The last time my pc froze like yesterday was a week ago, so I will keep you updated if something else happens, for now I will just wait. 

Sometimes I get "select boot device" error when I reboot my pc after a freeze, if I reboot again it disappears.

Also I forgot to mention that like 2 months ago after my pc froze I rebooted it and got BSOD. I had to reinstall windows because I wasn't able to log in. I formatted my ssd but it kept showing me problems. I had to try 3 times before I was able to correctly install windows back on my ssd.

 

Maybe I could try to put windows on my HDD and plug it in instead of my ssd, just to see if this it is the problem. 

 

[ZuppaSalata]

update:

today my pc froze again, as usual with SSD usage spike. I downloaded SSD app from Western digital and the SMART test gave me these results:

I noticed that when usage is at 100% and its about to freeze, some little words about "cache processing" appears in the bottom left and right of my loading chrome page.

I saw some people on internet solving my problem editing some pc registers. Maybe I will try it later.

[KarathKasun]

Cache processing is Chrome trying to clean up the browser cache, which is accessing the SSD.  It gets stuck because the SSD is no longer responding.  The system is freezing for the same reason, the OS is stuck trying to access files that it cant get to.

[KarathKasun]

Missed the boot failure and Windows installation post.  This sounds like a failed flash controller or cache memory.  A soft reset (reset button or restart from Windows) will not reliably cause the SSD controller to re-initialize, causing the UEFI to not detect the drive.  AFAIK most controllers will only auto reset after a specific number of failed retries or a specific amount of time, and you wont necessicarily hit that limit before the UEFI does drive detection.  The only 100% sure way to force them to reset would be to actually power cycle the system/drive.

[ZuppaSalata]

new update: I removed everything from my ssd, the only 2 exceptions are windows and Eclipse. Its been 3 days since that and my pc is running without any problem. Now I will slowly install everything back and I will keep you updated if something new happens. Maybe there was a problem with compatibility

[ZuppaSalata]

new Update: my pc kept freezing even with nothing installed on the ssd. So I removed it, I partitioned my hdd and Installed windows on it. Then while I was installing windows updates, when  disk usage reached 100%, stayed there for a while and then I noticed the system froze. I reeboted and I finally installed every update. I used the pc for 2 weeks without any problem (even when gaming (gta5)). Then  2 days ago my pc started freezing again during gaming sessions. 

Every freeze lasts for like 30 seconds and then the game unlocks itself. I can play for like 45 minutes without any problem but then after the first freeze it keep freezing every 5 minutes. 

 

Today I was trying to install the latest chipset but I cant ! Disk usage gets stuck at 100% while response time is between 2000 and 7000 ms. 

 

Know Im starting to think that maybe is hdd fault. 

 

I will do anything to solve this problem

 

I will keep you updated

 

Thanks

[ZuppaSalata]

new update: today I updated my gpu drivers to 20.4.2 and my chipset to the latest version without any problem. I installed 3 new fans for more airflow. 

I enabled xmp 2 profile in bios. 

I played gta5 for a bit (gpu temps dont go over 75 °C and cpu remains under 65 °C). The game started freezing after 30 min of gaming with 30 seconds freeze as usual. While this happened I was looking at disk activity light on my case and noticed that is wasnt stuck on. 

 

I Wish I had the amount of hardware Linus has to test every single part of the pc. 

 

I will keep you updated with my journey

 

Thanks everyone

 

 

[ZuppaSalata]

new update:

I noticed that when gta 5 freezes, If I press the windows key I get out of the game without any problem and If I open the task manager I can see that disk usage is at 100% with gta being the main user of it. Freezes happens when I'm driving or during cutscenes, I think these parts require loading a lot of data and maybe freezes are caused by hardware limitations (beacuse I'm running both windows and the game on my hdd). Infact if I wait 5 seconds in the task manager and then I re-enter the game it runs just fine.

I read somewhere on the forum that if it was a psu problem (like its not sufficient) the game would crash or the pc wuold turn off, so I dont think this mess is psu fault. 

Also I want to say that back when windows was installed on my ssd, during freezes the entire system was stuck and I had to reebot everytime. 

 

Maybe in a few weeks I will clean my old ssd and reinstall windows on it, then I will use it as the only storage for a while to see if I can find any difference.

 

I will keep you updated

ps. this journey is making me learn so much stuff so its not that bad (but still I would like to solve the problem )  

Thank you everyone

[KarathKasun]

Get Crystal Disk Info and check the SMART counters.  Easy way to check for basic flash failure, however if the controller itself is failing it may not report errors.

[ZuppaSalata]

On 6/3/2020 at 7:45 AM, KarathKasun said:

Get Crystal Disk Info and check the SMART counters.  Easy way to check for basic flash failure, however if the controller itself is failing it may not report errors.

Hi, I these are the result from crystal disk info. Yesterday while I was playing gta5 I noticed that while I was driving sometimes some textures and map pieces were missing from the map and everyone of these "errors" were followed by a game freeze. 

I also run cinebench r15 and Heaven Benchmarks looking for similiar problems. But even running both together (Heaven Benchmark with extreme settings) I had no problem, temps were ok and didn't get any stutter.

 

Thanks for the help

 

[KarathKasun]

CB and Haven do not load from the disk much.

 

Also, that report is from your HDD, not SSD.  And it is showing read errors from the disk.

[ZuppaSalata]

43 minutes ago, KarathKasun said:

CB and Haven do not load from the disk much.

 

Also, that report is from your HDD, not SSD.  And it is showing read errors from the disk.

-I run cinebench and Heaven only to be sure is not a gpu/cpu/psu problem. Also Im only using my hdd, I removed the ssd 2 weeks ago to see if it was the problem. Since I removed it the system is slower, but it also more stable. 

-Btw I think that the gta5 freezes were caused by a game issue, I saw a lot of people on internet saying that freezes are common while driving. Today I tried with a lower resolution and I had no problems while playing.  

- About read errors, I will do some research. Should the "Read Error rate" value be 100 instead of 81 ?

 

Thanks for helping me!

[KarathKasun]

4 hours ago, ZuppaSalata said:

-I run cinebench and Heaven only to be sure is not a gpu/cpu/psu problem. Also Im only using my hdd, I removed the ssd 2 weeks ago to see if it was the problem. Since I removed it the system is slower, but it also more stable. 

-Btw I think that the gta5 freezes were caused by a game issue, I saw a lot of people on internet saying that freezes are common while driving. Today I tried with a lower resolution and I had no problems while playing.  

- About read errors, I will do some research. Should the "Read Error rate" value be 100 instead of 81 ?

 

Thanks for helping me!

It should be 0.  The problem threshold is 6.