980 PRO running into SMART error just after a year

[morpheus6677]

Hey, I've been using my self built PC with 2× 980 pros for a bit over a year now. I've been playing a lot of CSGO since then and ran nvidia shadowplay aswell at around 60Mbit/s and 20min length.

Today I've been noticing anomalies. When I tried to retrieve ingame footage there were 2 mp4 files (weirdly, since usually there would always be 1) in the capture folder. One of them with the ingame footage (as usual) and oddly another one that I couldn't open. When I opened the other one there was just a black screen footage. Then, when I tired to delete it, it said: "unable to delete because nvidia running in background" (or something like that).

I kept ignoring the issue and went on playing. Later this night, the game suddenly crashed and I had to force shut down my PC as everything froze. Coming back from a 15min break and rebooting my PC again I ran into the SMART error indicating that something's really wrong with my SSD.

I've been looking for causes of the problem but couldn't find any until I thought about shadowplay. What I still can't understand is eventhough shadowplay reduces the lifetime of an SSD significantly how it could break my SSD that fast. I mean there is no way that it has already reached 1200 TBW just within 1 one year, right?

[johnno23]

If that SSD is merely used for your game and not the boot drive I would simply backup what I wanted to keep then reformat the drive.

if anything got corrupted with any files on the drive causing any possible issue a reformat should remove the issue and the drive should report back as healthy once again.

Also check how much space is left on the drive.....if approaching max capacity expect odd behavior

 

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, morpheus6677 said:

Hey, I've been using my self built PC with 2× 980 pros for a bit over a year now. I've been playing a lot of CSGO since then and ran nvidia shadowplay aswell at around 60Mbit/s and 20min length.

Today I've been noticing anomalies. When I tried to retrieve ingame footage there were 2 mp4 files (weirdly, since usually there would always be 1) in the capture folder. One of them with the ingame footage (as usual) and oddly another one that I couldn't open. When I opened the other one there was just a black screen footage. Then, when I tired to delete it, it said: "unable to delete because nvidia running in background" (or something like that).

I kept ignoring the issue and went on playing. Later this night, the game suddenly crashed and I had to force shut down my PC as everything froze. Coming back from a 15min break and rebooting my PC again I ran into the SMART error indicating that something's really wrong with my SSD.

I've been looking for causes of the problem but couldn't find any until I thought about shadowplay. What I still can't understand is eventhough shadowplay reduces the lifetime of an SSD significantly how it could break my SSD that fast. I mean there is no way that it has already reached 1200 TBW just within 1 one year, right?

Smart data will tell you how much it has written. Load up crystal disk and share the screen shot.

[Doobeedoo]

Check the firmware as well.

[morpheus6677]

8 hours ago, johnno23 said:

If that SSD is merely used for your game and not the boot drive I would simply backup what I wanted to keep then reformat the drive.

if anything got corrupted with any files on the drive causing any possible issue a reformat should remove the issue and the drive should report back as healthy once again.

Also check how much space is left on the drive.....if approaching max capacity expect odd behavior

 

Thanks for your reply! Unfortunately it affects the boot drive. By backing up you mean disabling SMART and boot windows again and then copy my data onto a USB stick for example? Wouldn't it be easier and less risky to just claim warranty and get myself a new 980 pro instead of reformatting it?

[johnno23]

by backing up I was referring to making a copy of all your info an another drive to ensure nothing is lost. 

the way I am looking at the issue is that unless you test the drive is is actually broken or has some corrupted file thrown out an error that leads one to think it is broken.

I have one SSD from intel that 2 years ago suddenly threw out an error but copying over files to an external drive to save things it halted on an error and reported than a small video file from my phone could not be read.

So i clicked the box ignore copied everything else and reformatted. the drive is still in my PC holding a steam library and never had an issue since.

I can ask myself how on earth did the file get corrupted but i have no idea ? PCs are wonderful tech but the hardware does and will always have the odd little hiccups here and there.

Also if the SSD is truly broken reformatting will probably fail anyways so you need to backup whatever you can regardless of what you do

[porina]

There have been reports on a bad firmware for 980 Pro leading to premature failing. Maybe this was affected. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/samsung-980-pro-ssd-failures-firmware-update

 

It'll be interesting what the exact SMART error is. For example, post a screenshot of CrystalDiskInfo output?

 

Definitely back up any important data there is on the drive while figuring out what to do next.

 

There are various settings in Shadowplay like Highlights and Instant Replay that can record based on other triggers. Maybe that explains the 2nd file.

[morpheus6677]

3 hours ago, porina said:

There have been reports on a bad firmware for 980 Pro leading to premature failing. Maybe this was affected. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/samsung-980-pro-ssd-failures-firmware-update

 

It'll be interesting what the exact SMART error is. For example, post a screenshot of CrystalDiskInfo output?

 

Definitely back up any important data there is on the drive while figuring out what to do next.

 

There are various settings in Shadowplay like Highlights and Instant Replay that can record based on other triggers. Maybe that explains the 2nd file.

Thanks.

 

How do I copy my data on the first SSD onto another one (how do I backup my data ideally)?

 

In order to check my SSD via CrystalDiskInfo I'd have to disable SMART in the bios, boot up Windows, and then download and run the program, right?

[porina]

10 minutes ago, morpheus6677 said:

How do I copy my data on the first SSD onto another one (how do I backup my data ideally)?

 

In order to check my SSD via CrystalDiskInfo I'd have to disable SMART in the bios, boot up Windows, and then download and run the program, right?

I've not had a SMART error reported in this way, so can't directly say. If you need to disable it to continue booting, then do so.

 

How you backup is up to you. A manual copy is one way. Focus on files that are important to you that are not also stored elsewhere. Other software can automate it. I use syncback free for example, but would take some setting up.

[morpheus6677]

I did disable the SMART test but could not boot up windows. Instead the bios interface shows up immediately. Is there any way to retrieve and backup my data as the SSD seems not to be working at all?