pc sometimes freezes

swpq_ · August 25, 2024

sometimes when i switch programs my pc will freeze for like a second. when i ran an installer that was on the extracting step my pc froze. this is probably because of my ssd right? whenever it happens in task manager my ssd is at 100% usage and the average response time is in the hundreds

Sawa Takahashi · August 25, 2024

Well, it certainly can be caused by the SSD.

Depending on your SSD architecture, it has a high speed write cache that is written into regular storage at a lower pace. When you write more data than the capacity of the cache, the write speed to the SSD drops until the cache had time to write its content to regular storage and is ready to accept more write requests.

There's nothing much you can do about it without changing your SSD for another one with larger write cache or faster overall storage speed.

Another workaround is to install directly to a HDD. You won't experience slowdowns (or not as drastic ones) because the overall speed is already way slower than a SSD. It will take longer to install software but the computer should not freeze like with the SSD.

Hope that helps.

swpq_ · August 26, 2024

21 hours ago, Sawa Takahashi said:

Well, it certainly can be caused by the SSD.

Depending on your SSD architecture, it has a high speed write cache that is written into regular storage at a lower pace. When you write more data than the capacity of the cache, the write speed to the SSD drops until the cache had time to write its content to regular storage and is ready to accept more write requests.

There's nothing much you can do about it without changing your SSD for another one with larger write cache or faster overall storage speed.

Another workaround is to install directly to a HDD. You won't experience slowdowns (or not as drastic ones) because the overall speed is already way slower than a SSD. It will take longer to install software but the computer should not freeze like with the SSD.

Hope that helps.

ohh i was wondering why that was happening. but the system wide freezes havent been happening until like a month ago. i wanted to buy a new ssd anyways whether or not it will fix the problem. do you think a Kingston KC3000 1TB would be a good choice?

Sawa Takahashi · August 26, 2024

1 hour ago, swpq_ said:

i wanted to buy a new ssd anyways whether or not it will fix the problem. do you think a Kingston KC3000 1TB would be a good choice?

This is certainly a faster drive than the one you have currently. And I got good experiences with Kingston drive for longevity and reliability.

I could not find info about the buffer size (neither for the Kingston nor the Apacer) but a 1TB drive usually have a larger buffer than a 256GB one.

It is possible that this won't solve your issue entirely but it should help a lot. Also, by installing a fresh Windows, you'll solve any file corruption you current Windows installation may have accumulated.

Good luck !