AMD has officially acknowledged a software defect within its External Events Utility that is causing severe, continuous writing to solid-state drives. The company has promised a permanent fix, but users are currently advised to take manual steps to prevent their storage hardware from degrading prematurely.
Under normal operating conditions, an SSD may go long periods without needing to write new data. However, some AMD Radeon users are experiencing the opposite. Reports indicate that the External Events Utility, which AMD installs alongside its CPU and GPU drivers, is triggering constant data writes. This behavior is effectively wearing out the drive faster than intended.
Reports of Excessive Data Usage
The issue first appeared on AMD’s official PC user forum in July. One user reported that the External Events Client Module and the External Events Utility were continuously writing information to their SSD after installing a Radeon 9060XT graphics card. Subsequent comments on that thread confirmed the problem persisted through several patch updates.
Users have provided specific metrics regarding the data consumption. Two users reported write speeds ranging from 0.3 MB/s to as much as 1.5 MB/s. While these numbers might seem small in isolation, the continuous nature of the writes accumulates rapidly over time.
Reddit user darklinkpower shared further evidence this week, noting that the AMD Adrenalin Edition desktop application was also involved in the bug. The user estimated the issue consumed up to 1% of their drive health per month. Over a period of 16 months, this constant activity could lead to catastrophic drive failure.
Workarounds and Potential Side Effects
AMD_Vik, an official representative on Reddit, confirmed the company is aware of the situation. The representative stated the issue will hopefully be fixed in the next update. However, no firm timeline has been provided for the release of this patch. In the meantime, users have identified a few workarounds to protect their hardware.
The most consistent solution reported by users is to disable the External Events Utility entirely. This action stops the excessive writing immediately. However, disabling this utility carries its own risks. Users have reported that turning it off can disable AMD FreeSync support. It may also introduce display glitches, particularly when hot-swapping monitors while the PC is powered on.
For those who need FreeSync or encounter display issues, adjusting settings within the AMD Adrenalin Edition desktop application may offer a middle ground. This application controls how PC components communicate. Allowing the CPU to access the graphics card memory can temporarily boost performance, but the bug seems to allow the CPU and GPU to access memory indiscriminately. Changing specific settings in the app may help limit this behavior.
A more complex solution involves adjusting communication settings between the CPU and GPU. This approach carries a higher risk of introducing communication issues between the components. It is recommended only if disabling the External Events Utility does not resolve the problem. Without a definitive patch from AMD, users are left managing these trade-offs to prevent their storage drives from collapsing.
Source: ZDNet
