Question 500GB Samsung 980 Pro problem, critical health, insane writes

[vojacirjak]

I recently purchased a brand-new Samsung 980 Pro, and I made this decision thanks to the advice I received on here. It was out of my budget, but since everybody emphasized just how future-proof the purchase would be, I made the call to get it.

It has been 3 months since I installed it and started using it. Some days ago, I decided to read the S.M.A.R.T. data through CrystalDiskInfo and Hard Disk Sentinel. To my surprise, both reported critical health (0%), and a whopping 721TB with only 858 hours of power-on time. The performance is reported to be at 100% in both programs. It's important to point out that I did not initially install Samsung's Magician software because there was some error preventing me from installing it. However, I just figured out how to get past the error a few days ago, and Magician also reported the same thing...

I am uncertain whether this is in any way similar to the widely reported problem(s) of the 980 Pro 2TB, related to the firmware version. Whether Magician automatically updated the firmware upon installation, I don't know. But I can say that after installing it, it said that it's running the latest firmware version (5B2QGXA7).

Usually excessive writes are associated with things such as the NVIDIA ShadowPlay, but I checked, and instant replay was set to "Off" in GeForce Experience. I went into Task Manager, and looked at the I/O write bytes, sorted it by size, and it revealed that two MSI Command Center processes have written 16TB in 2 days.

I usually play a lot of video games, but for the past 3 months, I have been away from gaming. For reference, my old SSD, the 250GB Samsung 850 Evo, which I have been using for over 4 years, has 3172TB lifetime writes with 10737 hours of power-on time. I don't do any video editing, 3D modeling and rendering, or anything of similar nature. I feel like it's worthy of mentioning that power surges are somewhat common where I live. Sometimes they happen multiple times throughout the day. However, I have never had any PC component die from it (knock on the wood).

Does anyone have any clue as to what may be going on and what's the cause behind the odd behavior of my new 980 Pro? The whole situation is stressing me out :/

 

[Ralston18]

Not an answer- full disclosure.

However, do be sure that all important data saved to the drive in question is backed up at least 2 x to other locations. Verify that the data is recoverable and readable.

Just an interim thought.....

 

[vojacirjak]

Not an answer- full disclosure.

However, do be sure that all important data saved to the drive in question is backed up at least 2 x to other locations. Verify that the data is recoverable and readable.

Just an interim thought.....

Thank you for the friendly advice. Stupidly enough, I still haven't done that! Fingers crossed that it survives till tomorrow.

 

[fzabkar]

https://www.google.com/search?q=721+TB+per+858+hours+in+MiB+per+second

721 TB in 858 hours = 223 MiB per second

 

[USAFRet]

Usually excessive writes are associated with things such as the NVIDIA ShadowPlay

Various types of malware can also do that.

 

[fzabkar]

You're not alone:

https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/5j5h9m/ssd_users_beware_of_resource_hogging_applications/

 

[vojacirjak]

https://www.google.com/search?q=721+TB+per+858+hours+in+MiB+per+second

721 TB in 858 hours = 223 MiB per second

When you put it like that, it does not sound crazy. However, please consider the numbers I provided about my old SSD.

 

[vojacirjak]

You're not alone:

https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/5j5h9m/ssd_users_beware_of_resource_hogging_applications/

Quite an old thread, but do know that MSI Command Center has been on my PC since I built it... It is beyond me what could've caused such a drastic difference in the way it behaves

 

[fzabkar]

When you put it like that, it does not sound crazy. However, please consider the numbers I provided about my old SSD.

To me, it does sound crazy, even at 100MB/s.

 

[vojacirjak]

Various types of malware can also do that.

Understood. But how would I be able to check for that?

 

[fzabkar]

What does MSI Command Center actually do? If you can live without it, I would kill it.

 

[TeamRed2024]

It has been 3 months since I installed it and started using it. Some days ago, I decided to read the S.M.A.R.T. data through CrystalDiskInfo and Hard Disk Sentinel. To my surprise, both reported critical health (0%), and a whopping 721TB with only 858 hours of power-on time.

Wow. That is insane.

I just sold 4 SSDs from my previous build that I had used for the last 5 years... Samsung 970 Evo Plus 2TB.

They all had 20-30TB written over that 4 year span.

 

[vojacirjak]

To me, it does sound crazy, even at 100MB/s.

I don't know what to do... I use Command Center for my motherboard and especially to control my PC's fans. If somehow I infected my PC with malware or a virus, I wouldn't know. I don't download pirated software or video games frequently, and when I do, I do so from reputable sources.

 

[TeamRed2024]

Understood. But how would I be able to check for that?

I use MalwareBytes.

 

[vojacirjak]

Wow. That is insane.

I just sold 4 SSDs from my previous build that I had used for the last 5 years... Samsung 970 Evo Plus 2TB.

They all had 20-30TB written over that 4 year span.

What, so even my old SSD had a crazy number on it?!! I never did anything insane on my PC ;-;

 

[fzabkar]

I don't know what to do... I use Command Center for my motherboard and especially to control my PC's fans. If somehow I infected my PC with malware or a virus, I wouldn't know. I don't download pirated software or video games frequently, and when I do, I do so from reputable sources.

Yes, the tool seems very simple and benign. :-?

https://www.msi.com/support/technical_details/DT_MSI_Utility#txt02

Very strange ...

 

[USAFRet]

a whopping 721TB

That is 10x the cumulative writes of all 6 of my current SSDs, some of which have been in 24/7 service for years.
A cumulative 180k hours. 20 years.

 

[COLGeek]

I don't know what to do... I use Command Center for my motherboard and especially to control my PC's fans. If somehow I infected my PC with malware or a virus, I wouldn't know. I don't download pirated software or video games frequently, and when I do, I do so from reputable sources.

Multiple problems here.

Tom's Hardware does not support any form of software piracy. None. Period.

All illegitimate software should be removed and a full malware scan performed. In fact, a full clean install of Windows may be in order.

 

[Flayed]

I don't download pirated software or video games frequently, and when I do, I do so from reputable sources.

Installing pirated software is asking for trouble.

 

[vojacirjak]

That is 10x the cumulative writes of all 6 of my current SSDs, some of which have been in 24/7 service for years.
A cumulative 180k hours. 20 years.

Perhaps I am wrong about the amount of written data from MSI Command Center.

Is the "I/O write bytes" the total writes of this process over a lifetime, or does it restart the count every session? I just booted up my PC, and it says 8TB again. The PC hasn't been on for 10 minutes, so I highly doubt that this figure is for session, as that would be impossible.

Regardless, it's very difficult for me to pinpoint what is causing such an absurd number of writes

 

[vojacirjak]

Multiple problems here.

Tom's Hardware does not support any form of software piracy. None. Period.

All illegitimate software should be removed and a full malware scan performed. In fact, a full clean install of Windows may be in order.

I understand, and I am not trying to promote it in any way!

I don't mean to justify, but I do not come from fortune, and unfortunately, that has been the only way for me to get to software that allows me to make progress in life.

I only pirated 2 games, so it's not like I'm a maniac like the most of the piracy community.

 

[vojacirjak]

Yes, the tool seems very simple and benign. :-?

https://www.msi.com/support/technical_details/DT_MSI_Utility#txt02

Very strange ...

I agree. Perhaps I was mistaken, and the number of writes is for the entire lifespan of the program. However, I don't think this could be true, as I recently migrated from my old SSD to the new one, and I did so with the use of disk imaging.

If my PC is indeed infected, maybe the virus or malware got carried over.. However, I never had a virus on my PC. I don't visit shady websites, and I don't download from unreputable sources.

 

[vojacirjak]

Update for everyone:
My SSD had a total of 754.2TB written yesterday. I took a picture of this, and from the time of the picture, to the time that I shut down my PC, my PC was on for 1 hour and 50 minutes. Today, I turned on my PC, and the time it was active was for no more than 30 minutes. From the time of the picture, to now, the number of writes rose to 766.8TB. This implies that a total of 12.6TB has been written in ~2 hours of active PC time. Something is wrong, very wrong.

 

[SkyNetRising]

I only pirated 2 games, so it's not like I'm a maniac like the most of the piracy community.

LOL. Expect this topic to be closed very soon.

 

[SkyNetRising]

This implies that a total of 12.6TB has been written in ~2 hours of active PC time. Something is wrong, very wrong.

Use Resource Monitor - Disk tab - Disk activity section.
Order it by column Total in descending order.
Make file names fully readable and
show screenshot.
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

You will see offending application and file names, that are being read/written.

Resource Monitor looks like this

Spoiler