[SOLVED] ADATA SU 650 weird perfomance in games

[nick1232]

I have SATA SSD Drive which I was going to use for some games. Problem is in those games it shows weird delayed performance. I watch windows inspector in order to check what's going on and it shows me 100% of load for this drive and read speed around 1-2 megabytes with average response time up to 8 seconds (8000 milliseconds). When I run synthetic tests such as CrystalDiscMark I see no issues like that. It does all tests like there is no issues at all, in windows inspector I see no average response time more than 8 ms. And read speed around 450-550 mb, or 160 mb in multi-threat mode. It is filled less than a half, truncate is turned on. But in every game I see behavior like that weird delays and low read speed. What can be wrong? I really doubt all games do so much of multi-threat requests to SSD so it slows it down that hard...

 

[popatim]

The Su650 is a cheap drive meant for general use. Adata builds them with whatever parts are cheapest at the time so there is no saying which controller or flash chips are in yours. Quite possibly you have the horrid Maxon controller. They overheat often which causes several strange issue but mostly they disappear from your system & bios when it happens. the native write speed is often under 50MB iirc.

You also don't mention which motherboard you have or which mode your Sata ports are in. Ideally you want them to be in AHCI mode for best performance.

 

[nick1232]

The Su650 is a cheap drive meant for general use. Adata builds them with whatever parts are cheapest at the time so there is no saying which controller or flash chips are in yours. Quite possibly you have the horrid Maxon controller. They overheat often which causes several strange issue but mostly they disappear from your system & bios when it happens. the native write speed is often under 50MB iirc.

You also don't mention which motherboard you have or which mode your Sata ports are in. Ideally you want them to be in AHCI mode for best performance.

Thanks for your response. I do not expect it to have ultra performance but it should be enough to handle a game under 100 GB with no problems. At least I expected that.

Motherboard is Asus Prime Z270M-Plus. Intel 300 AHCI controller.
I think it is something to do about drive itself, I tried to install it in my laptop as well. It was OK with system loading, but when it came to games it showed similar problems. I try to figure out what could it be, perhaps my experience will come in handy to other people as well.
Drive temperature is 47-48 without load, under load it is 59-63. And there is strange thing now, perhaps moment of truth. Now it shows read speed only 29-46 MB. I did the same test with same program and same parameters for 3 times in a row 8 hours ago, and it showed me 'normal' 480-560 read speed with no problem each time. But now it shows only 29-46.

 

[popatim]

Have you used the Adata SSD toolbox to check for a firmware update?
Other then that, see if they will warranty it for freezing up intermittently.

 

[nick1232]

Have you used the Adata SSD toolbox to check for a firmware update?
Other then that, see if they will warranty it for freezing up intermittently.

Yes, I did. It seems it was never updated, at least it says there is no update. I have another ADATA SSD for M.2 slot, and it works just fine, I mean it is not like special gamer device, but it does a job I can play games over 200 gb with a enough performance and no issues like that.
Summary of what I have now: it is the hottest drive in my system even hotter than M.2 drive. Under load it is up to 72 degrees. I performed two tests again and it shows 499-536 mb for single thread and 16-19 for random read. Could it be games use random read algorithm? They perhaps do if they need specific park of big resource file. It is also strange that I had previously only 29-46 mb read once in single threat. For some reason this drive can show very different qualities and I don't think it is temperature.

 

[popatim]

Have you tested in safe mode?

 

[nick1232]

Have you tested in safe mode?

Not sure I understand. Do you mean safe mode of windows?

 

[mdd1963]

If you have a Z270 board, I'd be searching for on the 2x as fast and not much more expensive NVME M.2 drives...(1 TB 970 EVO was recently on sale for $169 or so at Newegg); clean install to it, then quick format the problematic SSD to see if it's problems are/were just a glitch or if they return...

The Crucial MX500 is a great SATA SSD, and normally reasonably priced relative to an 860EVO...

 

[nick1232]

If you have a Z270 board, I'd be searching for on the 2x as fast and not much more expensive NVME M.2 drives...(1 TB 970 EVO was recently on sale for $169 or so at Newegg); clean install to it, then quick format the problematic SSD to see if it's problems are/were just a glitch or if they return...

The Crucial MX500 is a great SATA SSD, and normally reasonably priced relative to an 860EVO...

Does quick format solve such problems? It is secondary drive, I bought it long time ago, no guarantee already. I did not use it for gaming, perhaps that is why I did not notice anything strange. I can format it any time, but I am not sure what it can change. Thanks for advice though.

 

[popatim]

Not sure I understand. Do you mean safe mode of windows?

Yes, only a few drivers load in safe mode and that may help. If the problem is still there then its probably not a driver issue.

 

[nick1232]

Yes, only a few drivers load in safe mode and that may help. If the problem is still there then its probably not a driver issue.

I really doubt it will make much sense. There was only one time when synthetic tests showed lower performance than it should be. In save mode I will not be able to run any game or specific application which requires similar type or requests. I tested my ADATA SU800 drive which is connected to M.2 (I have no performance issues with it) and surprisingly I have very similar data regarding performance, Crystal DiskMark shows 550-555 MB read speed and 20-24 for multi-threat requests. It is slightly faster than SU650 but definitely not even close to performance difference in games. Perhaps it is definitely controller issue, but I have no knowledge in it expect I think it is not overheat issue, it is something to do with logic.

 

[popatim]

My hope was that a replacement will likely get you a "different internally" drive which may resolve the sporadic slowness that's causing you the problems.

CrystalDiskMark will run in safe mode fwiw.

 

[nick1232]

My hope was that a replacement will likely get you a "different internally" drive which may resolve the sporadic slowness that's causing you the problems.

CrystalDiskMark will run in safe mode fwiw.

Thank you. But it seems I have to invent another purpose for this drive than gaming.

For people who want to save money and hope their inexpensive drive will be suitable for at least some games be careful, it does not always work like that. There is a dozen of reasons why you choose SATA SSD, I wanted convertibility, but in comes with a price of inflexibility of usage. And it is not the worst outcome possible.

 

[popatim]

Very True

 

[nick1232]

Hi again, perhaps I found a solution that can work in cases like mine. You have to format this drive and choose biggest suitable allocation size. If you use large files which are usually chosen by multimedia that perhaps reduces load of controller and makes it work more or less fine even for games. For me it works at least for a couple of tests in real games.