Drivers cause freezes, hangs, and crashes- not hardware related?

[Luneshot]

I've tried everything I can find, so now I come to you.
Before I get started, here's my specs and hardware:

Windows 10 Pro
Motherboard:Asus H97M-E
CPU: Intel i5-4590
Graphics: GTX 1070 (brand new)
SSD (boot drive): Samsung 850 Evo (brand new, I bought because I thought my old 850 Evo was bad- although I'm not so sure of that now!)
HDD (storage): 2TB WD Black 7200RPM WD2003FZEX
Memory: 4x 4GB Crucial DDR3 1600MHz
Network Card: TP-Link Archer T6E
PSU: EVGA 600W (brand new)

I'm having serious hanging, freezing, and crashing issues with my disks. I'm constantly getting the following messages:

Event 154, Disk
The IO operation at logical block address [random address] for Disk [0 or 1] failed due to a hardware error.

or, less often:

Event 153, Disk
The IO operation at logical block address [random address] for Disk [0 or 1] was retried.

These messages come at a rate of like a dozen or more per minute, accompanied by hangs and freezes- making the computer nearly unusable.

I do not believe it is a hardware issue- because not only is it indiscriminate which disk errors out (and I highly doubt this month old SSD is bad as well as my 2-year old HDD),
but all SMART diagnostic tools and chkdsk show zero problems.
It happens regardless of the SATA cables I use (I've tried several) and which SATA port on the motherboard I plug them into.
Not only that, Windows boots into safe mode with zero issues and will run for several days without a problem.

So far, I've tried all of the following solutions I found online:

• 
  ■ Updating UEFI/BIOS to latest version.
  ■ Installing latest official Intel drivers for the chipset on the motherboard- see below.
  ■ Disabling PCI-E Link State Power Management. (both through Windows and BIOS)
  ■ Disabling Write Caching on both disks.
  ■ Making AHCI power options visible, and turning off AHCI Link Power Management- HIPM/DIPM.
  ■ Setting "Turn Off Hard Disk after" power option to "Never".
  ■ Updating SSD firmware to latest version.
  ■ Disabling device driver paging on hard disks.
  ■ Changing I/O timeout value to 20 seconds.
  ■ Disabling dynamic tick.
  ■ Enabling hotswap in BIOS settings.
  ■ and probably a couple more that I can't remember right now.

The only possible fix I have not tried is installing Hyper-V, because I can't do that in safe mode.

Now, the first thing I tried was installing the official Intel Rapid Storage Technology AHCI/RAID drivers, both the ones that come with my motherboard and the latest ones.
Unfortunately, this appears to lead to a different set of freezes, crashes, and hangs!
I get tons of the following error:

Source: iaStorA EventID: 129  Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort0, was issued.

or

Source: iaStorA EventID: 129  Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort1, was issued.

This error is accompanied by hangs and freezes and whatnot, frequent enough to make the computer unusable.

For this problem, I've tried the following solutions:

• 
  ■ Every other solution listed above, again.
  ■ Updating to latest version of chipset drivers.
  ■ Disabling link power management through the Intel RST application.

For almost all of these solutions, the results were initially promising- the computer might run fine for the rest of the night,
(I could even play graphically or CPU-intensive games) but had frozen by the next morning and the problem repeats itself, even though the setting that was changed hadn't reset or anything.

I'm at a loss here- between two sets of drivers with similar freezing issues, no indication of a hardware problem as far as I can see,
and this installation of Windows being about four weeks old (I reinstalled when switching from a GTX 750Ti to the 1070), I'm out of ideas.

My (admittedly amateur) thoughts:
The 600W power supply isn't enough for this setup, hence why I don't see problems in safe mode (because the graphics card isn't running).
The SATA controller on the motherboard is bad- but why would it work fine in Safe Mode then?

Anybody have any ideas or solutions? I might have done those solutions already and forgot to list them, but I'm open to basically anything at this point.

Thanks,
Lune

 

[theradeonxt]

Hi there,

Do you also get high CPU usage (lets say on one core), or high kernel usage in Task Manager while the PC is in idle?

I would incline to blame some driver issue.
May I suggest trying the Windows provided storage drivers first?
And then trying older Intel storage drivers.

If I understand correctly, it is the same model of SSD you are replacing?

 

[Luneshot]

I've tried Windows provided storage drivers; those are the source of the first set of issues I describe in my post. I haven't had a chance to check CPU or kernel usage because I'm rarely even able to get Task Manager started before it freezes; I'll see if I can take a look at it. And yes, it is the same model of SSD; my original thought was that the SSD was bad, but now I'm wondering if the first one was just fine.

 

[theradeonxt]

Are you able to try it using the integrated graphics on the CPU?
It may as well be an issue with the power supply.

Another option would be to have just the SSD, and remove all other storage drives.
I hope the event log erros refer to the SSD - be sure it's not the HDD that is somehow causing the issue.

 

[Luneshot]

The power supply is like a month old; I was having the same problem with the old one, so I don't think it's the issue. I get the same problems using the integrated CPU graphics, and I've tried reinstalling Win 10 (including from a total format of C several times now. I get the same problem whether there's the HDD installed or not. This is driving me nuts- should I just replace the motherboard and try to hope to God it's mysteriously fixed?

 

[npaler01]

Were you able to get this resolved? I'm having the same issue. Had an Intel SSD, it crashed and I thought it was the SSD so I got a Samsung 850 Evo. This one is crashing too. A ton of Event 153 (block addresses retired) in my Event log in Windows 10.

 

[Luneshot]

Were you able to get this resolved? I'm having the same issue. Had an Intel SSD, it crashed and I thought it was the SSD so I got a Samsung 850 Evo. This one is crashing too. A ton of Event 153 (block addresses retired) in my Event log in Windows 10.

Yes, I did manage to resolve it, although I think it might have been specific to my situation.

Turns out it was the network wireless adapter, weirdly. I had a TP-Link Archer T6E (a PCI-E card, not USB). As soon as I installed the drivers for it, I started having issues, and as soon as I uninstalled them they went away.

Why did a network adapter mimic issues with an SSD/SATA controller? Who knows. But turns out that was the cause for me. I wish you luck!

 

[npaler01]

Good to know. I'll go through drivers to see what was updated/changed recently.
Thanks!