Question HDD & SSD Issues on Load

Defiantt

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Apr 18, 2019
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Hi,

I've recently started encountering an issue when my computer is under load (playing games). This being that my SSD's (2) and HDD (1) disconnect and reconnect over and over until eventually my pc just freezes up as a result of it losing connection to the SSD holding my OS i'm guessing.

This issue only seems to occur when my computer runs something stressful. I was able to fully reinstall windows, drivers, applications, and games on one of my SSD's without the issue happening. After all that, I left it on just doing regular tasks such as browsing, watching youtube videos, listening to music, etc. (about 3 hours or so) and it ran perfectly fine, but after trying to play a game on it again the issue still remained. I'll last like 5-10 mins in the game before the problem starts occurring.

  • Temperatures all seem normal, nothing out of the ordinary.
  • I've ran SeaTools smart check, ran chkdsk, and other disk error checks and nothing came up on either of my drives.
  • I've also tried swapping my SATA cables around.
  • SSD firmware is also up-to-date.
  • Updated my BIOS.
  • Checked for loose SATA connectors.
I don't think it would be an ssd or hdd issue since it's happening to all of them out of the blue suddenly, and what are the chances they all fail simultaneously? My assumption is that it's PSU related, or bad SATA power cables, as the issue only happens under load, but I'm not entirely sure. Hoping for some of your input on what could potentially be the issue here.



PC Specs:
  • CPU: Intel Core i7-8700k
  • MOBO: ASRock Z390 Taichi
  • RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200MHz 2x8GB
  • GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 SC 8GB
  • PSU: EVGA B3 650W Bronze 80+ Full Modular
  • OS: Windows 10 Professional 64-bit
  • STORAGE: Samsung 840 Pro SSD 256GB (windows), Samsung 860 Evo SSD 500GB (games), Western Digital HDD 500GB 7200RPM (docs/files)
 

Quarkzquarkz

Distinguished
Sep 18, 2013
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It could be any number of reasons. Bad power supply which I doubt, it could be one of your memory modules acting funky, which I wouldn't put on the top of the list but it's possible. You can run a memTest+ on both to make sure the integrity's stable. My other lingering suspicion would be the space left on your 840pro. Sometimes these older SSD's act very strange when they fill up to even 85% of the storage capacity.

Lastly, try a virus scan to make sure nothing strange is going on any of the 3 storages you're connected to. Good luck!
 
I'm thinking it might be a PSU issue as well. I think your voltages may be dropping under load causing you the problems.

If you want to know for sure.....run HWInfo. It will monitor your voltages as well as record the high and low voltages.

You don't want the voltages varying more than 5% from +12, +5 and + 3.3V

You can also set up HWInfo to log these voltages to a file in case your PC crashes while you are logging.

Then you can go back and see what led up to the crash.

OR

You could just swap out the PSU with a good quality one and see what happens.
 

Defiantt

Prominent
Apr 18, 2019
9
0
510
It could be any number of reasons. Bad power supply which I doubt, it could be one of your memory modules acting funky, which I wouldn't put on the top of the list but it's possible. You can run a memTest+ on both to make sure the integrity's stable. My other lingering suspicion would be the space left on your 840pro. Sometimes these older SSD's act very strange when they fill up to even 85% of the storage capacity.

Lastly, try a virus scan to make sure nothing strange is going on any of the 3 storages you're connected to. Good luck!

I'll try running a MemTest when I get home tonight and see how it goes.

But the issue is happening to all my storage drives, not just the 840. The 840 is nowhere near full, significantly less than half is used -- but since it's the older of the two SSD's (forgot to mention this in main post, sorry about that) i removed it from my PC and formatted my 860 EVO and reinstalled all the things stated in the main post (windows, drivers, apps, etc.). Worked fine up until I ran a game, issue still occurred.

Can't be a virus issue i don't think, since I just reinstalled everything fresh -- aside from my HDD which only has images and text files for the most part. I'll try a scan on it when I get home just in case though.

Thanks for the reply :)



I'm thinking it might be a PSU issue as well. I think your voltages may be dropping under load causing you the problems.

If you want to know for sure.....run HWInfo. It will monitor your voltages as well as record the high and low voltages.

You don't want the voltages varying more than 5% from +12, +5 and + 3.3V

You can also set up HWInfo to log these voltages to a file in case your PC crashes while you are logging.

Then you can go back and see what led up to the crash.

OR

You could just swap out the PSU with a good quality one and see what happens.


I ordered a SeaSonic Focus+ Gold 750W PSU yesterday and should be receiving it by tonight. Hopefully this fixes the issue as it's one of the easier parts to replace. I'll update you on how that goes.

Though I probably should've at least tried checking for the voltage issues you mentioned first...

Thanks for the reply.
 
I'll try running a MemTest when I get home tonight and see how it goes.

But the issue is happening to all my storage drives, not just the 840. The 840 is nowhere near full, significantly less than half is used -- but since it's the older of the two SSD's (forgot to mention this in main post, sorry about that) i removed it from my PC and formatted my 860 EVO and reinstalled all the things stated in the main post (windows, drivers, apps, etc.). Worked fine up until I ran a game, issue still occurred.

Can't be a virus issue i don't think, since I just reinstalled everything fresh -- aside from my HDD which only has images and text files for the most part. I'll try a scan on it when I get home just in case though.

Thanks for the reply :)






I ordered a SeaSonic Focus+ Gold 750W PSU yesterday and should be receiving it by tonight. Hopefully this fixes the issue as it's one of the easier parts to replace. I'll update you on how that goes.

Though I probably should've at least tried checking for the voltage issues you mentioned first...

Thanks for the reply.
You're welcome.
I think that's a great choice for a power supply.
And even though I suggested checking the voltages first....I've skipped that step quite a few times when I really thought it was the power supply.


...
 

Defiantt

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Apr 18, 2019
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  • So... the new PSU didn't fix it unfortunately.
  • Ran a memtest, had no issues but I also tried replacing RAM with my old set (working condition), but the issue still happened.
So we can isolate that RAM and PSU aren't the issues :/

Any other ideas?

edit: Can a single failing storage device cause issues for the rest? and could it crash under stress even if it’s not the drive being used?
 
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Defiantt

Prominent
Apr 18, 2019
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So it seems it can potentially be an overheating problem after all? I was able to run the game fine with my PC case open (back and front panel) for about half an hour or so, i thought it was fixed, put the panels back on on and 5 mins later the issue returned...

I have no idea what could be overheating though.
From looking at the temps (load) nothing seems to be too high:
View: https://i.imgur.com/Lsi8khA.png


In event viewer, I did notice the following warning being spammed as well when the problem occurs:
"The IO operation at logical block address 0x72d498 for Disk 0 (PDO name: \Device\00000038) was retried. "
with different addresses each time.


My SSD also has been running on the slower side of the spectrum I feel like. Benchmarks come back at around 400 r/w
Swapping the cable and putting it to the first sata port (SATA3_0) on the motherboard fixed the speeds - put it at 557/510


Edit:
Nvm, it might've just been a coincidence that it happened again when I closed the case. Attempted to reproduce it, didn't happen. Maybe swapping the SATA cable to a new one helped? Can one bad sata cable cause all my other drives to have issues?
 
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