[SOLVED] Samsung EVO 970 Plus 1TB - Usage is 100% but read/write speed is 0

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xxturner

Jul 25, 2022
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So I've had this ssd for a couple of months now but for the past month or two its eating my nerves, constantly crashed my windows (ssd was not used for the windows installation), I reinstalled but this time I installed windows on that ssd, now whenever it happens instead of crashing it freezes EVERYTHING, cannot do anything else except move my mouse, literally nothing else.

Finally I know what happens but not why. So the SSD randomly (usually when I play a game, but did it once even when windows was idling) goes to 100% usage but I have Task Manager on my second monitor to watch for when it happens and it says 0 read/write speed, so the ssd is 100% without actually being used ?!?

Things I tried with no success:
Updated firmware via Samsung Magician;
Updated to official Driver from samsung's website version 3.3
Did all kinds of scans and SMART checks via Samsung Magician (no problems were reported)

Just to be more clear in one sentance: Windows is freezing ONLY when the NVMe SSD goes to 100% with ZERO Read/Write speed reported.

I am desperate to find a solution, is it the ssd's fault, should I return it, or is it some weird software bug, from other forums and threads I've heard that other people that have this issue switched to windows 7 and it stopped happening but I cannot confirm this for myself.


EDIT: Ok so it seems this issue is maybe not local to the SSD, I plugged a portable HDD, and this time its done it to that drive, again that hard drive is 100% with no read/write operations, but this time I assume since its not the OS disk its not crashing windows or freezing it, although there is still some problems with some processes that are trying to access it.

Idk if its this but I've noticed that before I plugged in the HDD the ssd was the last disk at number 3 (the 4th drive), now when I plugged in the HDD the HDD itself is the last drive which is drive 4 (the 5th drive), can this be caused by some weird bug that is affecting the last disk in the system.

I used "Disk Monitor" from sysinternals, sadly it doesnt display what process is trying to do the operation but something is trying to write to the "frozen" drive with data length of 0, now this 0 may be because the disk is inaccessible and its saying 0 because of it OR this unknown process can be the problem if he is trying to write 0, but I would bet on the first case

Also I dont know if I mentioned it but im 99% sure its not a drive failure, i did all kinds of checks & tests, including Samsung Magician both short & long diagnostics, used "HD Tune" with both quick scan and normal scan on ALL disks, all of them had NO bad sectors. Also the problem with the new HDD is most likely not a hardware problem as this HDD was literally bought 2 days ago
 
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xxturner said:
I used "Disk Monitor" from sysinternals, sadly it doesnt display what process is trying to do the operation but something is trying to write to the "frozen" drive with data length of 0, now this 0 may be because the disk is inaccessible and its saying 0 because of it OR this unknown process can be the problem if he is trying to write 0, but I would bet on the first case
Click to expand...

Try Process Explorer instead,
link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer

Guide on how to understand it,
link: https://www.howtogeek.com/school/sysinternals-pro/lesson2/

xxturner said:
it says 0 read/write speed, so the ssd is 100% without actually being used
Click to expand...

At 1st, i thought you had failing drive. I also had my 1st 970 Evo Plus fail on me, within 30 days of purchase. But mine is 2 TB, so, i RMAd it and got replacement, that works perfectly fine now.
However,
xxturner said:
Idk if its this but I've noticed that before I plugged in the HDD the ssd was the last disk at number 3 (the 4th drive), now when I plugged in the HDD the HDD itself is the last drive which is drive 4 (the 5th drive), can this be caused by some weird bug that is affecting the last disk in the system.
Click to expand...
This points towards malware.

Download the free version of MalwareBytes,
link: https://www.malwarebytes.com/

And run a scan.

Now, if you have some very nasty malware, that hides from the scan, format your drives. All of them. Since when you'd only format OS drive and make clean Win install, malware can live on your other drives and spread back to your OS drive.

--

Before the radical move of drive format, run MalwareBytes and also use Process Explorer to find out what is utilizing your drive(s).
 
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Aeacus said:
Try Process Explorer instead,
link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer

Guide on how to understand it,
link: https://www.howtogeek.com/school/sysinternals-pro/lesson2/



At 1st, i thought you had failing drive. I also had my 1st 970 Evo Plus fail on me, within 30 days of purchase. But mine is 2 TB, so, i RMAd it and got replacement, that works perfectly fine now.
However,

This points towards malware.

Download the free version of MalwareBytes,
link: https://www.malwarebytes.com/

And run a scan.

Now, if you have some very nasty malware, that hides from the scan, format your drives. All of them. Since when you'd only format OS drive and make clean Win install, malware can live on your other drives and spread back to your OS drive.

--

Before the radical move of drive format, run MalwareBytes and also use Process Explorer to find out what is utilizing your drive(s).
Click to expand...
Hey thanks for the reply.

Firstly: I used Process Explorer but could'nt figure out how to check what was actually using what disk, since it only said the disk usage globally, i will look at the tutorial you sent.
Secondly: It is not malware, I forgot to say that which is my bad, but this is happening on a fresh install, 1.5 days old fresh install and I wiped every drive before that. If it helps I had similar issues in the last instance of windows I had but that instance was last installed maybe 1-2 years, the problems began couple of months ago, in fact this was the main reason why I reinstalled, now the problem is kind of the same but not exactly, in the last instance whenever this happened (usually when I played Escape From Tarkov) my windows would straight up crash, even tho this SSD was not my OS drive and the game was on that drive, with my current installation the OS drive is that samsung SSD and the game is NOT on it but instead on another.

Also I dont think its related but ill point it out: I thought it was maybe because I had too many drives? also I am using 2 ssd's in Spanned configuration to make them as 1 virtual drive

And this issue is more common when i am playing a game (Escape From Tarkov), its uncommon to happen if im idle but not impossible, it happened couple of times RIGHT aftter reboot or shortly (20min) after, for example for the past couple of hours after reboot im moving files from one drive to another and nothing has happened yet
 
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xxturner said:
And this issue is more common when i am playing a game (Escape From Tarkov)
Click to expand...

That game is in Early Access and it (or any Early Access game in that matter) producing issues isn't that uncommon. With still in development, game isn't optimized and can produce all kinds of software/hardware issues on PC.

Here's a thought; if you were to uninstall Escape From Tarkov, including removing all the files it has spread into your system, would you still have your issues? 🤔
You having less crashes when you're not playing it, may indicate some (telemetry) service still running that came with Escape From Tarkov. Process Explorer is the tool to find out what is exactly going on.

xxturner said:
Also I dont think its related but ill point it out: I thought it was maybe because I had too many drives? also I am using 2 ssd's in Spanned configuration to make them as 1 virtual drive
Click to expand...

To test that, unplug all other drives, except OS drive and look if you still have your issue.

Now, i don't know enough about joining two physical drives into one single virtual drive, to say if this could be the issue or not. It could be, when a file, that is split between two drives is accessed and Win goes crazy trying to figure out from which drive the file should be loaded.
 
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Aeacus said:
That game is in Early Access and it (or any Early Access game in that matter) producing issues isn't that uncommon. With still in development, game isn't optimized and can produce all kinds of software/hardware issues on PC.

Here's a thought; if you were to uninstall Escape From Tarkov, including removing all the files it has spread into your system, would you still have your issues? 🤔
You having less crashes when you're not playing it, may indicate some (telemetry) service still running that came with Escape From Tarkov. Process Explorer is the tool to find out what is exactly going on.



To test that, unplug all other drives, except OS drive and look if you still have your issue.

Now, i don't know enough about joining two physical drives into one single virtual drive, to say if this could be the issue or not. It could be, when a file, that is split between two drives is accessed and Win goes crazy trying to figure out from which drive the file should be loaded.
Click to expand...
I dont think the problem is with the game since many others play it (I will contact the devs never the less), and this issue is sometimes happening even at startup without launching the game, and i dont think the game has background processes/services.


Currently I am trying to find a way to reproduce this issue consistently, and the closest I've got is if I put a load on the SSD it seems its more likely to happen but its very inconsistent and not happening every time, when windows boots I open Chrome and BattleState games launcher (escape from tarkov) and I click through all my saved tabs in chrome to load them, this sometimes seems to trigger the issue but not consistent at all
 
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Aeacus said:
Could be RAM issue.

What memtest86 says?

Small guide + download link here: https://help.corsair.com/hc/en-us/a...-How-to-Run-Memtest86-to-check-for-RAM-faults
Note: Memtest86 takes quite a bit of time, ~1h per 8 GB of RAM.
Click to expand...
Actually it could be, I had some problems with ram before but they just dissappeared on its own, still then why would the disk be affected, maybe paging file?
I wanted to run memtest but i couldnt get it to work or something, ill try now again and will get back with the results.

I have 3 ram sticks, each with totally different specs:
RAM1: HyperX 1x8 GB DDR4, 2133Mhz, CL14
RAM2: HyperX 1x16 GB DDR4, 2400Mhz, CL15
RAM3: ADATA 1x16 GB DDR4, 3200Mhz, CL16
 
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Aeacus said:
Terrible idea to mix RAM, especially DDR4. This could be the source of all your issues.
Further reading here: https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq...y-ram-and-xmp-profile-configurations.3398926/
Click to expand...
In theory it should be totally fine, since they will all get clocked down to same (lowest) timings and speeds

Oh and that made me remember the thing is I actually got another stick because I thought my ram was not enough because of the frequent crashes, so the problem is before the third stick (had only the 2 hyperx sticks)
 
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xxturner said:
In theory it should be totally fine, since they will all get clocked down to same (lowest) timings and speeds
Click to expand...

In theory, your PC should run fine, without issues. But it doesn't.

xxturner said:
had only the 2 hyperx sticks
Click to expand...

Even then, you had mixed memory in the system, which could be the issue.
8 GB, 2133 Mhz, CL14 + 16 GB, 2400 Mhz, CL15. Only matching aspect is the brand and that they are DDR4. But the specs that matter, are different.

Here, pull out two other sticks of RAM and run your system with only single stick. Look if you get the same issues. Also, do the memtest86 as well since RAM stick, even individual one, could be faulty (producing plethora of errors).
 
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Aeacus said:
In theory, your PC should run fine, without issues. But it doesn't.



Even then, you had mixed memory in the system, which could be the issue.
8 GB, 2133 Mhz, CL14 + 16 GB, 2400 Mhz, CL15. Only matching aspect is the brand and that they are DDR4. But the specs that matter, are different.

Here, pull out two other sticks of RAM and run your system with only single stick. Look if you get the same issues. Also, do the memtest86 as well since RAM stick, even individual one, could be faulty (producing plethora of errors).
Click to expand...
The PC was running fine on those 2 sticks for a very very long time, I am pretty sure the motherboard is doing its magic at auto managing them 😀 (asus rog strix z390-f gaming)

Also is it necessary to wipe CMOS to run Memtest?
 
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Aeacus said:
Not needed.



Then what changed? Since you describe above that adding 3rd stick was to counter this issue.
Click to expand...

To be honest I really cannot remember it was so long time ago, it was fine then I remember having some weird crashes and what not, I got the 3rd stick because i thought this was the reason since i really did have a lot of things & services on my pc running constantly but it didnt fix it, so I reinstalled windows and many of the issues were gone but this particular one still persists


I ran Memtest86 only for 1 pass cause its taking so long, I will leave it when I go to bed to make its full run, but with that 1 pass no errors were found, and tbh I dont expect it to find any errors, since im 99.99% sure its not RAM

Also I said previously that i had problems with the installation of memset, this was false, after i saw the interface i remember running it before on the 2 sticks and it had 0 errors
 
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Aeacus said:
Having 0 errors back then, doesn't exclude RAM right now.

--

Oh, what Event Viewer (Windows Logs -> System) says when you have your crashes/freezes?
Click to expand...
Its kinda useless info there, here are the last 255 logs: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13CWBj0TCvR0_gJqbNbBFYdITQhtTtmtq/view?usp=sharing

Also Im now kinda 80% sure the issue is from Tarkov and in particular BattleEye anti cheat & potentially windows defender

When I launch the game I see in resmon very large amount of files being used by MsMpEng.exe, i stopped windows defender real time protection, it kinda worked because it didnt crash but then after that in a couple of minutes it did, so its not consistent
 
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xxturner said:
When I launch the game I see in resmon very large amount of files being used by MsMpEng.exe, i stopped windows defender real time protection, it kinda worked because it didnt crash but then after that in a couple of minutes it did, so its not consistent
Click to expand...

I don't use the Windows built-in malware protection since it has sporadic protection level, while hogging resources. Instead, i'm using MalwareBytes Premium, the same one i linked above, but payed version.

Malwarebytes Free, is one of the best malware software out there, with little impact on PC resources. Premium version adds additional layers of security, e.g browser guard, that will stop you going to suspicious sites, that may be infected with malware, among other things. But the Free version is also good enough. While it doesn't offer real-time protection, you can still do manual scans (oh, it offers free 30 day Premium trial, that you can try out). So, something to think about when looking alternatives to Win built-in malware protection.

--

What "SFC /scannow" says?

If you don't know what it is, or how to run it, further reading,
link: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...em-files-79aa86cb-ca52-166a-92a3-966e85d4094e

Once the scan is complete, a log file is created. It's path is written in the CMD. You can look it up, open it and read what exactly SFC /scannow found and fixed (quite an interesting read, at least, it was for me when i cleaned my system).
 
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Aeacus said:
I don't use the Windows built-in malware protection since it has sporadic protection level, while hogging resources. Instead, i'm using MalwareBytes Premium, the same one i linked above, but payed version.

Malwarebytes Free, is one of the best malware software out there, with little impact on PC resources. Premium version adds additional layers of security, e.g browser guard, that will stop you going to suspicious sites, that may be infected with malware, among other things. But the Free version is also good enough. While it doesn't offer real-time protection, you can still do manual scans (oh, it offers free 30 day Premium trial, that you can try out). So, something to think about when looking alternatives to Win built-in malware protection.

--

What "SFC /scannow" says?

If you don't know what it is, or how to run it, further reading,
link: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...em-files-79aa86cb-ca52-166a-92a3-966e85d4094e

Once the scan is complete, a log file is created. It's path is written in the CMD. You can look it up, open it and read what exactly SFC /scannow found and fixed (quite an interesting read, at least, it was for me when i cleaned my system).
Click to expand...
I ran sfc, it said it found corrupt files and it fixed them (strange as this is 1 day old windows install) but the crashes still persist, also i tried disabling the whole sata controller in bios (mimicking as if i disconnected all drives), this left only my NVMe drive running (which windows is installed on), i moved the game's installation into that drive and the problem still persists.

A friend had similar issue, his disk was also being used 90-100% but when he moved his game from ssd to hdd it fixed it, i am trying this now, moved my game from my ssd to hdd and i will get back with results if its fixed it, but i doubt it
 
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Ok so im starting to feel like it indeed is EFT's problem, I accidentally stumbled upon the logs and got curious while moving some configs around and this is what i found:

Code: 
2022-07-24 00:52:03.828 +03:00|0.12.12.30.19078|Error|Default|Could not determine whether the disk is \\.\G: SSD
2022-07-24 00:52:03.828 +03:00|0.12.12.30.19078|Info|application|driveType:Unknown swapDriveType:SSD

This looks to me that EFT is having problems with reading from SSD, since it can detect that the swap file is on an SSD (as the second line hints)
 
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xxturner said:
Ok so im starting to feel like it indeed is EFT's problem
Click to expand...

Since you get most issues with EFT and the fact that it is still Early Access, is the most likely cause, just like i said in my 2nd reply.

One option is to uninstall EFT and all it's files completely. This, most likely, fixes your issue(s). And then waiting until devs release stable and optimized version of the game (aka full release).

While Early Access games offer neat insides to a developing game, where you can also contribute into the shaping of the game, i, personally, don't like playing Early Access games. Namely due to the instability and bugs they have. I'd rather wait for full release and then play finished product. :)
 
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Limanto said:
I had a similar problem hard drive at 100 usage. I searched for a long time for the reasons for this behavior of the new SSD. As it turned out, it was the SuperFetch Service. After disabling it, everything worked perfectly as before.
Click to expand...

Interestingly i think i found the solution finally, after hundred of hours painfully testing & bruteforcing what the issues could be, it turned out to be Nvidia GeForce experience, and what I think it was: A corrupted driver. After uninstalling geforce experience the issue was gone, finally.. I installed it again and for now the issue is no where to be found, hopefully it stays this way.
 
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