AMD confirms GPU driver bug is wearing out your SSD – how to stop it

AMD has confirmed that a bug in their GPU drivers is causing SSDs to wear out, which can lead to catastrophic problems if left unchecked. This issue primarily affects AMD Radeon users who have installed a Radeon 9060XT graphics card. The External Events Utility (EEU), which is installed alongside AMD's CPU and GPU drivers, is believed to be the root cause.

The bug is noticeable in the External Events Client Module and EEU, which constantly write information to the SSD even when the system should be idle. Users have reported data usage ranging from 0.3 MB/s to 1.5 MB/s, and some have even experienced a 1% monthly usage of their drive health over a 16-month period. This problem persists despite AMD releasing several bug fixes and patch updates.

The issue is not limited to the AMD Adrenalin Edition desktop application, as Reddit user darklinkpower has reported that it also affects AMD Adrenaline Edition desktop application. While AMD acknowledges the issue and expects a fix in the next update, users can take steps to protect their drives from damage. Disabling the EEU can resolve the issue for most users, but it may cause problems like disabling AMD FreeSync support or introducing display glitches when switching screens.

Another solution is to change settings within the AMD Adrenalin Edition desktop app to allow the CPU access to the graphics card's memory, potentially boosting performance. However, this option may introduce its own set of communication issues between the CPU and GPU.