AMD Acknowledges Radeon Driver Bug Causing Constant SSD Writes, Fix In The Works

A rogue process in the AMD driver suite can unintentionally pin an SSD with continuous write requests, reducing drive longevity according to Club386. The problem drew attention when Reddit user darklinkpower highlighted reports of unusual drive activity from AMD's External Events Utility, or EEU, which is installed alongside Radeon drivers. Tom's Hardware reported that one Radeon owner claimed the driver ate up 1% of their SSD health every month for 16 months. According to Gadget Review, reported write rates from affected systems ranged from roughly 0.3 to 1.5 MB/s at idle, with another user describing a sustained rate of approximately 5 MB/s. Club386 noted that at 5MB per second, data quickly builds up to 422GB over the course of a full day and approaches 13TB over a month. Tom's Hardware calculated that 5 MB/s equals about 18GB per hour, or 432GB over a full day. Gadget Review noted these are self-reported observations rather than independently verified measurements of physical NAND degradation, and that the health percentage shown by monitoring software is a vendor-calculated estimate. Club386 stated the problem stems from the AMD External Events Client Module process, atieclxx.exe, which is in charge of monitor detection and other functions. Gadget Review reported that AMD attributed the behavior to an apparent loop or interaction between the AMD External Events Utility and a PCIe-related component. Club386 explained that due to an apparent incompatibility with Microsoft's PCIe filter driver, the process can unintentionally write data continuously. Tom's Hardware noted that reports included systems running Adrenalin 26.19.2 and older releases, while October 30 release notes for Adrenalin 26.20.2 did not mention the issue. OC3D, Wccftech, GameGPU, and TechPowerUp reported that AMD released the AMD Software 26.11.1 optional driver update to fix excessive write bugs. Previously, Tom's Hardware outlined two reported workarounds, including opening Windows Services to stop or disable the AMD EEU service, or disabling Resizable Bar. However, Gadget Review noted that stopping the utility can affect Radeon hotkeys, display detection, and FreeSync-related features, while disabling Resizable Bar can reduce gaming performance. Tom's Hardware suggested checking Windows Resource Monitor by typing resmon, selecting the Disk tab, and looking for sustained writes from atieclxx.exe or atiesrxx.exe.