System Freezes: Is New Samsung 850 Evo to blame?

Stansfield · Jan 25, 2017

I recently (around the 10th of this month) installed a newly purchased Samsung 850 Evo series 500gb SSD on my PC; I'll put the specs down below. The basic idea was to use this SSD as a Games drive for Origin and Steam games. The problem I'm running into is these irregular system freezes that seem to happen when I'm accessing the drive. Most often it happens when I'm installing or updating a game on the drive (3 - 4 times), but also when I'm running MalwareBytes Anti-Malware sweep right after I bring the PC back online (1 - 2 times). What's happened is that the program running simply freezes and everything locks up. No mouse or keyboard response. I've given it 10 minutes usually, trying 'Alt + F4' and 'Ctrl + Alt + Del' but nothing. So I'm forced to hard power down the machine, and bring it back. SMART test shows both the OS drive (on an older 830 series) and the new one look fine, great even. Rapid mode is turned off. Currently I'm planning to run a full clean re-install of the OS and update the bios, but I'm wondering if the damned drive is the problem. I've run across a number of threads reporting similar issues with this, though obviously nothing that seems as a definite spot on with solution (don't buy SAMSUNG! or "do x, y and z, and EUREKA! problem solve). Does anyone have some suggestions of steps I might try in troubleshooting, or just a list of things I should check in settings to narrow down the problem / cause? I was sincerely considering upgrading my OS drive to a Samsung 850 Pro, but I"m having some very real doubts on why I shouldn't if I can't solve this as a problem. My PC was running just fine prior to. I could probably have used a Clean Install of the OS, because I have occasionally uninstalled a program and wondered if I deleted only the right registry keys to ensure it's clean uninstall ... but overall, the PC worked fine, I just wanted more space for my games.

Thanks to any and all that can offer to shed some light on this, I'm extremely frustrated. I *was* going to be purchasing a new graphics card (MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Gaming X) but this is slowing down my general upgrade of things. Why purchase a new graphics card if I can't play the games it's meant to improve performance for? Tech Specs below

Full System Specs - homebuilt

OS:
♦ Windows 10 Home 64-bit (free upgrade from Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM)
CPU:
♦ i5-3570k @ 3.40 GHz (3.8 Turbo)
CPU Fan
♦ COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 Continuous Direct Contact 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler Compatible with latest Intel 2011/1366/1155 and AMD FM1/FM2/AM3+
Motherboard
♦ ASUS Maximus V EXTREME Extended ATX Intel Motherboard
RAM
♦ 16 GB of Corsair Dominator Platinum at 1600MHz
PSU
♦ COOLER MASTER RS-A50-SPHA-D3 Silent Pro Hybrid 1050W Intel ATX 12V V2.3 & SSI EPS 12V V2.92
Graphics Card
♦ AMD 7870, 2 GB VRAM (XFX Double D FX-787A-CDBC Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition Black Edition 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card w/ most current driver)
Primary Drive
♦ (Local Disk ( C: )) - SAMSUNG 830 Series 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal SSD
Secondary Drive
♦ (Games (E)) - SAMSUNG 850 EVO 2.5" 500GB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal SSD
Tertiary Drive
♦ (in two Volumes (F & G)): Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal HDD

Peripherals / Other

Software Frequently Used: CCleaner Pro, Revo Uninstaller Pro (for some cleaning in case CCleaner misses anything, and uninstalls as they are needed), MalwareBytes Anti-Malware, Norton Security w/ Backup; MS Office, Origin and Steam Games.

Stansfield · Jan 25, 2017

MERGED QUESTION
Question from Stansfield : "System Freezes after New SSD added: Help?"

Stansfield :

Recently added a second SSD to a fairly old rig to be used as my 'Games' drive (E: ). It went in fine, and the only issues I ran into were more odd than anything: the E drive was listed above the C drive in the navigation pane, and the Windows music from starting up didn't play half the time. And I started getting some odd freezes. These mostly occurred when I was installing or repairing a game install on E, but also when I ran Malware Bytes Anti-Malware suite. And I have no idea of what's causing the issue. I am planning on running a full clean re-install of Windows 10 from a USB Flash Drive, as well as updating the Bios (because, why not if I'm doing the OS reinstall?). But I have to admit I'd like to be able to narrow the list of what it could be even further, and I'm really unsure on the steps to do so. I have a new program I added while putting in the SSD, Samsung Magician, and it does tell me both drives look good on the SMART test. I don't have a spare PSU for swapping in and out to test that, but I may be able to get one if that's a likely suspect.

Quick Edit: Added the SSD around the 10th? Have had 5 freezes, each one not able to move or do anything (mouse unresponsive, keyboard unresponsive (no 'Alt + F4, 'or 'Ctrl + Alt + Del'). So 5 times I had to physically power the whole thing off.

Any help offered would be really appreciated. I'm honestly wondering if either the primary SSD is failing (and that somehow effects accessing programs on the second SSD?), or if because the newer and shinier SSD is likewise a bit faster, that's causing some issue. I've checked a few configurations on the SATA hubs for from-motherboard-to-device, and all seems well... I just don't know, my tech knowledge is too shallow to really get a grip on this. Here's my system specs, including OS.

Full System Specs - homebuilt

OS:
♦ Windows 10 Home 64-bit (free upgrade from Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM)
CPU:
♦ i5-3570k @ 3.40 GHz (3.8 Turbo)
CPU Fan
♦ COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 Continuous Direct Contact 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler Compatible with latest Intel 2011/1366/1155 and AMD FM1/FM2/AM3+
Motherboard
♦ ASUS Maximus V EXTREME Extended ATX Intel Motherboard
RAM
♦ 16 GB of Corsair Dominator Platinum at 1600MHz
PSU
♦ COOLER MASTER RS-A50-SPHA-D3 Silent Pro Hybrid 1050W Intel ATX 12V V2.3 & SSI EPS 12V V2.92
Graphics Card
♦ AMD 7870, 2 GB VRAM (XFX Double D FX-787A-CDBC Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition Black Edition 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card w/ most current driver)
Primary Drive
♦ (Local Disk ( C: )) - SAMSUNG 830 Series 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal SSD
Secondary Drive
♦ (Games (E)) - SAMSUNG 850 EVO 2.5" 500GB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal SSD
Tertiary Drive
♦ (in two Volumes (F & G)): Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal HDD

The Boot Priority is

1. Samsung 830 series 256GB SATA III - OS Drive in boot priority # 1
2. SAMSUNG 850 EVO 500GB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal SSD – boot priority # 2
3. 3 TB Seagate Barracuda HDD (in two volumes, F & G) – boot priority # 3
4. Generic USB Devices (no Device in use currently) – boot priority # 4

Bit of a bump as this is on page 2 after less than 24 hours. If people need more info from me, I'm glad to provide. I can confirm the motherboard is set to AHCI, rapid mode is NOT enabled on the 850 ... I honestly don't know where to go with this. Is samsung now a bad company for SSDs?

dextermat · Jan 25, 2017

Hi,

Download hard disk sentinel trial to look at the health of the drive

rkzhao · Jan 25, 2017

Can you post the SMART data from drive?

Stansfield · Jan 25, 2017

dextermat :

Hello rkzhao & dextermat, and thank you for the recommendation! Have just dl'd and run it the first time (trial). The overview for the 830 says:

"The status of the solid state disk is PERFECT. Problematic or weak sectors were not found.
The TRIM feature of the SSD is supported and enabled for optimal performance.
The health is determined by SSD specific S.M.A.R.T. attribute(s): #177 Wear Leveling Count
It is recommended to continuously monitor the hard disk status."

For the 850 Evo:

"Problems occurred between the communication of the disk and the host 1155 times.
In case of sudden system crash, reboot, blue-screen-of-death, inaccessible file(s)/folder(s), it is recommended to verify data and power cables, connections - and if possible try different cables to prevent further problems.
More information: http://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_case_communication_error.php
The TRIM feature of the SSD is supported and enabled for optimal performance. No actions needed."

Wow, 1155 times, huh? Interesting match with the socket type, but I guess coincidental? Complete copy of the SMART results from HD Sentinel (I will admit I'm a little unsure (no clue) on how to best format this as a table):

No. - Attribute - Threshold - Value - Worst - Status - Data - Offset - Enable (All are)
"5,Reallocated Sectors Count,0,100,100,Ok (10),000000000000,0,Enabled
9,Power On Time Count,0,99,99,OK (Always passing),0000000000B3,0,Enabled
12,Drive Power Cycle Count,0,99,99,OK (Always passing),00000000005A,0,Enabled
177,Wear Leveling Count,0,99,99,OK (Always passing),000000000001,0,Enabled
179,Used Reserved Block Count (Total),0,100,100,Ok (10),000000000000,0,Enabled
181,Program Fail Count (Total),0,100,100,Ok (10),000000000000,0,Enabled
182,Erase Fail Count (Total),0,100,100,Ok (10),000000000000,0,Enabled
183,Runtime Bad Block (Total),0,100,100,Ok (10),000000000000,0,Enabled
187,Uncorrectable Error Count,0,100,100,OK (Always passing),000000000000,0,Enabled
190,Temperature,0,75,54,OK (Always passing),000000000019,0,Enabled
195,ECC Rate,0,200,200,OK (Always passing),000000000000,0,Enabled
199,Ultra ATA CRC Error Count,0,98,98,OK (Always passing),000000000483,0,Enabled
235,POR Recovery Count,0,99,99,OK (Always passing),00000000000A,0,Enabled
241,Total LBA Written,0,99,99,OK (Always passing),00004930C76F,0,Enabled"

I will admit, I'm a touch uncertain on how to interpret these results. I suppose the implication is that there's an issue with the SATA hub on the motherboard, or perhaps the SATA cable I'm using (honestly unsure). If it's the SATA cable, that's *really* aggravating, as I purchased this 6gb/s cable for this SSD, brand new. I guess it could be the power connection, though the HDD and the 830 SSD are on the same "line" or cord from the PSU.

rkzhao · Jan 25, 2017

Don't worry about understanding the SMART data, it's not something most people need to know. But it does provide the most publicly available statistics for a drive so it can be useful for people on a forum like this to debug issue.

Some of the values are a bit interesting since you haven't had the drive that long but it's not problematic. For example, the drive has been power cycled 90 time. The drive has been on for only 179 hours but there has been almost 600GB worth of data written to the drive. None of this is bad, just interesting.

The 1155 errors are from attribute 199 "Ultra ATA CRC Error Count". The raw data is in hex so it's 0x483 which equals 1155. CRC errors are pretty much signal integrity issues. Check the SATA cable and connections. Depending on the severity, it is certainly possible for a drive to freeze due to signal integrity issues.

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System Freezes: Is New Samsung 850 Evo to blame?

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