AMD公开承认 驱动BUG会持续消耗你的SSD硬盘寿命
AMD publicly admits driver BUG will continuously consume your SSD's lifespan. If you use an AMD graphics card, spend 30 seconds opening a small built-in system window right now—it might just save you the cost of an SSD. AMD has publicly acknowledged that a bug in the Radeon driver keeps writing data to the disk when the computer is idle. The fix has been submitted and is expected to ship with the late November
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AMD Publicly Admits Driver Bug Will Continuously Drain Your SSD's Lifespan
If you use an AMD graphics card, spending 30 seconds to open a small built-in system window right now could save you the cost of an SSD.
AMD has publicly acknowledged that a bug in the Radeon driver continuously writes data to the disk when the computer is idle. The fix has been submitted and is expected to ship with Adrenalin 26.11.1 later in November. Don't panic, and don't rush to change settings—the first step is always "check whether you're affected."
Who's the one silently writing to disk
The culprit is AMD External Events Utility, with the process name atieclxx.exe, and sometimes atiesrxx.exe as well. It was originally a quiet worker: responsible for monitor detection, FreeSync control, and keyboard shortcuts in the Adrenalin software. After the bug hit, it became a worker who never turns off the faucet.
Reports cover Windows 10/11 and multiple versions from 26.5.2 to 26.10.2, though some users' machines are completely fine; AMD hasn't published an affected list, and the October 30 release notes for 26.10.2 didn't mention it either. AMD representative AMD_Matt confirmed on the official forum on October 21 that they were "investigating, with the goal of resolving in a subsequent driver"; AMD_Vik added on Reddit that the issue is suspected to stem from the tool's interaction with Microsoft's PCIe filter driver, and the fix should make it into 26.11.1.
30-second self-check, don't skip this step
Press Win + R, type resmon and hit Enter, switch to the "Disk" tab, and sort by "Write (B/sec)" in the "Processes with Disk Activity" section. Close games, browsers, and cloud storage, let the computer sit idle for a minute or two, then watch whether atieclxx.exe is steadily sitting at the top. If there's consistent writing, you're most likely affected; if not, there's nothing you need to do.
To be more thorough, open CrystalDiskInfo and note down "Total Host Writes" and health status, then compare again 24 hours later to get the real daily write volume for your specific machine—more accurate than any number you'll find online.
Two things hidden in the firsthand screenshot
On November 9, Twitter user Tomasz Gawroński posted a Task Manager screenshot: in 12 hours, atieclxx.exe wrote 19.43 GB at a rate of 0.65 MB/s, equivalent to 56 GB per day and about 1.70 TB per month.
In the same row, I/O reads were 19,432,164,428 bytes and writes were 19,430,991,156 bytes—a difference of only 1.17 MB. Reads and writes are nearly 1:1, suggesting it's more like repeatedly reading back and rewriting the same log rather than continuously piling up new files. This also explains why "Total Host Writes" can't be equated with actual flash wear—there's the controller cache and wear leveling in between.
Another detail is even more telling: the screenshot shows "Highest Active Time" at only 2%. The disk isn't busy at all, the user feels nothing, which is exactly how this bug could lurk quietly for over a year.
Put three scary numbers on the same drive
Three numbers are circulating online: 1% health loss per month, 13 TB written per month, and the 1.70 TB measured above. They appear to contradict each other, but really it's just that they haven't been converted to the same drive.
Roughly calculating based on SSD warranty write endurance (TBW): for a mainstream 1TB TLC drive rated at 600 TBW, 1.70 TB/month works out to about 0.28%/month, and 13 TB/month to about 2.17%/month; for a small-capacity QLC drive rated at 200 TBW, those same two numbers become 0.85% and 6.5% respectively.
So "1% per month" isn't mystical: either that's a small-capacity QLC drive running near the measured rate, or that machine's write rate is close to the 5 MB/s upper limit. Conversely, if you're using a mainstream 1TB TLC drive at a rate of just a few tenths of a MB/s, it's more likely a few tenths of a percent.
To be clear: health algorithms vary by vendor, TBW is a warranty rating not an end-of-life threshold, and this is just an order-of-magnitude estimate. But every TB needlessly written in 2026 is real money—NAND contract prices are still rising 15% to 20% in Q4, 1TB NVMe retail works out to about $147 per TB, and there's no timeline for a return to 2025 price levels.
After confirming you're affected, three options
The easiest: change nothing, wait for 26.11.1, then check again with resmon after installing. Most people should actually pick this one.
To stop the bleeding immediately: press Win + R, type services.msc, find "AMD External Events Utility," click "Stop," and change the startup type to "Manual" or "Disabled." The cost is that Adrenalin shortcuts will stop working and some display features will be affected; whether FreeSync still works is disputed among users. Remember to change the startup type back to "Automatic" once it's fixed.
The last resort is disabling Resizable BAR in the BIOS (called Smart Access Memory on AMD platforms). Some people have stopped the writes this way, but game performance may drop, so it's not recommended to touch the BIOS right away. Both are makeshift fixes users figured out themselves—AMD hasn't endorsed them, and they don't work on every machine.
A side note: this service also gets installed with AMD chipset drivers. So machines with "AMD motherboard + Nvidia or Intel card" may carry it too—don't scroll past just because you see "Radeon." There's only one criterion—whether that row in resmon shows consistent writing.
Ultimately, the most annoying thing about this bug isn't how much health it drains—it's that it's completely silent the whole time: no stuttering, no pop-ups, no errors. Spending 30 seconds to take a look is far better than agonizing afterward over whether it was worth it. Once 26.11.1 lands, we'll come back and verify once more whether "it still writes after the update."
Appendix (not counted in the main text)
Suggested images (in order of appearance in the main text) - figure-1.png: 30-second self-check card, highlighting the atieclxx.exe row — placed after the "30-second self-check" section - figure-2.png: Firsthand original screenshot (unmodified) + Chinese numeric annotations — placed at the start of the "Two things hidden in the firsthand screenshot" section; it's the hardest evidence in the entire article - figure-3.png: Monthly health loss comparison across three TBW drive tiers × two write rates, with the 1%/month reference line marked — placed after the "Put three scary numbers" section - cover.png: Bright, high-saturation, main title same as the article title
Source list 1. Tom's Hardware, 2026-11-09, "AMD admits GPU driver bug is writing data continuously, wearing out SSDs" 2. VideoCardz, 2026-11-09, AMD confirming the fix targets Adrenalin 26.11.1, and AMD_Vik's explanation regarding Microsoft's PCIe filter driver 3. AMD Community Forum, October 21 reply from AMD_Matt; Reddit r/pcmasterrace user darklinkpower's November 8 summary post 4. Tomasz Gawroński (@GawroskiT) November 9, 2026 tweet and Task Manager screenshot (19.43 GB / 12 hours, 0.65 MB/s) 5. IT之家, 超能网, 快科技 Chinese reports from 2026-11-09 6. TrendForce 2026 Q4 NAND contract price forecast; CheapestSSD 2026-11-03 retail price sample
Follow-up: After Adrenalin 26.11.1 is released, test with resmon to verify whether the writing stops; could make a follow-up piece.
Written by our editorial team; tools listed here are tested or verified against public sources. Links point to official sites or GitHub repos for reference only — no paid placements.