SSD overheating problem on game update

[ppnhzk]

Hello dear community members!
I have an overheating problem with my SSD (Samsung EVO 750 250GB) for a while now. It only occurs if I am updating certain games in steam. Two of them are ArmA 3 and Battalion 1944. Downloading is restricted to 5MB/s or 7MB/s usually, but extensive disc operations cause the SSD to overheat (go above 50 degrees celsius) and the system to slow down considerably (cannot open hard disk sentinel or task manager for example). Also, in the case of ArmA 3 it looks like the update procedure creates a copy of a few files, potentially wasting SSD cycles. I do not have a dedicated cooler for my SSD, but it is located in a position where airflow is decent.
So, my question would be if I can restrict downloading/updating to my HDD steam folder, or prevent the overheating caused by steam game updates in any other way. It feels weird that only a few games have this problem and that the update goes on for too long, while it is likely still using the drive too much.
Any idea, help would be appreciated! Thanks!

[Omega]

I doubt it's a heat issue. And if it is it's not caused by your game. Games don't stress a SSD at all, the SSD will be practially idle or under a light load most of the time.

SSDs also don't need any help staying cool unless you are putting them under a lot of stress.

Don't worry about read/write cycles.. this SSD will outlive any HDD and I never heard someone say "I hope I don't stress my HDD to much, it might shorten it's lifespan". So..

I have two 750 Evos. One in my desktop and one in my laptop. The laptop one doesn't recieve any airflow and even under a lot of stress I have never had any issues with it. The desktop one doesn't recieve any airflow either but it does have a lot of room to breath, never had any issues with that one either.


I would think you might have something running in the background which is doing this.

For some reasons memory leaks come to mind, you might want to check the RAM usage once the PC slows down.

[ppnhzk]

Thanks for the reply!
My problem is that I only have the issue while updating said games via steam. It is obvious when it starts to deal with files, the whole system slows down, certain programs won't even open only after a minute or so. While gaming, playing Kingdom Come, Battlefield 1 or even ArmA 3, it stays well under 50 degrees celsius. It used to get a little hot, but that was caused by the overall temperature inside the case and extra fans helped a lot. Since then, the overheating problem only occurs while steam updates these games. For example Battalion 1944 downloads around 2 gigs then after it finished it starts to integrate the downloaded content into the game files, that is when the overheat starts. I do not think that anything else is responsible for the issue. I am using Webroot, but I do not believe that an av program can cause this much extra work for the SSD. Also, seemingly no problem with updates on my Seagate HDD.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

How can a SSD overheat from gaming???

If that ever happen from normal usage then it's a faulty product that need to be RMA.

Also writing, and reading at the same time can cause slow down in the system for opening folder, or etc...

[ppnhzk]

It is not happening when gaming, that is the point. It only happens when steam updates certain games, ArmA 3 and Battalion 1944 for example. Right now I am better off redownloading them.

[⛧EyMi Mayhem⛧]

Running here things like maya and games on a wd black m.2. , 0 problems.

But updates shouldn't cause heat problems..

Do u even have a decent cooling setup btw?

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Well SSDs can jump ALOT in temps generally whenever a heavy "Write" period is occurring.
But they are good for up to around 65*C+ so yea what temps are u seeing?
You can see those with many good decent apps:
> CrystalDiskInfo
> Piriform Defraggler
> OpenHardwareMonitor

Where as most HDDs do not like 50*C+

[Washell]

Don't sweat it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hhdWwvh5kI

As for the slowing down, take a look at the CPU usage, that's more likely to be the culprit during decrypting/integrating the downloaded content.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

I have seen SSDs jump from say 30-35*C to around 55-58*C when inside a tighter space, like a Laptop, but in a Desktop, nope...

And that was ONLY during extreme length writes; when the writing was done, it cooled back down to that lower temp range in a matter of seconds; much like your CPU usually would do once u take the high load off of it.

Dont worry about games inpacting "SDD flash write cycles"
You're talking a few MB or even only a couple GB.
SSDs can be fine upwards and beyond 150+ TB of writing in its life time. And thats a low ball # to be honest. I've heavily used many PCs for YEARS with the same SSDs in them and they get GB worth written to them every single day; after 2-3 years, still has only had maybe 30-40 TB worth written in its life, and that was due to heavy hits, reformats, ISO restores, etc... thats not even regular everyday, average user usage when u go by my example of my and my co-workers high usage for our SSDs. Chances are, your SSD of any kind will probably outlast any HDD out there, by MANY years.

[CityBoy2020]

How did you fix this problem?

[ppnhzk]

I bought a new PC :D
I bought another SSD (Crucial MX 500) which has the system installed with the remaining space occupied by games. This SSD is not slowing down as much, but still gets to 50 degrees easily. I also bought a new system (Ryzen 5 2600x & 16GB RAM) not so long ago as the problem might have been caused by the CPU itself not been able to handle the workload even though it did not show in the task manager. I would consider my SSD placement (Zalman Z9 Neo) to be pretty decent, next to 2 intake fans but the drives still get to 50 degrees when games are updating through Steam. At this point I am used to this, seeing my system SSD hovering near 40 when idle and jumping by 10 degrees when a system background thing starts. And that is not even heavy load. I am never going to understand this 'issue'.

[Pocahawtness]

It's not an issue. The controller chip in an SSD gets hot. The Crucial drives are known for running hotter than Samsung. But don't worry because 50 degrees is nothing for the SSD. They only throttle when they get really hot. You are talking 80 degrees or so, so you are well below that. Whatever your problem is, it's not the SSD.

[ppnhzk]

Probably not. What is interesting is that I read a lot that SSDs are not getting as hot because they do not have moving parts which is just stupid. It is like saying the CPU is not getting as hot.
The 'issue' for me was that with my old PC (i3-6100 & 8GB RAM) the Samsung 750 Evo got to 50 degrees often at which point the whole system slowed down noticeably. You could not even open the task manager and when you actually had a chance to see what is the problem the CPU did not show huge spikes or anything. In practice this meant that when you copied big (or lots of) files the speed went down to a few megabytes after half a minute. So, there was definitely throttling. The new drive kind of solved this problem but ultimately a better PC managed to eliminate it pretty much as far as I can see.

[Autumn_]

Originally posted by ragequitmaster:

Probably not. What is interesting is that I read a lot that SSDs are not getting as hot because they do not have moving parts which is just stupid. It is like saying the CPU is not getting as hot.
The 'issue' for me was that with my old PC (i3-6100 & 8GB RAM) the Samsung 750 Evo got to 50 degrees often at which point the whole system slowed down noticeably. You could not even open the task manager and when you actually had a chance to see what is the problem the CPU did not show huge spikes or anything. In practice this meant that when you copied big (or lots of) files the speed went down to a few megabytes after half a minute. So, there was definitely throttling. The new drive kind of solved this problem but ultimately a better PC managed to eliminate it pretty much as far as I can see.

When Steam downloads new files, the CPU unpacks/decompresses them, your SSD wasn't the problem, your (old) CPU was the problem.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

70*C is not hot for an ssd.
It's usually above 75+ where the ssd would throttle.

M2 SSDs I just install a heatsink on them, they can be found good and cheap on Amazon

[_I_]

use hwmonitor to watch temps on drives

ssd will very rarely overheat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnST5rA64Oc