SSD Not Working Because of Steam??

[Kuro Dmon]

Motherboard: Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. B450 AORUS PRO WIFI-CF
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700x
Video Card:Not Important (to my knowledge), but GeForce RTX 3070 TI 8GB M
Monitors: Extremely Not important
RAM: 64.0 Gig DDR 4 (2 32GB T-Force Sticks from the look of it)
Power Supply: having trouble getting the exact info, but a command-prompt-energy-analysis says no significant issues (aside from idllng too much).

My specific issue is with my recently purchased SPCC SSDs. I purchased a bunch of storage space in December; 4 HDDS and 2 of the aforementioned SSDs. One of the SSDs I'm using just for Steam Games. But about a week ago, if I attempted any steam activity, even just letting steam Update, the drive would disappear from My Computer until my computer reset.

I've done a Power Diagnostic that doesn't seem to think my power supply is at fault (aside from needing to set it to idle appropriately, rather than turning it off when not in use).
I've switched the Sata Cord that the Steam SSD was using, and switched the Motherboard Port as well. No change in behavior.
I've checked the Drive Health with Cmd Prompt and Speccy and both say all the drives should be Good.
At this point the only thing I have left to test, unless the previous ones are inconclusive, was if the SSD can do things other than Steam, and if Steam works on my HDD.

Any suggestions as to ways to conclusively rule out other problems? Or possibly figure out why Steam has decided it doesn't seem to like this SSD anymore?

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Install Steam Client to OS SSD.
Then configure Steam Library on other Drives so those other drives are an option when installing your Steam Games.

Is the OS SSD an M2 NVME?

[Kuro Dmon]

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

Install Steam Client to OS SSD.
Then configure Steam Library on other Drives so those other drives are an option when installing your Steam Games.

See, I thought about doing that as a potential step 4 (after purchasing another drive and swapping it for the "faulty" one if it was what was at fault here), but if I did, and the problem repeats, then wouldn't that mean that on boot, Steam might kill the OS SSD? I find that very troublesome to consider, considering that'd make this thing crash on load...

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

Is the OS SSD an M2 NVME?

https://www.newegg.com/silicon-power-4tb-ace-a55/p/0D9-0021-00165?Item=9SIBDGPJPZ6964

They were both a pair of 4TB Sata SSDs, I experimented with a NVME card, but no one told me that they'd disable the Sata ports connecting my other drives, so I got rid of the 1 that I had. It only supported 500 gigs anyway, and I was able to upgrade to 4TB at a discount at the time.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Try this as a test.
Shutdown PC.
Disconnect all of the SATA data cables that connect HDDs to Motherboard.
Put your SATA SSDs on Ports 0 and 1 -or- 1 and 2
They should be labeled this way in the manual if you look there; 0-5 (if you have 6 total)
Then power on, enter the BIOS just to ensure the Boot Options is correct and that OS Drive is the only available boot device.

Then see if the issues you speak of still exists.

[chris]

Originally posted by Kuro Dmon:

Motherboard: Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. B450 AORUS PRO WIFI-CF
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700x
Video Card:Not Important (to my knowledge), but GeForce RTX 3070 TI 8GB M
Monitors: Extremely Not important
RAM: 64.0 Gig DDR 4 (2 32GB T-Force Sticks from the look of it)
Power Supply: having trouble getting the exact info, but a command-prompt-energy-analysis says no significant issues (aside from idllng too much).

My specific issue is with my recently purchased SPCC SSDs. I purchased a bunch of storage space in December; 4 HDDS and 2 of the aforementioned SSDs. One of the SSDs I'm using just for Steam Games. But about a week ago, if I attempted any steam activity, even just letting steam Update, the drive would disappear from My Computer until my computer reset.

I've done a Power Diagnostic that doesn't seem to think my power supply is at fault (aside from needing to set it to idle appropriately, rather than turning it off when not in use).
I've switched the Sata Cord that the Steam SSD was using, and switched the Motherboard Port as well. No change in behavior.
I've checked the Drive Health with Cmd Prompt and Speccy and both say all the drives should be Good.
At this point the only thing I have left to test, unless the previous ones are inconclusive, was if the SSD can do things other than Steam, and if Steam works on my HDD.

Any suggestions as to ways to conclusively rule out other problems? Or possibly figure out why Steam has decided it doesn't seem to like this SSD anymore?

I Have Steam & Games Installed on External HDD..My £1,000 Gaming PC can NO Longer Play Any Steam Game Due to Constant "Steamwebhelper.exe" Errors & Have Reverted Back to my Old Console..****Thanks Steam for Ruining my Gaming****..Am Not Checking for Any Replies as I Really Couldn't Care Less about Steam or Anyone Connected to Them....

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Steam errors? Like what? It fines perfectly fine all day long.
Don't use Steam as a web browser.
Opt into the Beta for Steam Client.

[Kuro Dmon]

While I was getting ready to do this, I was also in the process of trying to put Steam on an HDD to see how it reacts there. And it seems playable on it.

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

Try this as a test.
Shutdown PC.
Disconnect all of the SATA data cables that connect HDDs to Motherboard.
Put your SATA SSDs on Ports 0 and 1 -or- 1 and 2
They should be labeled this way in the manual if you look there; 0-5 (if you have 6 total)
Then power on, enter the BIOS just to ensure the Boot Options is correct and that OS Drive is the only available boot device.

Then see if the issues you speak of still exists.

... but I did try this, and I was able to get a boss battle off on Hollow Knight without Steam dying on me. So I'm wondering if the problem is related to my Motherboard, rather than the drive...

I should have paid more attention to which one was placed in which, but I did unplug the other 4 HDDs so that it's only the pair of SSD, plugged into the primary ASATA slots. If I weren't running late trying to take care of things, I'd be able to reply on which one is in which.

I am curious, though; does this imply that I can't have all 6 drives plugged in? If so, why would it start to fail after 80 days, rather than immediately? I'll be trying to test that part once I get another free moment, as well as testing it by playing the game that I was running when these failures first started happening (XCOM 2 Wotc).

Also, I can update the Power Supply Information; I've had this computer open for a minute. It looks like I'm using an EVGA SuperNova 850 GT 80 Plus Gold.

Quick Edit: attempting to re-install games to the SSD is.... way slower to navigate through Steam than I would be expecting. Though it could be Steam itself lagging as a result of the amount of downloads...

Another Quick Edit; before I could even get out the door, Steam crashed and the drive disappeared again. The lag should have been a telltale warning...

[Supafly]

Originally posted by Kuro Dmon:

I experimented with a NVME card, but no one told me that they'd disable the Sata ports connecting my other drives,

That would be in the motherboard manual. Not every board is created this way. I have 4 Nvme and 6 Sata ports on my board and I can use all 4 NVME drives AND the 6 Sata ports at the same time.

Had Steam on HDDs, SSD and NVME drives and even a few USB drives Not one in over a decade has died on me because of Steam. I've had drives die but Steam has never been on those drives as they were cheap and slow.

I've either sold the HDD or put it in a NAS. Then used Steam on an SSD, SSD is still in my system, for other stuff, as I moved Steam to an Nvme now 2018. Every single one of those drives are still working.....besides drives I've solved as I can't confirm one way or the other.

Originally posted by Kuro Dmon:

I am curious, though; does this imply that I can't have all 6 drives plugged in? If so, why would it start to fail after 80 days, rather than immediately?

Drives fail all the time. Could be faulty when you first get it or fail anytime after that. Try running drive tests.

Originally posted by Kuro Dmon:

Quick Edit: attempting to re-install games to the SSD is.... way slower to navigate through Steam than I would be expecting. Though it could be Steam itself lagging as a result of the amount of downloads...

Sounds like a failing drive to me.

Without Steam loaded try using CrystalDiskMark to benchmark the drive and see if it performs like it should. If speeds are lower than they should be that can highlight it's failing. Keep in mind speeds fluctuate as you have more data on the drive.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Kuro Dmon:

I've checked the Drive Health with Speccy

What does something modern say like Hard Disk Sentinel?

[↑↑↓↓←→←→BASelect]

Do you have AHCI enabled in the motherboard bios?

[Kuro Dmon]

Originally posted by Ralf:

Originally posted by Kuro Dmon:

I've checked the Drive Health with Speccy

What does something modern say like Hard Disk Sentinel?

"There are 288 bad sectors on the disk surface. The contents of these sectors were moved to the spare area.
Based on the number of remapping operations, the bad sectors may form continuous areas.
36 errors reported during write to the device.
It is recommended to examine the log of the disk regularly. All new problems found will be logged there.
The TRIM feature of the SSD is supported and enabled for optimal performance.

It is recommended to backup immediately to prevent data loss."

It's saying this about *the SSD containing my operating system*.

If multiple people going "yeah, it's probably the drive itself" hadn't made it clear before (and they had; I was contemplating ordering a replacement drive and seeing if I can kinda get my money back), seeing the main body of my computer having 12% Health Remaining is freaking terrifying.

I thought it was weird that everything else was like "it's okay but something's off", but there's no reason to take a second chance anymore. Screw these SSDs.

[Supafly]

Originally posted by Kuro Dmon:

Screw these SSDs.

you get bad sectors on HDDs to. I've got 4x Nvmes, and 7x 2.5" SSDs and not one has failed in the last 10 years. You just got unlucky with that one

[Cathulhu]

Had a HDD that was dead on arrival. Went back to the store, told them my finding, they took the drive to verify it. Took them only seconds to see i was right.
Too bad they haven't had the same drive in store anymore, so i got another brand and model, with bigger capacity, no extra charge.

That drive lasted over a decade.

Sometimes you just have bad luck. In Germany we call that a "Montagsmodell" as in produced on a Monday. Meaning, people come from the weekend and are in no mood to work properly resulting in subpar quality.

If possible RMA the drive, after backing up everything you can't afford to lose.

I had one SSD drive die on me. Got replaced without issues. Data loss was minimal as nothing important was stored only on that drive.

One HDD was dying in my NAS, got RMA'd without any problems. It's sibling (bought as a pair) still works fine. As the data on the NAS is in a RAID, no data loss occured.

Crap happens. Have backups and/or multiple copies of everything important.

[Kuro Dmon]

Oh, I didn't mean to imply I was against SSDs in general (though folk being surprised that I've got 4 HDDs I'm fond of makes me laugh. I loved my 60 TB of file space; the SSDs were just for OS/Desktop and Steam use; stuff I want done with less lag). I'm about to leave to have MicroCenter make the problem go away.

I had ordered those online on NewEgg at a discount, and my brother told me while I was talking to him yesterday that NewEgg had been slipping in their quality control, but also that he had never encountered drives dying *that* fast.

It's just bad luck that it happened, and also that in searching for a deal, I was impatient/cheap enough to not seek out a place I could have it done directly in person with someone I can talk about it; the money I spent before was completely wasted. Let alone that I'm about to be on a trip for a week away from my machine, so I'm strapped for time and options.

I'm about to buy another pair of SSDs, and pay to have them clone the drive with Windows and my main info on it. I also *attempted* to copy all the info (photos, writing, etc) from the "Primary SSD" to one of the HDDs, but 9% /14 days of life expectancy left means I'm not plugging in or turning that thing back on until the new drive is in place. I'll put the other one in myself if need be, since formatting an empty drive to fill it with Steam games is pretty easy.

[Sigma957]

Originally posted by Kuro Dmon:

Oh, I didn't mean to imply I was against SSDs in general (though folk being surprised that I've got 4 HDDs I'm fond of makes me laugh. I loved my 60 TB of file space; the SSDs were just for OS/Desktop and Steam use; stuff I want done with less lag). I'm about to leave to have MicroCenter make the problem go away.

I had ordered those online on NewEgg at a discount, and my brother told me while I was talking to him yesterday that NewEgg had been slipping in their quality control, but also that he had never encountered drives dying *that* fast.

It's just bad luck that it happened, and also that in searching for a deal, I was impatient/cheap enough to not seek out a place I could have it done directly in person with someone I can talk about it; the money I spent before was completely wasted. Let alone that I'm about to be on a trip for a week away from my machine, so I'm strapped for time and options.

I'm about to buy another pair of SSDs, and pay to have them clone the drive with Windows and my main info on it. I also *attempted* to copy all the info (photos, writing, etc) from the "Primary SSD" to one of the HDDs, but 9% /14 days of life expectancy left means I'm not plugging in or turning that thing back on until the new drive is in place. I'll put the other one in myself if need be, since formatting an empty drive to fill it with Steam games is pretty easy.

You don't have to pay anyone to clone a drive. It's easy. Go grab some opensource software and do it yourself. Follow the instructions.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

The SSD makers should provide free software for that purpose on their support/downloads website.