AMD Acknowledges GPU Driver Bug Causing Continuous Data Writes and SSD Wear

AMD has acknowledged a graphics driver bug that causes its External Events Utility to write data continuously to storage drives even when systems are idle. The issue gained widespread attention on November 8 after Reddit user ‘darklinkpower’ highlighted reports of the unusual drive activity, with one Radeon owner claiming the background process reduced their solid-state drive’s health by 1% each month over a 16-month period.

Observed Behavior and Drive Impact

The problematic background software, known as the External Events Utility or EEU, is installed alongside AMD Radeon graphics drivers. Users monitoring their systems have reported sustained background writes of approximately 5 megabytes per second while their computers are doing nothing.

At that 5 megabytes-per-second rate, a drive receives about 18 gigabytes of host writes per hour, totaling 432 gigabytes over a full day and approaching 13 terabytes over a month of uninterrupted activity. However, security and hardware analysts note that incoming data passes through SSD controllers utilizing caching and wear-leveling techniques, meaning the exact amount of reported activity that translates into physical NAND flash wear remains unconfirmed, and individual user claims of lost drive health have not been independently verified.

Driver Versions and Investigation Status

Reports of the continuous writing span multiple software packages, including systems running Adrenalin version 26.19.2 and older releases, indicating the behavior is not confined to a single update. AMD's October 30 release notes for Adrenalin version 26.20.2 did not address the issue.

Responding on the AMD community forum on October 21, a company representative confirmed that the manufacturer was investigating the reports with the aim of resolving the behavior in a future driver release. A company representative named AMAD Vik subsequently offered a further update on Reddit, apologizing and stating the issue is expected to be fixed in the next driver version.

Temporary Workarounds

While awaiting an official patch, users have identified temporary workarounds to halt the disk activity. One method involves opening the Windows Services application, locating AMD EEU, and stopping the service or changing its startup type to disabled. An alternative workaround reported by users is disabling Resizable BAR, a feature that allows a processor to access a graphics card's memory buffer more efficiently, though that setting can impact gaming performance.

Summary

It remains unclear which specific hardware combinations, system configurations, or driver versions are responsible for triggering the continuous write behavior, and AMD has not yet published a confirmed release date for the promised software fix.