840 Evo Dying?

Tom B

Tom B

Tom B

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I have a 11 month old 120gb 840 Evo. I'm not sure of the exact problem but the periodically (roughly once a day) the drive seems to stop being readable. The OS and anything in RAM keeps running but programs start to crash when they try to read files/load libraries, etc and the system becomes unusable very fast.

It's a disk i/o error but it's hard to debug as the system becomes unusable very fast.

If I reboot, the system doesn't boot at all, the drive cant be mounted as GRUB is launched but it clearly cannot mount the /boot partition properly as it won't actually run, it just says "GRUB ERROR"

If I shut down the PC and turn it back on (so the power to the drive has been disconnected) everything works as normal for a few hours.

Is it the SSD? is it the SATA controller? Is it a PSU problem no longer giving the drive power? (Everything else seems fine, fans work, CPU is working, etc so it's unlikely to be that)

Any ideas? Tempted to just get another SSD. Warranty isn't really an option as I'd like to clone the drive to minimise downtime.
 
Yeah I ran that when it was released. The performance is fine and if I do a disk check it says there are no problems with the drive.

it's 100% fine until something causes it to stop being recognised and then it's broken until the power is disconnected from it.

I'd just get another one but I'd rather wait for the 850 Evo and have an upgrade if I can! I don't know if the drive will last that long unfortunately :(
 
I would try re seating sata cables and power cables for the ssd, also try another port to rule out that being at fault.

I've got the same drive but 250GB, have you tried the Samsung magician software, does it state the drive is good under health status
 
From my albeit fairly limited experience the 840 EVOs don't seem to stand upto "real" use too well compared to some other SSDs.

After fairly heavy use mine was starting to suffer from read errors, unrecoverable ecc counts going off the charts and blowing through quite a lot of reserve blocks (I think some were just a bit weak out the factory so to speak), benchmarks, installing new games in Origin/Steam, etc. would slow the whole system down and start to get errors operating on new files - bought a 240GB HyperX 3K upgrade kit, cloned the EVO over to it, did a secure erase and cloned it back again and mines all working fine again... for now. Got the HyperX as a backup incase the EVO starts dying properly.

It seems like the TLC/controller setup they have doesn't handle failing blocks very well leading to bigger problems if you don't periodically do a full restoration :S though with average use it will probably take 4-5 years to start manifesting itself.
 
Last edited:
Rroff said:
From my albeit fairly limited experience the 840 EVOs don't seem to stand upto "real" use too well compared to some other SSDs.

After fairly heavy use mine was starting to suffer from read errors, unrecoverable ecc counts going off the charts and blowing through quite a lot of reserve blocks (I think some were just a bit weak out the factory so to speak), benchmarks, installing new games in Origin/Steam, etc. would slow the whole system down and start to get errors operating on new files - bought a 240GB HyperX 3K upgrade kit, cloned the EVO over to it, did a secure erase and cloned it back again and mines all working fine again... for now. Got the HyperX as a backup incase the EVO starts dying properly.

It seems like the TLC/controller setup they have doesn't handle failing blocks very well leading to bigger problems if you don't periodically do a full restoration :S though with average use it will probably take 4-5 years to start manifesting itself.
Click to expand...


http://ssdendurancetest.com/ssd-endurance-test-report/Samsung-840-EVO-120
 
Tom B said:
I have a 11 month old 120gb 840 Evo. I'm not sure of the exact problem but the periodically (roughly once a day) the drive seems to stop being readable. The OS and anything in RAM keeps running but programs start to crash when they try to read files/load libraries, etc and the system becomes unusable very fast.

It's a disk i/o error but it's hard to debug as the system becomes unusable very fast.

If I reboot, the system doesn't boot at all, the drive cant be mounted as GRUB is launched but it clearly cannot mount the /boot partition properly as it won't actually run, it just says "GRUB ERROR"

If I shut down the PC and turn it back on (so the power to the drive has been disconnected) everything works as normal for a few hours.

Is it the SSD? is it the SATA controller? Is it a PSU problem no longer giving the drive power? (Everything else seems fine, fans work, CPU is working, etc so it's unlikely to be that)

Any ideas? Tempted to just get another SSD. Warranty isn't really an option as I'd like to clone the drive to minimise downtime.
Click to expand...

My 13 month old 250gb 840 evo did pretty much exactly what you describe yesterday morning.

I've now secure erased it, changed sata cables and restored a backup image, but if it fails again it will be dumped for another drive as I lost a good few hours yesterday sorting it out.
 
Hmm. I'm not sure what to think now. I took out the drive, plugged it into a USB caddy, booted from it and it seems to be working perfectly (albeit slower because it's over USB). I'll leave it today and see if it breaks but so far the computer was on overnight and no issues.

If it's ok this evening I'll try putting it back into the SATA port.
 
Had mine for 14+ months now iirc and it is still going fine, I only use it for my OS and BF4 though so it doesn't get that stressed, also I only power on once a day.
 
I have the Samsung EVO 250GB 840 and I have had mine since June and had no issues.

mine is used for the OS only and the odd few games I have installed. had to use the SSD more after my HDD failed which i had all my games on etc

i try to keep as little on the SSD as possible and only install the games i currently play.

try the usual things of different sata port, cable and make sure the power cable is secure.

i started to get I\O device errors on my HDD (not SSD) which failed a few weeks ago
 
It's been fine all day (pc has been running) via USB caddy... I'll swap it back to the internal SATA controller and see if it has any problems. Haven't had any issues with the other SATA drives connected internally.
 
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