Computer Repair · November 11, 2026 · ComputerKing Team

An AMD Radeon Driver Bug Writes to Your SSD While Your PC Idles: Check in 1 Minute

AMD has acknowledged on Reddit that a bug in its Radeon drivers — an infinite loop in the AMD External Events Utility (atieclxx.exe) — keeps writing to the SSD even when the PC is idle, at 0.3 to 5 MB per second. The fix is expected in the next Adrenalin release; 26.10.2 does not include it. This guide shows how to confirm it with Resource Monitor in a minute, and why the two workarounds should not be tried blindly. Pricing is quoted case by case.

Key takeaway

AMD has acknowledged on Reddit that a bug in its Radeon drivers — an infinite loop in the AMD External Events Utility (atieclxx.exe) — keeps writing to the system SSD even when the PC is idle. Users have measured write rates of roughly 0.3 to 1.5 MB per second, with one report as high as 5 MB per second — enough to add up to terabytes of writes in a month. AMD says a fix has been submitted and should ship soon, but Adrenalin 26.10.2, released on 30 October, does not include it. The effect on SSD lifespan is unproven, but the check takes one minute and is worth doing once.

1. What the news says: a driver bug that never lets the SSD rest

• The program at fault: AMD External Events Utility, executable name atieclxx.exe, which handles Adrenalin hotkeys and FreeSync display settings.
• The bug: an infinite loop in the driver makes the utility write internal diagnostics, status checks and system event logs to the system SSD continuously.
• Who confirmed it: AMD representative AMD_Matt acknowledged the problem on Reddit in October and said it was being investigated; another representative, AMD_Vik, later said a colleague had submitted a low-risk fix and hoped to ship it very soon.
• Who is affected: only Windows PCs with AMD Radeon graphics — and not every Radeon system shows the behaviour. NVIDIA graphics and Intel integrated graphics are not affected.
• The fix has not arrived yet: Adrenalin 26.10.2, released on 30 October, does not mention it. AMD_Vik said the fix should land in "the very next one"; reports point to Adrenalin 26.11.1, expected in November, but AMD has given no exact date.

2. How big are the writes? Look at the numbers

• Typical case: 0.3 to 1.5 MB per second — sounds tiny.
• Per day: 0.3 MB per second already adds up to roughly 26 GB of writes a day.
• Worst report: 5 MB per second works out to about 432 GB a day, or nearly 13 TB a month.
• Against rated endurance: on a 500 GB SSD rated for around 300 TBW, those figures equal 3.16% to 52.56% of rated write endurance per year — but this is Digital Trends' illustration, assuming the machine writes around the clock at the worst rate.
• The point: these numbers are not a forecast, only a way to see that "writing while idle" is not trivial. A PC doing nothing should not be writing to its SSD all day.

3. Does it actually shorten SSD life? Unproven — but not a reason to ignore it

• Unproven: the reported figures count what Windows sends to the drive, not what physically lands on the flash chips. SSDs use write amplification, caching and wear levelling, so the real wear may be much smaller.
• No need to panic: there is no evidence that this bug has killed any SSD. For most users, the drive will be fine until the fix arrives.
• Still worth checking: first, that much writing is extra load, especially on an older drive or one that already has high write counts. Second, the check takes one minute — confirm it before deciding what to do, instead of guessing.
• Do not scare yourself: if the check comes back clean, ignore the story and wait for the driver update. Do not stop services or change settings because of a headline.

4. The one-minute check: is your PC affected?

1. Press Win + R, type `resmon`, press Enter to open Resource Monitor.

2. Go to the Disk tab.

3. Find `atieclxx.exe` in the disk activity list.

4. Watch its write rate: normally it should be zero or an occasional blip. If it holds steady at hundreds of KB to several MB per second, your PC is affected.

5. If you are not sure which graphics card you have, check the GPU section of the Performance tab in Task Manager, or look under Display adapters in Device Manager.

• Note: the PC should be idle while you check. Do not run a game or a heavy program at the same time, or other programs' writes will confuse the result.
• This is only a check — change nothing yet. Confirm the writes first, then read the next section.

5. Two workarounds, and why not to try them blindly

Two workarounds are circulating, but both have trade-offs, and Digital Trends advises against touching anything until the writes are confirmed:

• Stop the AMD External Events Utility service: stopping it in services.msc halts the writes, but can break FreeSync behaviour and Adrenalin hotkeys. You are trading features for quiet.
• Turn off Resizable BAR: some users report this stops the writes, but it may reduce gaming performance.
• Our advice: only consider a workaround if you have confirmed that atieclxx.exe really is writing continuously, and the rate is high. Even then, note down what you changed, so you can restore the settings once the official fix ships and you update the driver.
• Do not: download a so-called fix program or third-party tool from the internet, and do not delete atieclxx.exe — removing driver files can break the graphics card.

6. What to do while waiting for the fix

• Watch for driver updates: the official fix is expected in the next Adrenalin release. Check for updates through AMD's website or the Adrenalin software itself — never through a third-party download site.
• Back up important files before updating the driver. Driver updates rarely go wrong, but backing up is a habit, not a reaction to this story.
• Check again after updating: use the method in Section 4 to confirm atieclxx.exe is no longer writing continuously.
• If you changed any settings: anyone who stopped the service or turned off Resizable BAR should restore those settings after updating the driver, rather than leaving a workaround in place as if it were normal.
• You can also glance at SSD health while you are there: go to Settings > System > Storage > Disks & volumes and check the estimated remaining life and available spare capacity of an NVMe SSD. Only a warning there calls for further action — not this news story alone.

7. When to bring the machine in

• Resource Monitor shows atieclxx.exe writing continuously, but you are not sure whether the rate is abnormal.
• After stopping the service or changing a setting, the graphics card misbehaves: FreeSync stops working, Adrenalin will not open, or gaming performance suddenly drops.
• SSD health shows a warning, or the machine already has other symptoms such as slowness, freezing or a drive that is not recognised.
• In these cases, bringing the machine in for a check is safer than trying things one by one. Pricing is quoted case by case.