Cyberpunk 2077 crashing m2 disk

[Naxterra]

Hello

Cyberpunk 2077 is crashing and damaging my new m2 disk. I have Samsung 980 Pro 2 TB (bought like a month ago) and whenever I ran the game, disk get disconnected.

Now my disk is permanently damaged and at least reseller is giving me a refund, but what shall I do to prevent damage on my next drive? I am not sure if CDPR will give me a compensation for breaking my disk but I will try to write to support team too.

It is specific to Cyberpunk 2077 game. In the same drive I have my whole Steam and EA games library and none of them cause any errors. Cyberpunk game works on my secondary SSD without any issues.

I am on Windows 11 Enterprise, have RTX 2080Ti, 2x Sandisk Extreme Pro 960GB SSD, Samsung 970 Pro 1 TB and Samsung 980 Pro 2 TB (which is now damaged by Cyberpunk), 64 GB RAM and i9-10900KF CPU. All Windows updates are installed, using latest Geforce drivers, and I used Samsung Magician to test my drives.

 

[CS554]

Contact technical support. Use "Contact us" button at Support site.

 

[Feline_Witcher]

Hello

Cyberpunk 2077 is crashing and damaging my new m2 disk. I have Samsung 980 Pro 2 TB (bought like a month ago) and whenever I ran the game, disk get disconnected.

Now my disk is permanently damaged and at least reseller is giving me a refund, but what shall I do to prevent damage on my next drive? I am not sure if CDPR will give me a compensation for breaking my disk but I will try to write to support team too.

It is specific to Cyberpunk 2077 game. In the same drive I have my whole Steam and EA games library and none of them cause any errors. Cyberpunk game works on my secondary SSD without any issues.

I am on Windows 11 Enterprise, have RTX 2080Ti, 2x Sandisk Extreme Pro 960GB SSD, Samsung 970 Pro 1 TB and Samsung 980 Pro 2 TB (which is now damaged by Cyberpunk), 64 GB RAM and i9-10900KF CPU. All Windows updates are installed, using latest Geforce drivers, and I used Samsung Magician to test my drives.

This is quite troubling, considering you have a top-end machine. I like the lore of Cyberpunk and seen so many walkthroughs/read so much lore on the Wiki it is almost as if I actually played the game, and in fact I really like the characters and lore, but I'm so glad I actually never bought it yet (Windows 8 owner so didn't really have the option). Will wait till it's fixed, when it's fixed

 

[Notserious80]

Thats odd, I played Cp2077 on a older 970 m.2 and dident run into any problems. Could it be overheating or something? my drive is like half the speed and dont use pci-e 4 so guessing it doesent get as hot. Most next gen consoles has a m.2 pci-e 4 tho so should be more common if its a game problem i think? Would be cool too find out why the drive failed...

 

[GrimReaper801]

So, let me get this straight... you're getting a refund and you want compensation?

That seems fair....

I have no doubt you're not getting compensation from CDPR. Not because you're getting a refund but because this isn't a known issue with the game.

Simply put - odds are the issue is on your end and there isn't anything CDPR could do about it.

My guess would be either a faulty SSD or a faulty M.2 slot/board, the former being far more likely. All your other games simply didn't push it to the point where it started being an issue.

Get your replacement, try it out. If it crashes again and gets disconnected, I strongly suggest not trying it again. That was a serious mistake, especially so if you did it over and over again, hardware getting disconnected is a huge red flag. Instead try another M.2 slot. I can't remember any modern motherboard not having at least two slots and your PC being relatively new, I'm assuming you have more than one slot. If you're still experiencing the issue... I'd look at the MB.

CP2077 simply isn't known to brick PC hardware. Furthermore, the game has been out for a year and been on the same version for nearly five months, if the game was bricking PC hardware of any kind with any kind of observable consistency, we would know by now. Very few games actually brick hardware these days and when they do, we all know it pretty quickly, not more than a year after release. Sometimes they aren't even at fault but are accused of it, look at the recent New World debacle.

It sucks but at least you're getting a refund. I'm pretty certain you're pointing at the wrong culprit here though.

 

[northwold]

This sounds like a dud drive, to be honest (or motherboard). There's no reason why software other than an operating system or drivers would be capable of forcing hardware into a physically destructive fail state. The OS and/or the drivers which feed what that software wants to do to the hardware should prevent that (as should the BIOS and the chipset itself), which suggests either a problem with the drivers or the hardware itself.

Cf the "New World melted my graphics card" controversy, which turned out to be down to a batch of shoddily manufactured graphics cards of a single brand. When a game drove them hard, they failed.

 

[exxxed]

Sure it was Cyberpunk if it's the only game in your Steam library that's actually taxing your system.

I'd suggest trying AC Unity next to see if it has the same impact.

Now with Samsung NVMe's you get this app called Samsung Magician, I suggest installing that one and watching the temperature of your drive while gaming as well.

I was shocked to know that the temps were skyrocketing while playing various games (including the new Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5) which pushed me into purchasing a Sabrent NVMe Heatsink for it (yes they do need heatsinks especially if you're planning on using them constantly otherwise they eventually break or start throttling, drastically reducing their overall speed).

Hope this helps and best of luck with your next purchase.

 

[Naxterra]

@GrimReaper801 , I am getting refund because Amazon saw the event viewer logs and agreed to provide refund, but if that happens again and again, I don't think they will replace it. That is why I am asking some kind of compensation because there is no guarantee if it is going to happen or not on the new drive. Game thrashed 400 Euro disk literally.

Before 980 Pro 2 TB, I had Aorus 2 TB disk too, and it had same symptoms. I thought drive was faulty at first, but after getting crashes several times, drive died in few months. Game was installed on that drive too.

@exxxed I tried AC Valhalla, AC Odyssey, Farcry 6, Watch Dogs Legion, Serious Sam 4, Doom Eternal, Skyrim (modded to death) and lots of other games from Ubisoft and Steam and none of them have issues on the same drive.

I have a heatsink on my 980 Pro. Temperatures are around 40-45C when gaming and around 30C~ when doing large file transfers between disks.

I also found some topics in the forums regarding m2 drive issues with Cyberpunk. I am aware that this is a rare case but still happens.

 

[Notserious80]

So what did the event log say? Should be able too atleast see what failed or how it failed?

 

[Naxterra]

An error was detected during a swap operation. Affected device is \Device\Harddisk3\DR3. {Delayed write error} Not all data for file "E:\$Mft" was saved. The data was lost. Possible causes are computer hardware or network connection errors. Try saving the file somewhere else. {Delayed write error}

Not all data for file "E:\Steam\steamapps" was saved. The data was lost. Possible causes are computer hardware or network connection errors. Try saving the file somewhere else.

The I/O operation at logical block address "0x53bd" for disk drive "5" (PDO name: \Device\00000171) was repeated.

The I/O operation at logical block address "0x5374" for disk drive "5" (PDO name: \Device\00000171) was repeated.

From my AV
Event type: Processing error
Name: CrashReporter.exe
Application path: E:\GoG Galaxy
Process ID: 9096
User: xxx (Initiator)
Component: File Threat Protection
Result description: Processing error
Object type: File
Path to object: E:\GoG Galaxy
Object name: Qt5Network.dll
Reason: Read error

Event type: Processing error
Name: python.exe
Application path: E:\GoG Galaxy\python
Process ID: 25012
User: xxx (Initiator)
Component: File Threat Protection
Result description: Processing error
Object type: File
Path to object: E:\GoG Galaxy\plugins\GalaxyPluginXbox\galaxy\api
Object name: plugin.py
Reason: Read error

 

[northwold]

@GrimReaper801 , I am getting refund because Amazon saw the event viewer logs and agreed to provide refund, but if that happens again and again, I don't think they will replace it. That is why I am asking some kind of compensation because there is no guarantee if it is going to happen or not on the new drive. Game thrashed 400 Euro disk literally.

Before 980 Pro 2 TB, I had Aorus 2 TB disk too, and it had same symptoms. I thought drive was faulty at first, but after getting crashes several times, drive died in few months. Game was installed on that drive too.

@exxxed I tried AC Valhalla, AC Odyssey, Farcry 6, Watch Dogs Legion, Serious Sam 4, Doom Eternal, Skyrim (modded to death) and lots of other games from Ubisoft and Steam and none of them have issues on the same drive.

I have a heatsink on my 980 Pro. Temperatures are around 40-45C when gaming and around 30C~ when doing large file transfers between disks.

I also found some topics in the forums regarding m2 drive issues with Cyberpunk. I am aware that this is a rare case but still happens.

Not to put too fine a point on it, if two drives have exhibited the same behaviour have you considered the more likely explanation that that there is something wrong with your motherboard / M2 slot? Or, possibly, with the cooling in your system?

As I said above, it shouldn't be possible for a game physically to junk your hard drive (assuming it is physically junked). That is either a driver / firmware issue with the drive (or motherboard) or a hardware issue with the drive (or motherboard).

At a bare minimum, did you update the drive firmware and install the latest drivers, and the same for the motherboard (the chipset), including BIOS. Samsung 980 Pros had a known issue with their speeds dropping like a stone after a few months which required a firmware update. Did you try re-seating the drive in the slot?

 

[Naxterra]

Not to put too fine a point on it, if two drives have exhibited the same behaviour have you considered the more likely explanation that that there is something wrong with your motherboard / M2 slot? Or, possibly, with the cooling in your system?

As I said above, it shouldn't be possible for a game physically to junk your hard drive (assuming it is physically junked). That is either a driver / firmware issue with the drive (or motherboard) or a hardware issue with the drive (or motherboard).

At a bare minimum, did you update the drive firmware and install the latest drivers, and the same for the motherboard (the chipset), including BIOS. Samsung 980 Pros had a known issue with their speeds dropping like a stone after a few months which required a firmware update. Did you try re-seating the drive in the slot?

I have the latest official BIOS from Gigabyte (F22) and latest firmware for the m2 disk via Samsung Magician tool (4B2QGXA7). My other 970 Pro 1 TB has no issues so far because I didn't install Cyberpunk in it, and it is working fine since Dec 2018. I also switched m2 slots with both disks, and 970 Pro showed no errors.

Also, for 980 Pro, full disk scan and extended SMART scan showed no errors, until I ran Cyberpunk. When I ran Cyberpunk disk get immediately disconnected. I have lots of other GoG games and they are working fine, like Witcher 3 with mods.

I am currently copying all the files from 980 Pro to my SSDs and 970 Pro and temperature is 38C. I have this one as cooler for m2 (https://smile.amazon.de/-/en/gp/product/B09CCF6WJJ/)

 

[andrewdilley]

I guess if an app crashes a lot when using an SSD it's possible that it causes corruption on the drive? But it's a BIG call to say the app is specifically trashing your drive. It's perfectly fair to report it, see if there's an unreported hardware issue lurking. But c'mon.

 

[Naxterra]

I guess if an app crashes a lot when using an SSD it's possible that it causes corruption on the drive? But it's a BIG call to say the app is specifically trashing your drive. It's perfectly fair to report it, see if there's an unreported hardware issue lurking. But c'mon.

I submitted a support ticket. Let's see what they will say. I will run this game from one of SSDs instead of m2 disks to play safe.

To be honest, if this game had a DRM mechanism like Starforce or Denuvo, I could easily pinpoint the root cause and even for me it is hard to believe a game causing disk crash, but all of my tests point to this game.

I don't know if it matters or not, but all of drives are encrypted with Bitlocker (AES-256-XT)

 

[andrewdilley]

@GrimReaper801 , I am getting refund because Amazon saw the event viewer logs and agreed to provide refund, but if that happens again and again, I don't think they will replace it. That is why I am asking some kind of compensation because there is no guarantee if it is going to happen or not on the new drive. Game thrashed 400 Euro disk literally.

I guess Amazon saw evidence of faulty goods and pressed the refund button. Repeated claims from a user will trigger a red-flag. But you can't expect compensation IN ADVANCE of a fault which may be due to any part of your system. I had a bunch of random crashes on CP2077 after one of the patches, it turned out I had to dial-down the GPU overclocking. CDPR's fault? Of course not.

Post automatically merged: Jan 3, 2022

I submitted a support ticket. Let's see what they will say. I will run this game from one of SSDs instead of m2 disks to play safe.

To be honest, if this game had a DRM mechanism like Starforce or Denuvo, I could easily pinpoint the root cause and even for me it is hard to believe a game causing disk crash, but all of my tests point to this game.

I don't know if it matters or not, but all of drives are encrypted with Bitlocker (AES-256-XT)

That seems sound. I use an SSD on a PCI slot because my on-board M2 is buggered and it works well. BTW I don't understand how DRM would assist (Digital Rights Mechanism?).

Never used Bitlocker but maybe it's an overhead that could be removed? I've seen some posts elsewhere about it being an unnecessary burden on a gaming drive.

 

[Naxterra]

I guess Amazon saw evidence of faulty goods and pressed the refund button. Repeated claims from a user will trigger a red-flag. But you can't expect compensation IN ADVANCE of a fault which may be due to any part of your system. I had a bunch of random crashes on CP2077 after one of the patches, it turned out I had to dial-down the GPU overclocking. CDPR's fault? Of course not.

Software crash is okay, that means there is a bug in the software, and there will be logs pinpointing correct location for the issue. But if software is causing a hardware failure, what can I do? Amazon will replace once or twice and then they will say they will not give refund or replace the device because it is not caused by hardware issue and probably will flag my account like you said. If they do that, that means I threw away 400 Euro to thrash.

 

[andrewdilley]

Software crash is okay, that means there is a bug in the software, and there will be logs pinpointing correct location for the issue. But if software is causing a hardware failure, what can I do? Amazon will replace once or twice and then they will say they will not give refund or replace the device because it is not caused by hardware issue and probably will flag my account like you said. If they do that, that means I threw away 400 Euro to thrash.

Definitely get your concern about the replacement drive failing, 400 Euros is real money (heh, just realised my keyboard has no Euro symbol!)

My suggestion would be - be as sure as you can the M2 card is well-matched to your motherboard (too tech for me to advise on). Make sure your system is vanilla first, no overclocking on GPU, CPU, memory, total factory reset. Install the new drive, run some benchmarking/health checks on it (PCMark?).

Then, if you install CP2077 and get crashes - stop using it and present any logs to CDPR, because I'd reckon that would be useful to them AND you.

 

[exxxed]

@exxxed I tried AC Valhalla, AC Odyssey, Farcry 6, Watch Dogs Legion, Serious Sam 4, Doom Eternal, Skyrim (modded to death) and lots of other games from Ubisoft and Steam and none of them have issues on the same drive.

I have a heatsink on my 980 Pro. Temperatures are around 40-45C when gaming and around 30C~ when doing large file transfers between disks.

I also found some topics in the forums regarding m2 drive issues with Cyberpunk. I am aware that this is a rare case but still happens.

The reason why I said AC Unity in general is because it's abnormally taxing on the CPU and storage.

Either way, my bad for assuming you were not using a heatsink and unaware about the technicalities behind it all.

I do have a 970 EVO nvme myself and have been using it with Cyberpunk since the launch in December 2020 with literally exactly one crash to desktop due to a scheduled update that I was not aware of with overall more than 300 hours in the game so I don't know what to say.

Have been playing a bit of every other game you listed on the same nvme and again, no hitches or anything. In fact I only upgraded to the specified heat sink since I got Forza Horizon 5, no idea why my temps were hitting close to 60 degrees in that game but it was eventually sorted with the new heatsink.

Naturally it sounded like a temp/throttling issue, but it seems to me from the logs that Steam, GOG, windows defender (?), software protection service (?) and/or C++ redistributable were trying to access files on the drive partition which highlighted a potentially faulty nvme port or connection with the storage that the firmware/bios flash could have theoretically damaged and ultimately led to the error.

The log itself indeed shows that the drive is faulty and if within warranty there's no reason for Amazon and/or seller to not give you a refund and/or replacement.

Hopefully you get to the bottom of the issue, I'd personally like to know the resolution.

I'm highly skeptical that the game caused it though.

 

[GrimReaper801]

So far, everything I've seen since I last posted reinforces my beliefs that the issue is on your end.

I even went through 10 pages of different threads on these boards and a couple google searches. Your case is a seemingly unique incident. The worse I've seen is severe performance issues with NVME, no hardware failures. Let alone easy to replicate hardware failures.

In all honesty though, it sounds like you're set on blaming the game even if it's the least likely scenario. So I won't suggest trying anything else.

Like the others, I am curious as to what the resolution will be even though I am, like @exxxed, highly skeptical the game is the root cause here.

 

[cartlidge]

None of us can say it isn't cdpr for definite without having a look at the code. But... unless they have done amazingly dodgy and insane things such as bypassing your operating system calls and accessing the hardrive directly it just isn't cdpr's fault.