If you have a Radeon RX 7000 or RX 9000 graphics card, your PC may have spent the last few weeks quietly writing data to its system drive while doing nothing at all. AMD has now released a fix. Adrenalin Edition 26.11.1, published on 12 November 2026, lists the problem as resolved, and AMD's own support note tells affected users to install it.
Forge PC has not tested the bug or the fix on our own hardware. This report is based on AMD's release notes and support article, plus reporting from TechPowerUp and TweakTown.
What went wrong
AMD's support article describes the problem simply: excessive SSD write activity "may be observed while the system is idle" on Radeon RX 7000 and RX 9000 series graphics cards. The 26.11.1 release notes list two fixed issues:
TechPowerUp reports that AMD traced the problem to the External Events Client Module (atieclxx.exe) in the 26.10.1 and 26.10.2 drivers. User reports put the write rate at anywhere from 0.3MB/s to 5MB/s, which TechPowerUp works out as roughly 26GB to 432GB a day on a machine that is doing nothing.
Should you worry about your SSD?
Probably not in the short term, but it is worth fixing. SSDs are rated for a finite amount of writing, usually expressed as terabytes written (TBW) in the drive's warranty terms. At the top of the reported range, 432GB a day adds up to more than 150TB a year of pointless writes, which would use up a real share of a typical consumer drive's rating if left running for months. At the bottom of the range it is far less.
The sensible response is to install the fix, then check your drive's health. A free tool such as CrystalDiskInfo, which we cover in our best free PC software guide, shows the drive's health status and the total amount of data written so far. If the figure looks far higher than you would expect for how you use the PC, keep an eye on it, and make sure your files are backed up. Our Windows 11 backup guide covers the free options.
How to install the fix
There is a catch. Adrenalin 26.11.1 is an optional driver, not a WHQL-certified release. TweakTown notes that, because of this, it will not appear as an official update inside AMD Software in the usual way, and that AMD says the fixes will reach a future WHQL driver.
To install it now:
Download Adrenalin 26.11.1 from AMD's drivers and support page, choosing your graphics card.
Run the installer and restart when it asks.
Check the version in AMD Software afterwards.
Our graphics driver guide walks through AMD's installer in more detail, including when a clean install with DDU makes sense.
If you would rather wait for the next WHQL release, the workarounds people used before the fix were disabling AMD's External Events Utility, turning off Resizable BAR, or using a community tool that blocks the writes, according to TechPowerUp. We would not recommend running unofficial tools that change driver behaviour when an official fix exists.
Check these known issues first
The optional driver comes with a list of known issues. The ones most likely to matter to gamers, according to AMD's release notes:
Smart Access Memory may be disabled after installing the driver on Windows 10. TechPowerUp points out that anyone who turned off Resizable BAR as a workaround should make sure it is back on after updating.
War Thunder may suffer intermittent driver timeouts on RX 5000 series cards; AMD recommends 26.9.1 for affected users.
Cyberpunk 2077 may crash or time out on some RX 9000 cards with FSR upscaling, Anti-Lag and in-game frame generation enabled while video plays on a second display. AMD's workaround is to disable in-game frame generation.
Phantom Blade Zero may show corruption on character hair on RX 9000 cards; AMD suggests turning off the High-Quality Hair setting.
If you play one of those games and are not seeing heavy drive writes, waiting for the next WHQL driver is a reasonable choice.
Our verdict
If you own a Radeon RX 7000 or RX 9000 card and are on the 26.10.1 or 26.10.2 driver, install AMD's Adrenalin 26.11.1 optional driver: AMD says it fixes the idle and window-resizing SSD writes, and its support article recommends it to affected users. Afterwards, check that Smart Access Memory is still on and use a tool such as CrystalDiskInfo to see how much has been written to your drive. If a known issue affects a game you play, waiting for the next WHQL release is a fair alternative. We have not tested the bug or the fix ourselves; this report is based on AMD's release notes and support article, with reporting from TechPowerUp and TweakTown.
