AMD is investigating reports that a component of its Radeon graphics software keeps writing data while some Windows PCs sit idle. In an October 21 discussion on AMD’s support forum, a representative posting as AMD_Matt acknowledged the issue and said the company was looking to address it in a future driver release. The reports have drawn renewed attention this week as owners compare what they see on their own PCs (AMD PC & Processors Community, n.d.).
The reports center on atieclxx.exe, a component of AMD External Events Utility. One person in the AMD forum described sustained writes of about 0.3 MB/s on a Radeon RX 9070 XT using Adrenalin 26.10.1 and Windows 11. A PC Gamer staff member with an AMD GPU could not reproduce the problem, Andy Edser reported. These observations identify systems worth investigating, but do not establish how common the problem is (AMD PC & Processors Community, n.d.).
A sustained 0.3 MB/s would add up to about 1.08 GB in an hour at the reported rate. That calculation assumes continuous activity and uses decimal units. A process-level write counter alone cannot tell readers how much reached the flash memory or how much endurance the drive lost. Tom’s Hardware traced a reported one-percent monthly drop in SSD health to an individual user and said it had not been independently confirmed.
VideoCardz reported that another AMD representative expected a fix in Adrenalin 26.11.1. AMD’s published notes for the October 30 optional 26.10.2 package list neither this issue nor a fix for it. PartialMedia found no public 26.11.1 release note confirming a delivered fix as of November 9 (WhyCry, 2026 and Advanced Micro Devices, 2026).
Windows Resource Monitor’s Disk tab can show whether the process is associated with sustained write activity during an idle period. A single reading can miss intermittent activity or include unrelated work. Checking several observations alongside the installed driver version gives a clearer record to share with AMD support.
Editorial Opinion
AMD’s next release notes should identify the affected configurations and explain how customers can tell whether the fix worked. A useful follow-up would measure background activity on the same PC before and after the update under comparable idle conditions, then compare the drive’s own write counters over the same interval. That would give Radeon owners a better basis for deciding whether their systems need attention.
References
Advanced Micro Devices. (2026, October 30). AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 26.10.2 optional driver release notes. Release notes.
AMD PC & Processors Community. (n.d.). AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 26.10.1 driver release notes [Forum thread]. AMD forum discussion.
Edser, A. (2026, November 9). AMD users are reporting a misfiring utility is eating SSD health by 1% a month. AMD says a fix is on the way for its GPU drivers. PC Gamer.
Gitonga, N. (2026, November 9). AMD admits GPU driver bug is writing data continuously, wearing out SSDs — Radeon owner claims External Events Utility used up 1% of SSD health every month for over a year, company promises a fix soon. Tom’s Hardware.
WhyCry. (2026, November 9). AMD confirms Radeon driver bug causing constant SSD writes, fix planned for Adrenalin 26.11.1. VideoCardz. Original report.
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