Carzy Zarx’s PC Gaming Emporium - Catch Up on All the Latest PC Gaming Related News

[JEMC]

*** Important info for those of you with some Western Digital SSDs ***

As Microsoft rolls out its Windows 11 24H2 update, owners of certain Western Digital SSDs have been greeted with constant Blue Screens of Death
https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/ssds/as-microsoft-rolls-out-its-windows-11-24h2-update-owners-of-certain-western-digital-ssds-have-been-greeted-with-constant-blue-screens-of-death/
Another Windows update, another round of users complaining about crashes and bugs. While hardly news, this time around the fault is very specific but also very annoying, and it concerns Western Digital SSDs, specifically its SN770 and SN580 models. It seems that these drives just aren't ready for the 24H2 update and the result is a glut of crashes and infamous Blue Screens of Death (BSODs).

All of these troubles were flagged up by SN770/SN580 owners on Western Digital's community forums (via TechSpot). It looks like the problem revolves around something called the Host Memory Buffer (HMB). All SSDs store a map of where data is located within its flash memory chips and this constantly gets updated, as information gets deleted and added.

Some SSDs have a single DRAM module on them and store the map in that, but many gaming SSDs are DRAM-less (to reduce the price tag) and instead, store this map in a little bit of the PC's system memory. This is called the HMB and without it, performance takes a hit when doing lots of little writes and erases.

From what WD SSD owners have been saying, it would seem that the WD Black SN770 and Blue SN580 stick to a maximum HMB size of 64 MB but in the 24H2 update, Windows increases this to 200 MB. The SSD's firmware doesn't like this figure and the result is all the errors.

>> Remember, it's the SN770 and the SN580. The SN850/850X, that have DRAM cache, seem safe. I'm glad I went with this one for the OS, but I got a 770 for the games drive. But well, that would be a problem for future me once I move on from Win10.

Also, an update for an article I posted the other day:

Steam Deck app that unified your Epic and GOG games on Steam removed by Valve days after it appeared on Steam
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/steam-deck-app-that-unified-your-epic-and-gog-games-on-steam-removed-by-valve-days-after-it-appeared-on-steam/
Junk Store is an existing plugin for the Steam Deck homebrew launcher Decky Loader, and its purpose is simple: it allows installation of games from GOG and the Epic Games Store. It was recently announced that Junk Store would be releasing on Steam as standalone software, allowing players to play any and all games from competitors, with developer SDK Innovation saying it lets you "install and launch games directly in Game Mode without switching to Desktop or relying on external launchers."

That all sounds pretty convenient, but the big question is whether Valve would be cool with it: the nature of Junk Store would've made it the first product available on Steam that changes the functionality of Steam itself.

Readers: Valve was not cool with it. The Junk Store steam page went live earlier this month, but has now been unceremoniously yoinked from the Steam storefront (first noticed by SteamDeckHQ).