Samsung 960 Pro SSD owners report drive freezes with new firmware

Samsung recently issued a firmware update for its 960 Pro solid state drives, but if you own one of those drives and haven't already updated, there's good reason to wait. Several users have reported performance issues, including drive freezes, after updating the firmware.

"Just installed the newest firmware (3B6QCXP7) on my Samsung 960 Pro 1TB and now my M.2 drive freezes all the time. Opened a ticket with Samsung and they reported this issue is getting bigger," Overclock.net forum user WaXmAn wrote.

The same forum member said he was told there was no ETA on a fix. He also lamented that there's no way to roll back to a previous firmware release, so he's stuck with an unreliable drive until Samsung addresses the problem.

Another user on the same forum said he contacted Samsung and was told that it's not a widespread issue, though it's not difficult to find other complaints, including ones posted to Samsung's own community forums.

"A few days ago, I updated the firmware of my 960 Pro 1TB to version 3B6QCXP7 (using Magician 5.1), it's a crap! The performance is worse than before, and many times Windows 10 freezes for a few seconds and then continues to work. I tried everything—unplugging the disk from the laptop (Alienware 17r4), clearing the CMOS, and also deleting the partitions and reinstalling everything again," Samsung forum member OGUIGNANT wrote.

Another user said he's running into the same issue on his Dell XPS 9560 laptop. And yet another said he can trigger a freeze just by scanning for viruses on his PC. He's also not able to backup his drive with Acronis anymore, as that also causes his 960 Pro to freeze with the new firmware.

Samsung SSDs are renowned for their reliability and performance, but this goes to show that even the best companies can make mistakes. The bottom line is, wait for a new firmware release before updating, and even then let others test it out first.

Paul Lilly

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).

Latest in SSDs
Crucial X9 external SSD on blue background
You can pick up the 2 TB version of my favorite budget external SSD for less than $0.06 per GB, transfers 300+ GB of data in 6 minutes
A Samsung 9100 Pro SSD in both 2 TB and 4 TB sizes.
Samsung 9100 Pro 2 TB SSD review
An image of a WD_Black SN850X SSD against a teal background with a white border
The best 1 TB gaming SSD you can buy is now just $79, the cheapest it's been for a good while
WD Black SN850X SSD on a gaming PC case.
Looks like we won't be seeing Western Digital SSDs in our gaming PCs as the company hands the reins back over to SanDisk
A SanDisk Desk Drive external SSD on a blue background
I adore this chunky, reliable external SSD, so for a third off the 4 TB version I will absolutely recommend it in a heartbeat
The WD Black SN850X 8 TB out of the packaging.
If you thought PCIe Gen 5 SSDs were a little pointless, don't worry, here comes 32 GB's worth of Gen 6 technology
Latest in News
An Enshrouded player in a recreation of Erebor from The Lord of the Rings
Kings under the Mountain! 33 Enshrouded players spent 10,000 hours to recreate this iconic location from The Lord of the Rings
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened