Samsung recently released a new firmware update on its flagship NVMe solid-state drives through its website and the Samsung Magician, the official program for monitoring and updating firmware of Samsung-brand SSDs. A few days after the release, Samsung SSD users are reporting issues with the Samsung 960 Pro’s latest firmware version 3B6QCXP7 and Samsung 960 Evo’s latest firmware version 3B7QCXE7.
Check out our review on the Samsung 960 Evo SSD
Hangs and Freezes
Updating to the latest firmware can cause stability issues, freezes and other system errors. Users are reporting the issues massively in forums and social media. Different users are compiling the effects and troubleshooting experiences at Samsung’s Community section. It seems that all models of the Samsung 960 Pro and Evo, regardless of capacity, are affected once the firmware is updated to the faulty versions.
Community User “userz0fG59a6OP” writes:
”Updated firmware last night and it has created an issue for me. Under old firmware, 960 worked flawlessly. Once updated to new firmware, system hangs up for about 10 minutes after log on to Windows 10 Pro (fall creators edition). Then all is good for about 10 minutes and it hangs again. This repeats itself several times.”
Troubleshooting
Fortunately, there are no reports of the SSD dying due to the firmware update. Samsung Magician monitoring still reports that the drive is all good. Users also report there is no data loss using the faulty firmware, just the freezes and hangs. Rolling back to the previous firmware version is doable.
No official statement from Samsung regarding the firmware issues as of this writing. Best to avoid updating the affected Samsung SSD models and if you are affected by this issue, you might find helpful troubleshooting suggestions from the fellow Samsung Users at the Samsung Community Section.
