My Gigabyte G5 MF5 laptop has started instantly rebooting with a brief BSOD whenever the SSD is placed under certain types of load. The drive is a Gigabyte AG4512G-SI B10 512GB with firmware EGFM15.1. It crashes after about 10 minutes of playing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and immediately when running the sequential-read test in CrystalDiskMark. However, a large 20 GB download did not trigger a crash.
CrystalDiskInfo reports normal temperatures around 60°C, 93% health, 7% used, and no media or data-integrity errors. About a month before the crashes began, the laptop started lagging severely during heavy downloads, which may have been an early warning sign. After the first few crashes, the SSD sometimes disappeared from the system and the laptop reported that there was no boot device, although that has not happened recently during testing.
The laptop has an i5-13500H, RTX 4050 Laptop GPU, and 16 GB of RAM. I tried Safe Mode and rolling back a recent Windows security update, but the problem remained. The BSOD appears too briefly to read, and Windows has not been saving dump files. Could the SSD be failing, or should I investigate another component? What is the best way to confirm the cause?
3 Answers
Do not assume the SSD is the only possibility. Run a memory test, update the laptop BIOS and storage/chipset drivers from the manufacturer, and check whether the crashes occur with the system at default settings. Since the failure is tied specifically to reading rather than writing, the SSD or its controller remains more likely than a normal Windows update, but a failing motherboard M.2 slot or power-delivery issue could produce similar symptoms.
Try to capture the exact stop code before replacing hardware. Disable automatic restart in Advanced system settings under Startup and Recovery, and check whether C:WindowsMinidump contains any files. If Windows cannot write dumps because the SSD drops offline, that itself supports a storage or controller problem. Also check Event Viewer for disk, storahci, or WHEA errors around the crash.
The SSD is a strong suspect, especially because it previously disappeared and the failure happens during a sequential-read test. A “good” health percentage and zero media errors do not rule out a controller, firmware, power, or interface problem. Back up anything important immediately, then test with another known-good NVMe drive or boot from a separate drive and repeat the same workload. If the replacement drive is stable, replace the Gigabyte SSD under warranty.
That makes sense. I was hesitant to blame the drive because CrystalDiskInfo reports good health, but the drive disappearing after a crash seemed significant. I’ll back it up and test with another drive if possible.
The only recent update was a security update installed the day before the issue began, but rolling it back did not change anything. The crashes also happen in Safe Mode, so I’m leaning toward hardware rather than that update.