How to stop Samsung 9100 PRO 4TB from thermal throttling?
This PCIe 5.0 drive is basically a space heater. After loading three planetary scenes in a row, the read speed tanked from 12000MB/s to a pathetic 2000MB/s. The Samsung 9100 PRO 4TB was hitting 82-88℃, triggering the controller's thermal protection and causing obvious loading hitches. I tried dropping the PCIe link to Gen 4 in the BIOS, but while it ran cooler, I lost 40% of my performance—a complete joke of a solution. I eventually swapped in an active cooling fan and set the M.2 fan curve to a forced 80%. I also killed the Windows power-saving mode for the disk. HWInfo now shows the drive peaking at 62-68℃ with speeds stable at 10500-11200MB/s. The new fan caused some annoying case resonance at first, but a rubber dampening pad fixed it. Power draw is steady at 11-14W. Stress tests show a smooth read/write curve, though the fan noise is a constant reminder of the heat.
