Is my Onda B760ITX-B4 SSD overheating in Mass Effect?
Loading the galaxy map was a pain; the progress bar would just hang at 90%. It felt like being back in the HDD era. Because the Onda B760ITX-B4 is so cramped, my SSD was idling between 72-85℃, triggering a hardware-level speed limit. I tried switching the power plan to 'Balanced,' but read speeds actually tanked from 3500MB/s to 1200MB/s. I realized then that heat was the only enemy. I slapped on a 3mm pure copper heatsink and disabled PCIe Power Management in the BIOS. CrystalDiskMark showed random 4K reads jump from 42MB/s back up to 65-72MB/s. I almost bent the board while tightening the heatsink screw, but a quick adjustment fixed it. SSD now stays at 55-62℃ and the board is at 48-55℃. Storage performance is finally back to normal.
