NVIDIA 950m Lagging and Stuttering

[Misterguymandude]

Hi, and thanks in advance for any input or advice, and apologies in advance for being long-winded..

So, I’m using an ASUS K501UX with Intel i5-6200U @ 2.30GHz 2.40GHz. 8 GB ram, on a 64 bit Win 10 (version 1511) machine with a NVIDIA 950m GPU that I bought only about 2 months ago. Up until the other day, I’ve had zero issues with anything. I usually play older games (GTA IV, Skyrim, and things like that) and those have run extremely smoothly on this machine.

The other morning I was prompted for a new windows update. I was in a big rush to make it to a very important meeting, so ended up having to hard shut down the computer just after the update had cleared 100%. I assume this was the big fat anniversary update, but cannot be sure. When I was eventually able to turn the laptop back on, it was stuck in a restart loop and wouldn’t even make it to the sign in screen. Eventually, I managed to get into the repair menu and rolled back to the previous version of windows 10.

Happily, everything booted up just fine after rolling back and all seemed well with all of my usual programs. Unfortunately, when I loaded up any game… they were all unplayable. It kept cycling between running fine for a few seconds and then lagging and stuttering like crazy for a few seconds and then repeating this cycle. In GTA IV, textures and things like that didn’t seem to be a problem… just the damned lagging and stuttering. I figured it may have been something wonky that went wrong with the windows update / rollback, so I used the “reset this PC” option (removing all files and apps).

After reinstalling everything on the computer (back to windows 10 version 1511), again absolutely everything else works fine and smoothly… except for gaming which is still having the exact same issue. Since then, I’ve poked around online for solutions, but nothing has worked so far. The XBOX DVR is disabled, I have my power settings on high performance. I’ve monitored the GPU temperature and it stays below 55 degrees even when the game performance is horrible. I always use a fan pad and make sure the vents are not filled with dust. I’ve tried completely uninstalling my NVIDIA driver using DDU and doing clean installs of the current driver. That didn’t work and the games are still lagging and stuttering. I also tried installing a few older versions of the driver (including the one ASUS K501UX machines are supposed to have) and still the problem persists.

At this point, I have no clue what to try next and can’t seem to find other solutions online. I’m also increasingly unsure if this is a hardware issue (since reinstalling windows and trying different drivers hasn’t helped), or if it’s a software issue (since this is a very new machine with absolutely no other performance issues that would suggest the GPU is fried). Any insight or help from you all would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Misterguymandude]

Great news! I just solved my issue 1 hour ago. Reinstall Windows. The issue has to do with a software that controls the CPU clock.
I noticed my idle CPU clock doesn't drop below 2Ghz even when I stop all background processes from taskbar, now when idle my clock idles below 1Ghz (the way it should be).

Try uninstalling then reinstalling any intel CPU clock controllers for your notebook. There are a lot of factory or Intel program responsible for controlling your CPU speed.

Congrats! Glad to hear you found a solution for your computer ills.

Reinstalling windows was one of the first things I tried, but unfortunately didn't fix anything. The search continues lol

 

[AtomSphere]

Are you able to right click the game shortcut and choose which grapics processor to run with? I hear sometimes it is an issue with some updates or changes that suddenly makes the IGPU do the job instead of the DGPU. 55c under load for the GPU is very low. My GTX960m runs at 83c under load

 

[plan3s]

My girlfriend has ASUS K501UX with 5500U, 8GB and 950m. Noticed similiar problems. An interesting fact is that she bought the same laptop twice, because in first PSU roasted after replugging it to another power source within 2 days of use. We've seen several ASUS laptops from that series in outlet stores with note "Returned by customer, replaced PSU in an authorized service". Seems like a pattern for those guys.

In some another thread I've seen before (can't find it right now) someone reported that stuttering could have been correlated with voltage issues of Intel processors (backed up with some AIDA findings).

Now, could it be potentially linked? Maybe one of components has troubles with power management (like CPU bottlenecking GPU or so).

We've been trying to run Fallout 4 on that laptop, various materials in the internet suggest that it could be ran without problems on medium settings. Yet, GameReady driver not only suggests that the game is unsupported, but also running it on low produces stutters, some weird screen cutting, even system malfunctioning (!) with eventual freeze. GTA 4 worked fine, but needed some -commandline manipulations to allow it to recognize the GPU.

 

[Misterguymandude]

Are you able to right click the game shortcut and choose which grapics processor to run with? I hear sometimes it is an issue with some updates or changes that suddenly makes the IGPU do the job instead of the DGPU. 55c under load for the GPU is very low. My GTX960m runs at 83c under load

Indeed I have tried this, and it has not helped with the issues unfortunately. Since I've monitored the GPU usage while playing, I'm quite confident that the GTX905m is being used during gaming.

My girlfriend has ASUS K501UX with 5500U, 8GB and 950m. Noticed similiar problems. An interesting fact is that she bought the same laptop twice, because in first PSU roasted after replugging it to another power source within 2 days of use. We've seen several ASUS laptops from that series in outlet stores with note "Returned by customer, replaced PSU in an authorized service". Seems like a pattern for those guys.

In some another thread I've seen before (can't find it right now) someone reported that stuttering could have been correlated with voltage issues of Intel processors (backed up with some AIDA findings).

Now, could it be potentially linked? Maybe one of components has troubles with power management (like CPU bottlenecking GPU or so).

I appreciate the reply!

I've started to have some other issues lately which may suggest power problems (or worse), including one instance where the computer froze up, and a BSoD this evening. I haven't had a chance to look over the dump file (since I'm still learning how to do this), but in my Events Viewer it seems that I've been absolutely inundated with WHEA-Logger warning (not error) 17... since the Win 10 AU update last week that reads as such;

"A corrected hardware error has occurred.

Component: PCI Express Root Port
Error Source: Advanced Error Reporting (PCI Express)

Busevice:Function: 0x0:0x1C:0x4
Vendor IDevice ID: 0x8086:0x9D14
Class Code: 0x30400"


Poking around a bit, it seems some people have been having this issue after big Win 10 updates. Although this is all really starting to veer far away from my lowly level of technical knowledge, and I'm not at all sure if this even relates to the issues stated in the OP, what I've read may suggest some very screwy driver issues. Nevertheless, there seems to be deeper problems afoot.

Kinda at a loss now. Very odd that things were working absolutely beautifully up to this damned Windows update, now issues are cropping up constantly.

 

[AtomSphere]

maybe tough it out and that the next update fixs it. Plus reading the previous few post, if you can try a different PSU maybe that can cross it off the list of potential problems.

 

[Slaking_97]

Hi guys, I also have the same problem with an Asus i7 4720HQ, 16gb ram, gtx 950m.
I'm experimenting stuttering with almost every game, but i managed to "solve" this problem underclocking the gpu clock and memory speed with MSI afterburner. With underclock it's more stable but it still has some stutter, if we don't look at the enormous performance drop (we're talking of about 10-15 fps).
So my conclusion is that it could be the PSU, but at this point, i don't know how to solve the problem.
I'm running Win 8.1

 

[AtomSphere]

Hi guys, I also have the same problem with an Asus i7 4720HQ, 16gb ram, gtx 950m.
I'm experimenting stuttering with almost every game, but i managed to "solve" this problem underclocking the gpu clock and memory speed with MSI afterburner. With underclock it's more stable but it still has some stutter, if we don't look at the enormous performance drop (we're talking of about 10-15 fps).
So my conclusion is that it could be the PSU, but at this point, i don't know how to solve the problem.
I'm running Win 8.1

Did your battery drain if you are at stock speeds? My i7 6700hq and 960m at stock speeds and voltage drains 5% of power for every 90 minutes. I resolve this issue by undervolting my cpu so less power to cpu = less heat and power consumption while keeping same performance

 

[Slaking_97]

Hi guys, I also have the same problem with an Asus i7 4720HQ, 16gb ram, gtx 950m.
I'm experimenting stuttering with almost every game, but i managed to "solve" this problem underclocking the gpu clock and memory speed with MSI afterburner. With underclock it's more stable but it still has some stutter, if we don't look at the enormous performance drop (we're talking of about 10-15 fps).
So my conclusion is that it could be the PSU, but at this point, i don't know how to solve the problem.
I'm running Win 8.1

Did your battery drain if you are at stock speeds? My i7 6700hq and 960m at stock speeds and voltage drains 5% of power for every 90 minutes. I resolve this issue by undervolting my cpu so less power to cpu = less heat and power consumption while keeping same performance

Actually my battery is broken... Sometimes ago it just stopped charging, even when the laptop was turned off, and if i unplugged the psu cable the laptop immediately turned off. Then slowly the battery charge started to get lower and lower, till it reached 0 and i had problems so i just took it out, and doing only with the psu.
For the voltage, i don't know why but MSI afterburner doesn't let me do that, the voltage lines are disabled.

 

[AtomSphere]

Hi guys, I also have the same problem with an Asus i7 4720HQ, 16gb ram, gtx 950m.
I'm experimenting stuttering with almost every game, but i managed to "solve" this problem underclocking the gpu clock and memory speed with MSI afterburner. With underclock it's more stable but it still has some stutter, if we don't look at the enormous performance drop (we're talking of about 10-15 fps).
So my conclusion is that it could be the PSU, but at this point, i don't know how to solve the problem.
I'm running Win 8.1

Did your battery drain if you are at stock speeds? My i7 6700hq and 960m at stock speeds and voltage drains 5% of power for every 90 minutes. I resolve this issue by undervolting my cpu so less power to cpu = less heat and power consumption while keeping same performance

Actually my battery is broken... Sometimes ago it just stopped charging, even when the laptop was turned off, and if i unplugged the psu cable the laptop immediately turned off. Then slowly the battery charge started to get lower and lower, till it reached 0 and i had problems so i just took it out, and doing only with the psu.
For the voltage, i don't know why but MSI afterburner doesn't let me do that, the voltage lines are disabled.

Your battery is probably old. With regular use my battery did the same thing as yours. Another one of my battery with little use also degraded.

Msi afterburner? Are you planning on lowering voltage on the gpu? I was talking about CPU undervolting.

How much wattage is your power supply?

 

[Slaking_97]

Hi guys, I also have the same problem with an Asus i7 4720HQ, 16gb ram, gtx 950m.
I'm experimenting stuttering with almost every game, but i managed to "solve" this problem underclocking the gpu clock and memory speed with MSI afterburner. With underclock it's more stable but it still has some stutter, if we don't look at the enormous performance drop (we're talking of about 10-15 fps).
So my conclusion is that it could be the PSU, but at this point, i don't know how to solve the problem.
I'm running Win 8.1

Did your battery drain if you are at stock speeds? My i7 6700hq and 960m at stock speeds and voltage drains 5% of power for every 90 minutes. I resolve this issue by undervolting my cpu so less power to cpu = less heat and power consumption while keeping same performance

Actually my battery is broken... Sometimes ago it just stopped charging, even when the laptop was turned off, and if i unplugged the psu cable the laptop immediately turned off. Then slowly the battery charge started to get lower and lower, till it reached 0 and i had problems so i just took it out, and doing only with the psu.
For the voltage, i don't know why but MSI afterburner doesn't let me do that, the voltage lines are disabled.

Your battery is probably old. With regular use my battery did the same thing as yours. Another one of my battery with little use also degraded.

Msi afterburner? Are you planning on lowering voltage on the gpu? I was talking about CPU undervolting.

How much wattage is your power supply?

The psu is this one: https/www.amazon.co.uk/power-supply-Watt-original-N751JX-2B/dp/B00W39J7JQ

How would you lower the cpu voltage?

 

[AtomSphere]

Hi guys, I also have the same problem with an Asus i7 4720HQ, 16gb ram, gtx 950m.
I'm experimenting stuttering with almost every game, but i managed to "solve" this problem underclocking the gpu clock and memory speed with MSI afterburner. With underclock it's more stable but it still has some stutter, if we don't look at the enormous performance drop (we're talking of about 10-15 fps).
So my conclusion is that it could be the PSU, but at this point, i don't know how to solve the problem.
I'm running Win 8.1

Did your battery drain if you are at stock speeds? My i7 6700hq and 960m at stock speeds and voltage drains 5% of power for every 90 minutes. I resolve this issue by undervolting my cpu so less power to cpu = less heat and power consumption while keeping same performance

Actually my battery is broken... Sometimes ago it just stopped charging, even when the laptop was turned off, and if i unplugged the psu cable the laptop immediately turned off. Then slowly the battery charge started to get lower and lower, till it reached 0 and i had problems so i just took it out, and doing only with the psu.
For the voltage, i don't know why but MSI afterburner doesn't let me do that, the voltage lines are disabled.

Your battery is probably old. With regular use my battery did the same thing as yours. Another one of my battery with little use also degraded.

Msi afterburner? Are you planning on lowering voltage on the gpu? I was talking about CPU undervolting.

How much wattage is your power supply?

The psu is this one: https/www.amazon.co.uk/power-supply-Watt-original-N751JX-2B/dp/B00W39J7JQ

How would you lower the cpu voltage?

Exact same psu I have. Well a few options I can think of:


- Get a new battery (I do not know if yours is replaceable or not)

- Lower your CPU power and heat consumption if you don't need that amount of power, through the windows power plan. Go to maximum CPU state and change it from 100% to 99%. This will turn off turbo boost and you CPU max speed will be around 2.2ghz. This is also the quickest way to tell if you're drawing too much power. If your game starts performing better.

- Test and check your PSU to see if it is up to spec. Get a more powerful psu? Finding the right psu is daunting for me.

-undervolting your CPU using intel XTU program. Research what people are achieving for your CPU. Careful not to overvolt as it will fry your CPU. Find a setting that will pass stress test. If successful, your computer will be performing the same with less heat and power consumption. In a power starvation issue, it might even make your computer work better.

Please post back your results on what you've did so people know.

 

[Slaking_97]

Ok i found the solution for my stuttering problem. I just followed the instructions you gave me about lowering max CPU usage to 99%, and it looks like it works perfectly. I have no more stutter and i can finally run games like GTA V at 40 fps and more on High settings (and some Very High).
Also i noticed that my GPU frquency clock isn't dropping anymore, so it just runs straight and perfectly at its standard clock (so without underclocking it anymore).
I don't know what the problem was but with the help of AtomSphere i solved it, and it looks like it's related to the CPU.

Thank you so much Atom, you made my day!

Edit: also take note for those with this problem that i had to lower my minimum CPU usage which was previously set to 100%.
I am noticing that my entire system had a relevant boost in terms of performance, and the game that previously was creating me more problems (Dead By Daylight) is running perfectly.

 

[AtomSphere]

Ok i found the solution for my stuttering problem. I just followed the instructions you gave me about lowering max CPU usage to 99%, and it looks like it works perfectly. I have no more stutter and i can finally run games like GTA V at 40 fps and more on High settings (and some Very High).
Also i noticed that my GPU frquency clock isn't dropping anymore, so it just runs straight and perfectly at its standard clock (so without underclocking it anymore).
I don't know what the problem was but with the help of AtomSphere i solved it, and it looks like it's related to the CPU.

Thank you so much Atom, you made my day!

Edit: also take note for those with this problem that i had to lower my minimum CPU usage which was previously set to 100%.
I am noticing that my entire system had a relevant boost in terms of performance, and the game that previously was creating me more problems (Dead By Daylight) is running perfectly.

I am so glad i made your day! Its funny how so many laptops are supplied with PSU that cant take the most demanding games. Happy gaming!

 

[Misterguymandude]

Just checking in and updating briefly. it's also great to see other people popping up with issues and getting solutions!

I kept getting the BSoDs I mentioned previously, and finally saw the blue screen for long enough to see "System service exception igdkmd64.sys". This was resolved very quickly by simply reinstalling the Intel drivers through device manager. So, thankfully the computer is actually stable again and runs fine.... except for the gaming, which is still problematic and no better than it was before.

At this point, I've decided to get a work laptop through my employers and will send the Asus laptop to the shop I bought it at. They have a great reputation for repairs, though after speaking with someone there they think they will likely end up sending it to Asus (which is nearby, and apparently has a very good service reputation in the country I live in). So, this won't be done for a while, but I will make sure to relay any new information, especially when the problem is identified and a solution is found.

 

[AtomSphere]

Hope Asia finds out what the problem is. If you're getting bsod, then I am suspecting hardware level of problem now since you already reinstalled windows and checked for viruses and malware

 

[Misterguymandude]

Hope Asia finds out what the problem is. If you're getting bsod, then I am suspecting hardware level of problem now since you already reinstalled windows and checked for viruses and malware

Apologies, I may have been unclear. I've solved the BSoD problems by simply reinstalling the Intel drivers, so there hasn't been any other BSoDs, crashes, or freezing since then. This part seems to be resolved.

However, the core issue outlined in the OP with stuttering and lagging while gaming (and only while gaming) has not been remedied and I 'm hoping Asus will be able to help. Interestingly enough, on Asus' notebook support page, they offer a lot of tips for checking and updating BIOS in Win 10 so perhaps issues with BIOS are common. We'll see!