Random stutter, been trying to solve for nearly a year

jrob44

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Apr 12, 2013
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10,580
So, I've had this random stuttering on my PC ever since I built it. I've even swapped out quite a few of the components since first recognizing I had this problem, and it persists.

Whenever I'm doing anything on my PC, be it watching a movie, typing up a document, or playing games, my computer will randomly sort of hiccup and stutter for just a second. It does this every like 30 minutes or so. Everything sort of halts for a second, if I'm typing text, that pauses. On videos and in games both the video and audio sort of hiccup and pause for a second. Besides that, everything works perfectly fine.

I've had this problem for a really long time now. I've tried everything I can think of: reinstalling Windows numerous times (both 7, 8 and 8.1). I've pretty much swapped out every hardware component for a new one and tested it. I've tried setting the BIOS settings all to default, factory settings, and tried overclocking it, doesn't make a difference. Temps are all fine. GPU doesn't go above 80 (doesn't even get up to 80 very often), CPU I think tops out at like 70 during stress testing on OC, I think it was in the 50's-60's without OC. The problem never seems to go away. It's hard to try to see what's going on in hardware monitor type applications when it happens because the stutter is so random and doesn't occur very frequently.

I mainly got my PC for playing games, but since I've had this problem I've pretty much given up and just started playing on PS4. It's extremely frustrating that I have this much money into my computer and I can't even play videos without stuttering

I don't know what else to try. Has anyone ever experienced anything like this, or have any tips for possible solutions? The only things I can't think of is I believe this problem started after I switched to having dual hard drives. Right now I have a 120 gig SSD and a 2 TB HDD. I used to always run one hard drive, and I don't recall ever having this problem then. Problem occurs when running video files or games off of either hard drive. Oh, and my RAM isn't listed on the qualified vendors list, I did try other RAM though, although I didn't test it that much.

I really don't think this is a hardware problem though. I really think it may be some background application, but am at a loss to try to figure out which one it is.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Specs:
CPU: i7 3770k
Mobo: Sabertooth z77
RAM: 2133 Mhz 2 x 4gb
GPU: GTX 780 (had same problem with a 580)
Hard drives: Seagate 120 gb SSD, Western Digital 2 TB HDD
PSU: Cooler Master Pro Gold (or something like that) 800 watt
Sound card: Creative X-Fi Titanium
 

Bad_Kitty13

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Feb 26, 2014
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4,660
have you tried running memtest for memory? and have you tried running without the gpu to see if it still stutters if you take out the gpu and it runs fine off the intel graphics it is most likely a faulty psu issue with overdraw. just to rule out the hardware.
 

jrob44

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Apr 12, 2013
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I can't remember if I ran memtest or not. I'll give that a shot. And yeah, took out the GPU and ran off the Intel one and it still had the stutter issue. Same with the sound card.

And I used to have Skype running until I read that it had issues, so I just uninstalled it. Still have the stutter problem though.
 

DanH29

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Mar 6, 2014
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It is your Hard Disks, you probably have it lose or it doesn't have enough room so it scrapes against something internally. The only recommendation i have is to try booting of of another External hard disk and see if you still here the shuttering. If you do i don't really know what to do but if you don't here the shutter you will need to open the computer up and either get a new hold for the internal hard disk you boot on, get a new hard disk that fits the hold or replace the hole drive with the disk. If you do not want to try to boot off of another external hard disk than try to listen to there the Shutter is coming from, if it is coming from the hard disk, fallow the instructions above, if it is not...well i have no idea.
 

jrob44

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Apr 12, 2013
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I think you may be onto something. Somewhat confused though. My hard disks because of my cable management are wedged where they are pretty good. So what do you mean by doesn't have enough room? What would be optimal? And you talk like I previously mentioned shuttering, I haven't heard any sounds from my hard drives. I'm going to try moving my hard drives and see if that helps. I'll post back later if it helped or not. Either way thanks everyone for your replies.

 

jrob44

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Apr 12, 2013
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Okay, so while watching a movie I had Windows Resource Monitor going. When the stutter happened I noticed there was a spike in the System task. Anyone have any ideas for what might be causing that?
 

DanH29

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Mar 6, 2014
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humm... i still think it has something to do with you hard drive, have you tried booting off of an External hard disk?
 

jrob44

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Apr 12, 2013
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I've tried reinstalling Windows numerous times and it doesn't seem to help. Even tried the repair Windows of the Windows install disc but that's usually pretty useless. I'm pretty sure it's a driver issue, just not sure how to narrow it down.
 

jrob44

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Apr 12, 2013
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I actually just stumbled across that a while ago. Ran it for a few hours and never got any red bars. Highest it went was 1880, which is really close to the red so I don't know. Most of the time it's hovering around 1000. Not even completely sure what that's checking.
 

jrob44

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Apr 12, 2013
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Yeah my FSB is overclocked. I've tried going back to the like optimized default BIOS settings, with stock CPU and FSB clock, but the stuttering persisted.

I went ahead and tried uninstalling the Intel Management Engine Interface and Intel LAN drivers (these are the only drivers I think that have remained consistent through all of my testing), after about an hour I haven't seen a stutter. DPC latency checker is also a lot more consistent now, before it varied between like 1000 and 1400 and peaked at 1800 sometimes, now it's pretty consistently between 1050-1100. Not getting my hopes up yet, but I'll play some games and watch some movies and see if it stutters anymore. I'll make sure and post back. Either way, thanks for trying to help out, definitely appreciate it.
 

jrob44

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Apr 12, 2013
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Sorry it's been a few days, been busy. So, turns out the stuttering is still there. Seems like it's not as frequent though. I've tried reverting my clocks back to all default/stock settings and it didn't make a difference.