Random stutter, been trying to solve for nearly a year

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Guide community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

jrob44

Honorable
Apr 12, 2013
26
0
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
 

jrob44

Honorable
Apr 12, 2013
26
0
10,580
Yeah, I tried uninstalling the GPU, completely wiped drivers and all, and ran off the integrated graphics and still had stuttering. Maybe i'll try that again tonight.
 

Bad_Kitty13

Estimable
Feb 26, 2014
118
0
4,660
it might be the psu causing this as well. have you tried a different one in your system. and if it happens with the igpu and the gpu i doubt it is those drivers, since you have a ssd then i assume you have your os on the ssd and not the hard disk so i dont think it is that unless it has to do with the ht on your fsb. does this happen as soon as you fresh install windows or after you start installing what you had on there before?
 

jrob44

Honorable
Apr 12, 2013
26
0
10,580
I think it starts as soon as I install Windows, although usually right after I install Windows I install drivers, so it could possibly be an issue with one of the motherboard drivers. I was just reading a post where someone was saying sometimes intel chipset drivers don't install correctly on newer versions of Windows, going to have to check that when I get home.

As for the PSU, I did try another PSU at one point but didn't get to test much with it, so not sure if that solved the problem. I have had this PSU for quite a while, it's a Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 800w (http://www.coolermaster.com/powersupply/silent-pro-gold/silent-pro-gold-800w/). I think i've heard over time PSU's sort of degrade in power output, so I wonder if this could be a problem. To top it off I do get some coil whine from my GPU, which I've heard is normal but you can possibly get rid of with a different PSU. Hmm, maybe I'll run to Fry's tonight or tomorrow and grab a PSU and test it out. If it doesn't solve the problem they have a really good return policy. What do you think? Think the PSU could be the problem?
 

DanH29

Estimable
Mar 6, 2014
5
0
4,510
now that i put even more thought into it, I'm starting to think that it might me your central processor? I don't really know though...there might even be a chance that is is both the hard drive and the processor.
 

jrob44

Honorable
Apr 12, 2013
26
0
10,580
Yeah, I also found a tool I hadn't heard of before called LatencyMon that seems to give you more detailed info on latencies than that DPC tool. Will try that out tonight to see if I can isolate it to a specific driver. If that doesn't seem to help I'll run tomorrow and pick up a new PSU and see if that helps at all. And yeah, already tried updating my BIOS. Also wondering if RAM might be an issue. Is it really that big of a deal if RAM isn't listed on the Qualified Vendors List?
 

Bad_Kitty13

Estimable
Feb 26, 2014
118
0
4,660
so just make sure it is cas latency 9 or below and 1.5v and around a 1600 or 1866 speed depending on the voltages could cause issues as the memory controller is only rated to handle 1.5v(this may be causing your issue as well if you have 1.65v 2133 speed ram) you have to have a pretty highend mobo to run with higher voltages on default without stressin the controller in your cpu. also in games a set of 1866 1.5v cl9 will perform the same as 2133 1.65v cl10 and if you can find cl8 1600 ram 1.5v that would be ideal
 

jrob44

Honorable
Apr 12, 2013
26
0
10,580
Hmm, so started up LatencyMon and noticed something. The USB driver has a much higher DPC and Total Execution Time than any other drive. Like 10x as much as other drivers. Disconnected everything for keyboard and mouse and it's the same. For my motherboard (Asus Sabertooth z77) they don't have USB drivers. Have to use the Microsoft drivers. Is it normal for USB drivers to have a much higher DPC latency or whatever than everything else?

Another thing is I saw someones post in a forum where they said anything beyond Windows XP doesn't let you install chipset drivers. They tell you it installed, but if you go into device manager it still says it is using the default Microsoft drivers. He said it caused stuttering, but I think he was talking more about microstuttering. So I don't know, I wonder if getting a new motherboard would help.
 

jrob44

Honorable
Apr 12, 2013
26
0
10,580
Hmm, so I plugged my mouse and keyboard (deathadder 2013 and black widow ultimate 2013) into a USB 3.0 port and my USB driver DPC latency and execution time went way down. Nothing seems out of the ordinary now. Going to have to play some games and watch some movies and see if it fixed it.
 

jrob44

Honorable
Apr 12, 2013
26
0
10,580
I already have the latest BIOS.

Okay, so my DPC latency was a little off so I updated some drivers and a few other things and got my DPC latency to where it should be. It still stutters.

So I noticed when it stuttered there was a spike in CPU usage. So I decided to record my desktop with a video playing in the background to see if I could catch which process was doing it. It never stuttered when recording my desktop. I tried for like hours and it never stuttered once. I've checked Windows Resource Monitor and it doesn't say it's parking any cores. I turned Intel Speed Step off so my processor clock speed is consistent. I checked my GPU clocks and what not as well and none of them seem to change when stutters occur. So I'm pretty much lost on this one.
 

jrob44

Honorable
Apr 12, 2013
26
0
10,580
Okay, so I tried taking my graphics card out again and running off the onboard gpu. Fixed the issue. Watched movies for like 3 hours and not a single stutter. Not sure what to do about that though. I've tried doing a clean install of drivers. Tried reformatting my computer. Wonder if I should rma this card, pretty sure its still under warranty.