Question Computer lagging really bad when downloading

Feb 17, 2023
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I’ve been trying to fix this for ages but can never find an actual solution. Whenever I try to download something, mainly through steam but it also happens in most other places, my computer will lag and stutter horribly. I will be barely able to drag my mouse around as the computer freezes and unfreezes and any audio coming through will be distorted like crazy. This is along with things like the program that controls my keyboard lighting making it turn from off to on constantly. This issue is mainly through Ethernet as if I unplug the Ethernet cord and use WiFi the computer will not stutter or stutter at a much smaller rate. Any ideas what might be causing this issue?
 
Solution
I FOUND THE ISSUE

I was messing with network adapter settings to see if disabling any properties would fix the lag and when I tried disabling "cFosSpeed for faster internet connection (NDIS 6)" which I guess was something I had installed that was affecting my network adapters the lag went away completely and I got much better download speeds.
Feb 17, 2023
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I expect better performance on nvme, forget the external drive. How large is the ssd and how full is it?

List entire pc specs.
Drive is a tb and has around 10 gbs left

my specs

Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i7 9700K @ 3.60GHz 35 °C
Coffee Lake 14nm Technology
RAM
16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR4 @ 1612MHz (16-18-18-36)
Motherboard
Micro-Star International Co. Ltd. MPG Z390 GAMING EDGE AC (MS-7B17) (U3E1) 34 °C
Graphics
KG251Q (1920x1080@240Hz)
4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (EVGA) 40 °C
Storage
931GB Western Digital WDS100T3X0C-00SJG0 (Unknown (SSD))
931GB Samsung Portable SSD T1 SCSI Disk Device (USB (SATA) (SSD)) 32 °C
 
Feb 17, 2023
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There should be a percentage of free space for ssds to perform well, like 15~20%. I don't know the exact number but don't think 10GB is enough. Try clean up a little, aim for at least 20GB free.
I will delete some stuff and see if it helps but I'm pretty sure I've had the same issue even with more space remaining
 

boju

Titan
Ambassador
Perhaps there's nothing you can do really. Since system ram is used as well, just going to have to download and play games at separate times.

 
Feb 17, 2023
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Perhaps there's nothing you can do really. Since system ram is used as well, just going to have to download and play games at separate times.

Yeah, the only issue is my whole computer lags whether I'm playing a game or not and it's just super inconvenient. I freed up around 135 gb worth of space and still having the same issue. thank you for the suggestions though!
 
Feb 17, 2023
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Ok what about any antivirus software, see if it scanning while downloading has anything to do with it.
The only antivirus I use is the built-in windows one would that cause any issues? It says the last scan was done yesterday when I checked the settings panel and turning off real-time protection didn't help so I'm not sure which settings I would change.
 
I’ve been trying to fix this for ages but can never find an actual solution. Whenever I try to download something, mainly through steam but it also happens in most other places, my computer will lag and stutter horribly. I will be barely able to drag my mouse around as the computer freezes and unfreezes and any audio coming through will be distorted like crazy. This is along with things like the program that controls my keyboard lighting making it turn from off to on constantly. This issue is mainly through Ethernet as if I unplug the Ethernet cord and use WiFi the computer will not stutter or stutter at a much smaller rate. Any ideas what might be causing this issue?
Run this and see if the speeds are close to what you are paying for.

 
Feb 17, 2023
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Run this and see if the speeds are close to what you are paying for.

This is where it gets weird, on ethernet I usually get much better download speeds on things like steam but the speed test will show lower results than on wifi. I think the reason for this is that when I start the speed test my entire computer lags and freezes up, this also happens with other web content like certain heavier video players. Using wifi I get a similar speed to what I would get on my phone.
 
Feb 17, 2023
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This is where it gets weird, on ethernet I usually get much better download speeds on things like steam but the speed test will show lower results than on wifi. I think the reason for this is that when I start the speed test my entire computer lags and freezes up, this also happens with other web content like certain heavier video players. Using wifi I get a similar speed to what I would get on my phone.
in addition to this, the speed test does not lag the computer at all basically with wifi so the issue is mainly with ethernet although I still get some slight lags here and there with wifi but nowhere near as bad as when the computer is plugged into ethernet
 
Feb 17, 2023
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Try Latencymon as well. There's a few videos on YouTube, I'll let you pick showing what to do.
Here are the results from latencymon, seems like it might be a power management issue? I'll see if I can change some of those settings but if you know what specifically to change that would be helpful I'll check in after I wake up to see.
Msk5buB.png
 
Feb 17, 2023
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Here are the results from latencymon, seems like it might be a power management issue? I'll see if I can change some of those settings but if you know what specifically to change that would be helpful I'll check in tmw to see.
Msk5buB.png
got these results after I started downloading something to test they showed everything fine before hand
 
Feb 17, 2023
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Can you list your PC specs please.

Bios updates, through to driver reinstalls then maybe Windows reset or use CCleaner might be next steps. Check cpu temps as well.
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i7 9700K @ 3.60GHz 35 °C
Coffee Lake 14nm Technology
RAM
16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR4 @ 1612MHz (16-18-18-36)
Motherboard
Micro-Star International Co. Ltd. MPG Z390 GAMING EDGE AC (MS-7B17) (U3E1) 34 °C
Graphics
KG251Q (1920x1080@240Hz)
4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (EVGA) 40 °C
Storage
931GB Western Digital WDS100T3X0C-00SJG0 (Unknown (SSD))
931GB Samsung Portable SSD T1 SCSI Disk Device (USB (SATA) (SSD)) 32 °C

My temps all seem fine but I can double check
 
edit: I looked here:
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MPG-Z390-GAMING-EDGE-AC/support#utility
in addition to the bios and driver updates there is a LED firmware update also., bios updates include various USB and sleep function fixes.

if you have thunderbolt, I guess it would be addressed in the intel chipset driver update. the realtek audio driver does not have the date listed, just the version number.
Looks like thunderbolt is a addon card for this motherboard. Not sure where you would get firmware updates for the card.
------------
I assume tb refers to thunderbolt? if so, look for updated firmware and drivers for your thunderbolt hardare. I would think all of the usb subsystem is emulated via the thunderbolt hardware and running usb communication will force windows to log a one line entry into the internal UBS log. With RBG software running you will get a one line entry with each color change of the LED lights.
This logging can generated hundreds of thousands of log entries per second and cause the system to really lag. (it will not fail until it lags 501 seconds)

anyway, try to update the thunderbolt firmware and drivers, then try and disable your RGB software. I would also go into control panel device manager and disable any sound source that does not have a speaker connected to it.
If you have a realtek sound chip on your motherboard, update the driver to a version that is newer than 2020. Old versions (bug) would respond to sound DMA channels that were intended for other sound devices. This corrupts the sound on other devices.

some AIO coolers generate a lot of USB log files. Some USB network adapters can be effected (this includes bluetooth wireless devices).

anyway, try some of the above to see if it helps. If you still have issues i can tell you what/how to debug what the problem is.
NOTE: with these types of problems you have to update the BIOS and the various firmware updates as well as the drivers together.
(otherwise you can introduce more problems with mis matched driver/firmware/bios versions.)

To look at the internal logs, you have to create a kernel dump of the system and use a windows debugger to look at them. (if they are the correct format, then often you will see the errors in the log entries. Either thousands of error messages or thousands of useless log entries changing the LED color from color 31304 to 31305. (or something just as useless)

I think microsoft windows is thinking of banning these apps and creating their own service to prevent this type of problem. The app would have to be redesigned to use the microsoft service.

something is wrong with your NDIS subsystem
you would update, the bios, the network drivers, the bluetooth drivers and any wifi network driver. Reboot into BIOS then change any setting and change it back. Save the configuration and reboot back into windows.
If you still have the problem, you would have to google
how to force a memory dump using the keyboard. Make the registry changes, then change the memory dump type to kernel
memory dump. Reboot and when the system starts to fail, use the keyboard short cut to force a memory dump. Then put the kernel memory dump on a server, share it for public access and post a link. I can take a look in the debugger and see why the queue is so big.
I think the debug command !dpcwatchdog might show the info.
note: if you have nvidia share or shadow play running try disabling it.
 
Last edited:
Feb 17, 2023
15
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20
I FOUND THE ISSUE

I was messing with network adapter settings to see if disabling any properties would fix the lag and when I tried disabling "cFosSpeed for faster internet connection (NDIS 6)" which I guess was something I had installed that was affecting my network adapters the lag went away completely and I got much better download speeds.
 
Solution

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