[SOLVED] Custom built PC - experiences severe lags

[leischen]

Hello

About 1,5 years ago I built a new gaming PC for a friend. Since about half a year he experiences major lags while playing several games. Lags so severe, that gaming became almost impossible.

First I did a new clean install of Windows 10. Didn't fix the problem...
Then I switched my graphics card with his (we have the same one, GTX1080Ti) because I was thinking, that maybe the card has faulty memory or something. Nevermind, the lags are still there.

Due to the fact I had some problems with RAM before, I checked his with MemTest86+. All tests came out as OK. But I wanted to be sure and so I took out all of the modules and plugged them in seperately and in different slots. Seems like they are all working normally, because the lags are still apperaing with every module.

After this, I was almost running out of ideas... when I noticed spikes of CPU-Load in the Task Manager when the lags were happening, I decided to returned his CPU to the vendor. Then got a brand new one two weeks later. Tested....lags are still there.
(In the meantime, while we were waiting for the CPU to arrive, I had a different gaming PC at his place to use. Worked like a charm. just to exclude a bad internet connection)

Now I'm really out of ideas what to test next. My next attempt would involve a mainboard replacement, cuz maybe there is something wrong with the bus or chipset or whatever...

I really hope, that there's someone here to help me

Thanks in advance!


The build:

• ASUS ROG STRIX Z370-F (LGA 1151)
• Intel Core i7-8700
• G.Skill Trident Z RGB (4x, 8GB, DDR4-3200, DIMM 288)
• ASUS STRIX GTX1080 Ti 11GB
• SSD Samsung 970 PRO, 512GB, M.2 2280 (OS is installed here)
• SSD Samsung 860 EVO, 2TB
• HD Seagate BarraCuda Pro 4TB

 

[haza12d]

Has he tried updating to the latest BIOS for that board?

 

[leischen]

Has he tried updating to the latest BIOS for that board?

jup, I did that right after I installed the new CPU.
BIOS is up2date

 

[haza12d]

Try using a different m.2 slot and use that by itself by disconnecting the other drives.

 

[leischen]

Try using a different m.2 slot and use that by itself by disconnecting the other drives.

So now we tested that, without any change. Next attempt was disconnecting the M.2 and HDD and installed Windows on the normal SSD (was thinking about a faulty m.2).
Here aswell: no changes, lags ar still there.

I'm going to send in the mainboard now (on warranty). This is my last hope, because now I've changed all components of the configuration....

thanks anyway!

 

[ikea123]

Do you have a second computer where you can check the parts? Just to make sure that there is no HW issue.
Are the problems also appearing when the computer is disconnected from the network?

 

[leischen]

We've tried it all.

To this point, I switched out his complete tower. The only things untouched are his monitor, keyboard and mouse. Again, clean Windows installation and just the bare minimum of software installed like Steam or Uplay including the games. No antivirus nor other tools/software.

And the lags still appear. (see video below)

We tried to change some Windows10 settings (i.e. power management, gamemode etc) but still nothing changed.
We even tried to play at a much lower resolution, because we thought that maybe the GPU just isn't fit for the task. We still got the lags, but they got a little shorter. FPS were around 150-170fps. But I would definitely not call it "playable".

Anyway....I have no more ideas left and we would be really grateful for any clues

Thanks in advance

 

[leischen]

I just wanted to close this thread, because we found the problem causing the lags and the stutters.

The problem was the users windows background settings...
They were set to "Diashow" and somehow Windows sometimes was so busy with loading the new background image, that the whole system lagged.

We switched off the background diashow and all the lags disappeared. This has been tested for about 6 months now, without any reoccuring lags.

Thanks for all the inputs anyway.