Question Games stuttering after reset

[Asper2988]

Dear Tom's hardware forum,

My computer, ever since I did two clean resets, has been having FPS drops in games running on Steam.

When I run a game and simply be either in the main menu or actively playing, it has FPS drops in consistent intervals. This never happened before I reset my pc.

So, I tried these things out so far while running a game: Internet connection, to see if the task manager would spot any spikes or lows that could cause FPS drops however, I couldn't find a connection there. Strangely my steam downloads became faster after un- plugging my Wi-Fi range extender. Nvidia drivers, I updated them and did a clean rollback to older drivers, which didn't change anything either.
So, I contacted a game support, and they suggested doing a selective start-up, deactivating start-up items and services that aren't from Windows which would be Nvidia, Steam and Realtek. That did resolve the FPS drops at first which made me believe it must be Nvidia, however after restarting a game or restarting the pc the drops would appear again.

I tried some smaller things like settings or reinstalling or even another complete Windows reset like mentioned earlier, which also proved to not change anything at all. So, I monitored the CPU and GPU with afterburner to see if it was throttling but the temperature remained well below 70C, at around 55C.
I ran a program, Userbenchmark, to see if anything was underperforming but there didn't appear anything unusual. Userbenchmark showed me that Windows had my rolled back drivers automatically updated which I reverted again, but it didn't change anything either. I noticed even during the little aim game that it lets me play a frame drop.

Every time it had an FPS drop-in game, I would also notice it in Discord while typing in the chat box. Then I deactivated GameBarPresenceWriter.exe which also resolved the FPS drops at first, only to return after restarting the game or PC. Now here I am with sadly no progress towards a fix. I am thankful for any support or clue given.

Here is also the benchmark: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/55580481

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Userbenchmark doesn't state the make and model of your PSU, nor it's age. Please list them for granting us a bigger picture to the issue. You have BIOS updates pending, to add, since you performed resets to the OS twice, why didn't you simply reinstall your OS after recreating the bootable USB installer using Windows Media Creation Tools?

 

[Asper2988]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Userbenchmark doesn't state the make and model of your PSU, nor it's age. Please list them for granting us a bigger picture to the issue. You have BIOS updates pending, to add, since you performed resets to the OS twice, why didn't you simply reinstall your OS after recreating the bootable USB installer using Windows Media Creation Tools?

Hi, after taking a look at the PSU I can see that it is a Bequiet! l11-cm-600w that is no more than 2 years old. As for creating a bootable image on a USB, unfortunately I didn't have any flash drives on hand at the time. I just finished updating the BIOS and Chipset, so I'll get back to you with the results.

 

[Asper2988]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Userbenchmark doesn't state the make and model of your PSU, nor it's age. Please list them for granting us a bigger picture to the issue. You have BIOS updates pending, to add, since you performed resets to the OS twice, why didn't you simply reinstall your OS after recreating the bootable USB installer using Windows Media Creation Tools?

So after updating the BIOS and Chipset and doing some thorough testing, nothing changed, and the stuttering is unfortunately still there.

 

[Bob.B]

So after updating the BIOS and Chipset and doing some thorough testing, nothing changed, and the stuttering is unfortunately still there.

Look into updating your gpu driver you seem to be running an old version.

When you run UBM run it like this.

Reboot.
Wait a few mins.
Run UBM with the browser closed.
Post a link to the results.

 

[Asper2988]

Look into updating your gpu driver you seem to be running an old version.

When you run UBM run it like this.

Reboot.
Wait a few mins.
Run UBM with the browser closed.
Post a link to the results.

I actually updated the drivers a while ago but didn't run a benchmark afterwards since the stuttering was still there. But here's the new one https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/55707636

 

[Vic 40]

I just finished updating the BIOS and Chipset, so I'll get back to you with the results.

You didn't update the bios,

BIOS Date

20190918

 

[Asper2988]

You didn't update the bios,

BIOS Date

20190918

That's strange, it should've been updated. I'll try updating it again then and test it out.

 

[Vic 40]

Just Google MSI+update bios, can also look at this vid for MSI+USB Bios Flashback.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTkXunUAriE


usually is the usb port right next to the bios flashback button the one to use, but make sure and read the manual,

https://download.msi.com/archive/mnu_exe/mb/E7B86v4.0.pdf

don't forget to rename the bios as per instruction.

 

[Asper2988]

Just Google MSI+update bios, can also look at this vid for MSI+USB Bios Flashback.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTkXunUAriE


usually is the usb port right next to the bios flashback button the one to use, but make sure and read the manual,

https://download.msi.com/archive/mnu_exe/mb/E7B86v4.0.pdf

don't forget to rename the bios as per instruction.

I just updated the bios and had a bit of a scare with a BSOD, though it turned out that windows was trying to boot into the wrong drive. I also ran a SFC scan afterwards that detected two corrupted files. But here's the updated benchmark https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/55710005

 

[Bob.B]

I just updated the bios and had a bit of a scare with a BSOD, though it turned out that windows was trying to boot into the wrong drive. I also ran a SFC scan afterwards that detected two corrupted files. But here's the updated benchmark https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/55710005

The next piece to work on is startup stuff.

Using 5GB of ram at startup says your loading a lot of stuff.

Make your startup group skinny.

 

[Vic 40]

Since you really didn't update the bios .. did you really update the chipset drivers?
https://www.amd.com/en/support/chipsets/amd-socket-am4/b450

 

[Asper2988]

Since you really didn't update the bios .. did you really update the chipset drivers?
https://www.amd.com/en/support/chipsets/amd-socket-am4/b450

The next piece to work on is startup stuff.

Using 5GB of ram at startup says your loading a lot of stuff.

Make your startup group skinny.

I culled the start-up programs, and updated the drivers again, so we'll see if it has any effect.

 

[Vic 40]

Okay let us know.

 

[Asper2988]

Okay let us know.

Unfortunately, the stuttering is still there.

 

[Vic 40]

Can look at these options,

Windows system file repair options,

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...l-to-repair-missing-or-corrupted-system-files

maybe they can help, if not might a true reinstall maybe the way to go which i understand noone is truly waiting for.

 

[Asper2988]

Can look at these options,

Windows system file repair options,

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...l-to-repair-missing-or-corrupted-system-files

maybe they can help, if not might a true reinstall maybe the way to go which i understand noone is truly waiting for.

So, I'm back from trying a couple of things, firstly I didn't completely format my PC but tried updating to W11 to see if that would change anything. Somehow this actually helped mitigate the issue somewhat as the stutters aren't as bad as they were before, though they're still present, now it's only a 2-5 fps drop compared to the 20-30 it was before. Secondly, I tried following this guide to see if that would change anything, unfortunately the stuttering is still present.
As a TLDW for the video basically it just makes you install:
LatencyMon
Quick CPU
Large page

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=263&v=NgqG20z7cRo&feature=emb_logo

 

[Vic 40]

As a TLDW for the video basically it just makes you install:
LatencyMon
Quick CPU
Large page

What ... no "Throttlestop"?

Can look at these options,

Windows system file repair options,

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...l-to-repair-missing-or-corrupted-system-files

These steps might still work as well.

 

[Asper2988]

What ... no "Throttlestop"?





These steps might still work as well.

Doesn't seem like Throttlestop supports my CPU sadly, but to my knowledge my CPU isn't throttling either.

 

[Vic 40]

I'm sorry, with all the tools you needed to install according to that vid i got abit sarcastic.

 

[Asper2988]

I tried to capture some game footage with afterburner to hopefully shed some light on the issue. The stutters are kinda hard to see, but they're there no matter if the frame rate is capped at 60 or 120.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRBkYfD8ST4