- Jun 1, 2010
- 12
- 0
- 18,510
Hi everyone,
I've been trying to solve this issue for months now. At first I thought it was just a game that would stutter every now and then but after testing several theories, I've reached the theory that I my problem involves the moments when my OS (on an SSD) needs to access something on the HDD. Basically, every now and then my system will hang for a second or two. It works best after a fresh restart, but after only a couple days of usage/hibernating/sleeping the lag will become more noticeable. It seems to only involve programs and files installed on my HDD. It occurs whether I'm plugged in or using battery. It is also worth noting that it didn't used to be this bad. I don't remember noticing any stuttering when it was right out of the box. When the stuttering first emerged, some initial tweaks were able to make it less noticeable, but it was after a particular, recent Windows update when it really started to be a noticeable and annoying problem.
First, my computer specs. Brand new laptop only a few months old:
MSI GS60 Ghost-470
Windows 8.1 64-bit
Intel Core i7-4710HQ
12GB DDR3L
NVIDIA Geforce GTX 860M
1 TB 7200 RPM + 128 GB M.2 SATA SSD
My HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145881
Things I tried in order:
1. The game I was having issues with was installed on the HDD. I was also having stutter issues with Photoshop and MS Office, which were both also installed on the HDD. Moving these programs to the SSD eliminated the lag, as far as these programs go.
2. I've booted into safe mode as well as restarting with startup programs disabled and the stutter is still there when trying to access the HDD (after restarts, I test it by going to file explorer and double clicking the HDD. It'll hang for a second and spin up before showing the contents of the drive)
3. In Power Options, I set 'turn off hard disk after...' to never. So I believe this means the HDD should never go to sleep, thus never needing to be 'awaken' to perform a task.
4. I disabled Windows Update operating on its own. Now it doesn't search for or install anything without me telling it to.
5. It's not temperature related - temps look and feel great, and this is the coolest laptop I've owned
6. Tried contacting MSI for help but they never responded. I downloaded a diagnostic tool (WinDFT) from the manufacturer and it found no errors. I tried using quietHDD and it didn't make a difference. I ran chkdsk at boot and it found no errors. Ran disk defrag even though there was pretty much zero fragmentation. Error checking scan in properties found no errors.
7. Looking at Resource Monitor I saw what happened during the stutters: the disk usage graph would spike at each stutter and in the file list, it showed what file or program was involved in that particular stutter. Firing up Chrome (installed on HDD), firing up Firefox (HDD) would trigger a stutter. But what was triggering stutters every now and then would be when Windows accessed the pagefile on the HDD. I can understand a program causing HDD activity when it first boots up, but the pagefile was pretty much exclusively causing the annoying, random stutters. So after learning this, I was able to make the lag a little more manageable by decreasing the size of the pagefile. I was able to eliminate the pagefile-associated stutter by either eliminating it entirely, or just moving it to the SSD. However, like the software from #1, moving things to the SSD only avoids the HDD problem, it doesn't really fix anything.
So at the moment my best guess is that there's some issue when the OS (installed on the SSD) accesses files on the HDD. Does anyone have a good understanding of the SSD/HDD relationship? Or does anyone have any other ideas or suggestions? Thank you for the help!
I've been trying to solve this issue for months now. At first I thought it was just a game that would stutter every now and then but after testing several theories, I've reached the theory that I my problem involves the moments when my OS (on an SSD) needs to access something on the HDD. Basically, every now and then my system will hang for a second or two. It works best after a fresh restart, but after only a couple days of usage/hibernating/sleeping the lag will become more noticeable. It seems to only involve programs and files installed on my HDD. It occurs whether I'm plugged in or using battery. It is also worth noting that it didn't used to be this bad. I don't remember noticing any stuttering when it was right out of the box. When the stuttering first emerged, some initial tweaks were able to make it less noticeable, but it was after a particular, recent Windows update when it really started to be a noticeable and annoying problem.
First, my computer specs. Brand new laptop only a few months old:
MSI GS60 Ghost-470
Windows 8.1 64-bit
Intel Core i7-4710HQ
12GB DDR3L
NVIDIA Geforce GTX 860M
1 TB 7200 RPM + 128 GB M.2 SATA SSD
My HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145881
Things I tried in order:
1. The game I was having issues with was installed on the HDD. I was also having stutter issues with Photoshop and MS Office, which were both also installed on the HDD. Moving these programs to the SSD eliminated the lag, as far as these programs go.
2. I've booted into safe mode as well as restarting with startup programs disabled and the stutter is still there when trying to access the HDD (after restarts, I test it by going to file explorer and double clicking the HDD. It'll hang for a second and spin up before showing the contents of the drive)
3. In Power Options, I set 'turn off hard disk after...' to never. So I believe this means the HDD should never go to sleep, thus never needing to be 'awaken' to perform a task.
4. I disabled Windows Update operating on its own. Now it doesn't search for or install anything without me telling it to.
5. It's not temperature related - temps look and feel great, and this is the coolest laptop I've owned
6. Tried contacting MSI for help but they never responded. I downloaded a diagnostic tool (WinDFT) from the manufacturer and it found no errors. I tried using quietHDD and it didn't make a difference. I ran chkdsk at boot and it found no errors. Ran disk defrag even though there was pretty much zero fragmentation. Error checking scan in properties found no errors.
7. Looking at Resource Monitor I saw what happened during the stutters: the disk usage graph would spike at each stutter and in the file list, it showed what file or program was involved in that particular stutter. Firing up Chrome (installed on HDD), firing up Firefox (HDD) would trigger a stutter. But what was triggering stutters every now and then would be when Windows accessed the pagefile on the HDD. I can understand a program causing HDD activity when it first boots up, but the pagefile was pretty much exclusively causing the annoying, random stutters. So after learning this, I was able to make the lag a little more manageable by decreasing the size of the pagefile. I was able to eliminate the pagefile-associated stutter by either eliminating it entirely, or just moving it to the SSD. However, like the software from #1, moving things to the SSD only avoids the HDD problem, it doesn't really fix anything.
So at the moment my best guess is that there's some issue when the OS (installed on the SSD) accesses files on the HDD. Does anyone have a good understanding of the SSD/HDD relationship? Or does anyone have any other ideas or suggestions? Thank you for the help!
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